Building Blocks – the ABC's of Sustainable Design

The Challenge
The Archetype for the Living City was a national architectural design competition organized by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and the Design Exchange. The challenge was to design an environmentally sustainable and affordable model for mass-production housing that was equally feasible and desirable for today’s construction industry and homebuyer alike, and that represented a real environmental improvement on the status quo.

The Solution
Anne Stevens and her Building Blocks team partners (Terrell Wong of Stones Throw Design and Clelia Iori of Iori Architects) saw the competition as an opportunity to express their vision, hopes and desires for the houses of the future. BUILDING BLOCKS was their response to the project brief and was awarded 1st Prize.

BUILDING BLOCKS combines green strategies to maximize energy efficiency and minimize harvested materials with flexibility, barrier-free design, real homeowner choice and modular construction to create a viable, accessible, affordable, desirable and environmentally sustainable housing model:

• modular options – from A to Z – give the homebuyer real choices, more than finishes and fixtures
• everything the homebuyer wants in a house – without compromise
• sustainable design that is affordable and accessible
• a flexible and adaptable design that can grow and adapt as households change
• zero-lot line design suitable for semi-detached, detached, row house and stacked townhouse lots
• LEED-gold and Energystar for Homes environmental ratings ensure that it is built to a high standard of sustainabili