About Our Home
Overarching Objectives
The purpose of this building project is to provide the best living environment for future members of Limestone City Cooperative Housing (LCCH). This model aims to address the need for at cost attainable co-operative housing in the City of Kingston while reflecting the basic philosophical principles and community values related to community-building through a common cause and biophilic principles. The project also aims to promote human flourishing offering practical solutions to engagement with the greater community. The architectural design is meant to be inviting, safe and encouraging of social interaction. It must manifest a new paradigm centered around common cause, agricultural near self-sufficiency, and sustainability. The building will be conducive to members’ well-being, embrace diversity, and promote social cohesion. It will also engage with nature and reflect an unfinished narrative of the community with a sense of place that makes people look twice, what to be there, feel safe and call it our home.
Architectural Vision
We have a vision for a lasting and sustainable structure, marked by permanence and a comprehensive understanding of its life cycle. Practically, we have a design goal for a building with a life expectancy of 200 years. Additionally we have asked that consideration be given to resiliency given increased likelihood and frequency of worsening adverse weather events.
Given that some abstract shapes and colours can communicate certain ideas, feelings, sentiments, and emotions, a key aspect of the building’s design is its attractiveness. We asked for a design that captivates attention, generates a desire to be present, and fosters a sense of home. The building aims to embody qualities such as reassurance, safety, inspiration, and fun. Importantly, it is designed to encourage the “ballet of the good city sidewalk,” promoting a sense of safety and sociability along its public edges. Elements like benches and trellises, especially behind bus stops, contribute to creating a welcoming environment for meaningful connection.
The building is strategically planned to have numerous eyes on the street for safety and ample opportunities for observing people in public spaces, promoting safety, sociability, and sustaining interest. The proposed building represents a paradigm shift, valuing community, agricultural self-sufficiency, local resiliency, and human flourishing as selected design elements more conducive to a meaningful life. It seeks to offer an attainable ideal that enhances the good life through common causes, increased food security, internal safety nets for job loss, and reduced living costs.
We have asked our architects to emphasis liveable qualities such as planning for low utility costs to reduce the cost of living through proper upfront design.
Biophilic design is another core principle, emphasizing human interaction with nature. The building is envisioned as a narrative-rich space, reflecting an unfinished story with a strong sense of place. It speaks to the future with ideals of closeness to nature, climate adaptation, food security and sovereignty, serving as a reminder of worthwhile aspirations such as near self-sufficiency in food production, contact with nature, life in community, and a low carbon footprint.
Community Features
The design incorporates a common access green courtyard, providing a shared space for community activities. Accessible public areas are designed to foster community engagement, with designated roles such as a greeter/watcher/helper serving as a point of contact for the small urban space. The building includes semi-underground parking, a courtyard with internal-facing verandas, and central heating and cooling systems for economic efficiency but metered independently for pricing fair resource use.
Agricultural Features
Agricultural features are integrated into the building’s design, emphasizing sustainability and self-sufficiency. This includes a vertical farm that is labor-intensive yet user-friendly, with the potential for full-cycle self-sufficiency through the harvesting of produce. Green roofs for traditional community gardens and farming, rooftop greenhouses for urban farming, green trellises, and rainwater collection further contribute to the building’s agricultural and environmental sustainability goals.
Architectural Features
Our design will incorporate major features such as maximizing space usage, green courtyards, accessible community spaces, and a vertical farm, among others. Each feature will contribute to the building’s overall appeal and functionality, ensuring the fulfillment of our vision.
Shared Car Program
To further enhance sustainability, a shared car program will be integrated into the cooperative housing complex. This initiative reduces individual car ownership, promotes carpooling, and minimizes the carbon footprint of residents. We plan to make them Electrical Vehicles (EV) and have their batteries store energy for emergency use (for example, in the event of a power failure the vertical farm will have several hours of continuous production). Additionally, we are evaluating the possibility of powering this car-share program with solar panels.
Sustainability Features
Cross Laminated Timbers (CLT) for structural members is a sustainable alternative to concrete or steel. CLT is renewable, has a lower carbon footprint, and allows for efficient construction, reducing environmental impact.
Waste heat sharing is a design element that comes from designing the housing and vertical farm together symbiotically from the beginning. The waste heat generated by the REVI indoor farm can be efficiently shared with the residential areas of the building. This not only reduces energy wastage but also contributes to the overall sustainability of the project by maximizing resource use.
Housing Design Features
LCCH has proposed a new paradigm reflecting the values of community, indoor farming, food security, and common causes for human flourishing. It integrates attainable housing with a community accessible green courtyard, retail spaces, and physical workspaces that help reduce car dependency for social interactions, food essentials and commuting.
The building design incorporates Jane Jacobs’ philosophy of the “ballet of the good city sidewalk” along the building’s edges and through the accessible green courtyard, with benches, trellises, and facilitation from building edges to the street thoughtfully integrated with greenery and landscaping to enhance safety, interest, and sociability. The building includes two levels of underground parking, a rooftop greenhouse atrium and planter boxes on every floor.
The roof top atrium and outdoor gardens offers amenities for social and culturally supportive gatherings (ceremonies, smudging, planting of culturally significant herbs and flowers etc.).
The LCCH design satisfies the human need for connection with nature. Using natural elements, such as wood, stone, and earth tones, to create a tranquil, Co-operative, harmonious atmosphere for a strong sense of place.
The overall LCCH project fosters a sense of belonging through communal spaces and shared experiences, eliminating loneliness by promoting trust, connections and common causes. Our plan provides for residents with mobility issues to fully engage with their surroundings and community.LCCH understands the importance of creating an environment where residents truly feel at home.
Parking and Transportation
Renewable Electricity and Storage
Kingston is considering community-driven renewable energy initiatives for the long term, including exploring opportunities for solar energy Co-operatives to enhance local energy resilience and sustainability. with dynamic grid management.1,4 LCCH is evaluating the possibility an optional solar energy installation area on the step-back roof sections of the indoor farm. These solar panels could be integrated with the EV vehicle charging stations. These electric car batteries could also provide a backup energy source for the indoor farm during power outages, grid overload situations or as storage points for excess solar power during times of peak production as envisioned within Kingston’s dynamic grid management vision.
Commercial Integration
The design has a combination of residential and commercial uses that integrates goods and services that co-op members and surrounding community would frequent in a walkable lifestyle on a regular basis. Partially below grade retail parking shared with the buildings fleet of EV vehicles and member parking is also available.
Carbon Reduction and Sustainability
LCCH’s design responds to the available incentives for the construction of efficient, sustainable buildings aiming for Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions, offering benefits like lower energy expenses, improved environmental impact, healthier indoor air quality, reduced maintenance costs, and increased durability
The Masterplan Framework
The project’s vision and goals for community integration, and sustainability are being refined. The process of obtaining approvals from Kingston City Council and the collaboration between the design team, LCCH and the City continues.The initial allocation of residential and commercial space considering factors such as unit size, amenities, and housing type have been proposed in this document.
Energy Transition
By 2040, Kingston’s buildings will need to rely on low carbon sources of energy for heating and industrial processes.1 The integrated indoor farm design represents a step-change in energy efficiency for buildings as the complementary heating, cooling, and rainwater collection systems will contribute to the LCCH building being environmentally and economically sustainability as well
Mass and Cross Laminated Timbers (CLT)
The building is constructed of mass timber and cross-laminated timber (CLT) which embody captured carbon from the air, reducing the project’s carbon footprint substantially when compared to concrete buildings. These mass timber structural members are a sustainable alternative to concrete or steel. CLT is renewable, modular, and allows for efficient construction. Efficient buildings are more adaptable to rapid changes in temperature and extreme heat.
Energy Efficiency
The LCCH design incorporates energy efficient insulation, windows, appliances and equipment standards.
Architectural Design Commentary
The presented design harmonizes with the massing of its current (and future) surroundings and aligns with understood land use compatibility policies. The building was designed for a balanced urban environment, considering factors such as shadowing, privacy preservation, pollution levels, wind impacts, traffic effects, environmental concerns, infrastructure capacity, property enjoyment, streetscape aesthetics, reservation, architectural harmony, and view preservation. Some factors are subjective in nature and the presented design may not be the final iteration.
The design team chose to utilize step-backs to reduce the visual impact of height and mass for pedestrians and observers. This design element improves the human scale, preserves sunlight and sky views, widens public vistas, enhancing compatibility with adjacent structures, and supports design objectives such as improved building envelope performance.
The presented design incorporates comfortable setbacks from the adjacent streets with opportunities for street activation and pedestrian comfort amenities such as trees and outdoor seating aiming to create vibrant and walkable streets.3 The design of the ground floor “street wall” is considered crucial for the pedestrian experience, and visual interest of the building at eye-level.
The unique pathway through the building complex recreates a legacy footpath and significantly influences both the actual and perceived safety of individuals crossing through this public space. The use of Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) concepts to promote successful street vitality is incorporated into the design.
Building entrances play a crucial role in the legibility of structures, ensuring that residents and visitors can easily locate pedestrian and parking entry points. The design gives special attention to pickup/drop-off zones and commercial delivery areas with drop lockers to facilitate seamless access to the building.
The building is capped with an atrium conservatory for a visually interesting and beautiful way to close the vertical lines from the mass timber supporting structure. Negative visual elements such as mechanical equipment will be appropriately hidden.
1 City of Kingston Climate Action Plan,
2 Mayor’s Task Force on Housing Final Report,
3 Density by Design: Kingston Mid-Rise and Tall Building Policy Issues and Options Report,
4 https://www.cityofkingston.ca/resident/climate-change/green-standard-community-improvement-plan