• Footpath Labs, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, is working on a high-tech neighbourhood along the waterfront in Toronto.
• With a $US900 million investment from Alphabet, the neighbourhood is intended to be affordable and environmentally friendly, with nearly half of the housing units priced below market rate.
• Footpath labs enlisted an architecture firm that specialises in tall timber buildings as a key part of the neighbourhood’s design.
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Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has plans for a high-tech, affordable, and environmentally-friendly neighbourhood along Toronto’s waterfront. To achieve this goal, the Footpath Labs arm of Alphabet is betting on wooden skyscrapers.

Alphabet is investing $US900 million into this development, and it has big plans. In June 2019, after nearly two years of brainstorming, Footpath Labs released a 1,500 page master plan describing not only a 12-acre waterfront neighbourhood, Quayside, but also a 350-acre district made up of many high-tech neighbourhoods. Quayside will be first, and serve as a test site for technology like trash-carry robots and what it calls a “people-first street network,” among other plans.

Towards this goal, Footpath Labs and Michael Green Architecture announced a plan to “design the world’s first all-timber high-rise neighbourhood.” The neighbourhood will use “mass timber,” a building material made of wood compressed in a factory that is consider fire-resistant, Cara Eckholm of Footpath Labs described in a blog post.

Building with timber is clearly not a new idea, but this project proposes buildings nearly twice as high as any previous timber structures, Curbed pointed out. Two 18-story mass timber structures were just built in Oslo and Vancouver, although the tallest timber building in Vancouver actually has a steel and concrete core. Constructing large buildings out of timber still has significant challenges.

Footpath Labs’ website breaks down its plans into five different “innovations,” including mobility and digital innovation, and each has an accompanying vision. The vision for housing and buildings is described as “Sustainable buildings that can be constructed and adapted far more quickly, and a new set of financial and design tools that help improve affordability and expand options for all households,” all of which will apparently be achieved through mass timber.

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To explore the design potential of timber, Footpath Labs worked with engineers, architects, and environmental designers to create a digital proto-model.

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Footpath Labs says that mass timber is “easier to manufacture and better for the environment than concrete or steel, yet just as strong and fire-resistant.”

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Construction with a timber exoskeleton will also leave more available floor space, according to Footpath Labs’ models.

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The website says that mass timber could decrease construction times by as much as 35%, with separate parts of builds mass-produced in factories and able to be fit together.

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Designers came up with several potential designs for the exterior of the timber buildings.

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A variety of designs are possible, and designers attempted to show that prefab buildings aren’t limited to postwar designs and a cookie-cutter look.

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The standardised elements of prefab buildings will not only make them faster to build, but also cheaper. Mass-produced, interlocking parts are part of Footpath Lab’s plan to meet 40% affordable housing units.

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Eckholm at Footpath Labs compared the idea to Lego, where designers work with a pre-existing number of bricks that must click together, and too many unique pieces dramatically increases costs. Standardised pieces could also make renovations faster and cheaper.

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Selling the project to the local community, Footpath Labs claims it will unlock a new mass-timber industry in Toronto, creating 2,500 jobs over 20 years.

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Renderings of the timber buildings show plans for mixed-use buildings with office space, residential space, and shops.

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Footpaths labs emphasises a “15 minute city,” where all of a person’s needs are within a 15-minute walk. Standardised designs will also allow buildings to transition between commercial and residential as needed.

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This rendering gives an idea of what the final product might look like, with a combination of residential and office spaces.

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