60 Richmond Housing Cooperative is the result of a collaboration between the local city councilor, Toronto Community Housing, and the hospitality workers’ union ‘UNITE HERE’. Many of its residents were relocated there when Regent Park underwent redevelopment for a social housing project and are also employed in the restaurant or hospitality industry. The program of the project reflects these occupations; under the residential units on the ground floor there are restaurants and a training kitchen that use the vegetables, fruit, and herbs grown on terrace gardens (which are also watered with collected storm-water) on upper floors. Then, in a full-cycle ecosystem (urban permaculture), the waste from the kitchens are then used as compost to fertilize the gardens.

The design stemmed from a solid cube mass eroded at various levels to create openings and terraces that serve as social garden spaces. The building wraps around its corner site condition with a perforated courtyard that reaches out to the street connecting the semi-public outdoor amenities to the completely public space of the city. The openings also work effectively as pores that allow daylight and fresh air to penetrate into the residential units and hallways, help cool and cleanse air, and limit the heat island effect in the urban core.