User:Somearchstudent/sandbox

Located between Sackville St., Sumach St. and the perpendicular Oak St. and Dundas St E with Regent Park in the center. Block-14 is a redeveloped plot within Regent Park that is the site for new community housing, office spaces, and an encompassing street life of the various cultures of the area. Designed by Thomson Architects, who operate out of Barrie ON, Canada. with the rights to the design being the reward for the winner of the architectural design competition. With Andy Thomson presenting to the jury, Thomson Architects won the rights to design Block-14. Conceptually, the project aimed to bring the wide range of Toronto lifestyles together in a single area creating a hub for downtown life in Toronto. Block 14’ uses simple tower & podium architecture to break the skyline and house a wide variety of peoples and city life necessities. After the development of Block-14 and the subsequent moving in of commercial and residential services, the project spurred the gentrification of one of Toronto’s least developed areas.

History
Block 14 was the first project in the $14billion dollar redevelopment initiative of Regent Park to break ground. Regent Park is a neighborhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario built in the late 1940s as a public housing project managed by Toronto Community Housing. The Toronto Community Housing committee also oversaw the management of the large-scale redevelopment that broke ground in 2005 with Block-14, Regent Park. Formerly the site of a ghetto and low-income social housing, the project as a whole had the goal of bringing the community together and becoming a mixing pot of culture and income from across the city. Block 14 contains various income-level townhouse units ranging from providing the essentials to more luxurious units, ensuring a wide range of housing opportunities. The rights to the design project were offered up as the reward of a design competition for the site, with Thomson Architects winning the rights to design Block-14.

Appearance
Block-14 is a simple skyscraper form that contains the living quarters for the structure. the mainly glass tower then sits on a podium mass which makes up the street activities and other amenities of the building.

Passive Design Strategies
The tower of Block-14 provides Senior housing and features a co-generation heating plant. Co-generation is also known as combined heat and power or recycled energy. Simply put, it is the production of multiple forms of energy at the same time from a single fuel source. The co-generation plant allows Block-14 to operate at 50 to 70 percent higher efficiency rates than most development projects in Toronto. In keeping with the theme of recycled energy Block-14 also features many aspects of green design and sustainable architecture, such as green roofs, rainwater collection, advanced heat recovery and heat exchange systems, and radiant floor heating. Thomson architects also designed a thermal envelope specifically for the reduction of loss in ambient heat. The design featured connection detailing at doors and glazing that optimally reduce leaks in the building envelope.