Our Urban Design Roundtables
Urban Design Roundtable Series Winter Cities: Planning & Design Embrace the magic of winter and discover the secrets to creating vibrant, functional, and beautiful winter cities. We will cover key principles and innovative strategies for making cities come alive during the colder months, learning from 3 other (colder) Canadian cities: Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton. Our expert […]
Our Webinars
Our Next Webinar What are we not getting in the way we design transit-oriented communities? Tuesday, April 23, 2024, 11 a.m. EST Join Naama Blonder for an informative webinar on the topic! The GO Expansion project is changing our region! Bramalea go Station today But unfortunately, we are using the same old ‘toolbox’ to design […]
OPPI Adaptation Transformation
Hey, are you attending the OPPI Conference in Ottawa? I look forward to showing you the city I love and fortunate to call ‘home’. You can catch me at room 211 on September 20, 2023 where I will present our Scaling Down Approach: A People-First Tall Neighbourhood Case Study Get the Deck!
A junction of freeways? A vibrant pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood
Regenerating a land surrounded by freeways to create a neighbourhood at human scale, for human speed Client: Private OwnerLocation: Toronto, ONScale: Master PlanSize: 50 acresProject Duration: 2022- Being smart involves turning great constraints into great opportunities, and that is what we do at Smart Density everyday. The way our cities have developed in the past […]
When street retail can’t work, bring back the Plaza
Introducing Car-free, Community-Oriented Commercial Spaces at the heart of Transit-Oriented Neighbourhoods. Client: Private OwnerLocation: Waterloo RegionScale: BlockSize: ~1.5 M SFTransit: 250m from a new LRT stopProject Duration: 2022- At Smart Density we tackle the dominant issue of housing affordability with the provably most sustainable strategy, that benefits everyone: creating well-designed, human scale, pedestrian-friendly, high-density developments […]
The New Neighbourhood Guidebook
As planners and designers, we are constantly involved in envisioning new neighborhoods. Being the good listeners that we are, ongoing conversations with our clients and the broader community are an important part of our process. All too often, we hear concerns about how we can plan or design a neighborhood that may take more than […]
Redefining Low-Density Living: A Non-Subdivision Alternative
A vibrant low-density community that offers a multitude of diverse urban living options, and the freedom to choose from them. “Smart” Density is all about optimizing how we develop valuable city land while fostering social and economic resilience within our communities. That is why we comprehensively analyze the unique characteristics of each parcel of land, […]
Urban Future
Hey, are you attending the Urban Future conference in Stuttgart, Germany? I look forward to showing you 3 case studies from Toronto, the city I love and fortunate to call ‘home’. You can catch me on June 21st at 2 p.m. at “Redevelopments: Get Inspired from top-of-the-class projects” Get my Deck! If we haven’t yet […]
Aurora Mews
Family-Focused Shared Space This project organizes 5 townhome blocks around 2 mews, a type of shared space that promotes a sense of community and a “people-first, car-second” approach to residential development. The mews provide access to both building entrances and garages in a compact layout while functioning as communal space. Location: Aurora, ON Scale: Townhouse […]
Observations from Warsaw
Observations from Warsaw Not a typical European city Warsaw is not a typical European city. The city was almost fully demolished in 1944 by the Germans to destroy the Polish national identity. The Poles put enormous effort into rebuilding their capital, but because of limited resources and a different vision of urban design, only the […]