How an all-women team reimagined condo design in Toronto

Studio is I put real estate's lifestyle-led workplace platform, shaped by almost six decades of experience creating exceptional places in Dublin. Bringing together thoughtfully designed workspaces, hospitality, inspired amenities, and a vibrant community. Studio supports better ways of working and helps businesses attract and retain top talent. Discover more at studiodublin.com Studio, where work comes to life. From the very beginning, it felt more like this was going to be a kind of community-led process, because we did cast a very wide net and listened to people who are often under-represented – how different does a residential project look if it's been created by a team consisting entirely of women. This is the Urbanist, Monica's programme all about the cities we live in, I'm your host Andrew Tuck. Today, we're joined by one of the women behind a newly constructed condo in Toronto to see how the all-woman team behind the building helped create a space that better reflects a community that uses it. We also hear from a Mumbai-based architect who believes in the power of storytelling infrastructure to help a city capitalise on its cultural history. That's all ahead, right here on the Urbanist with me, Andrew Tuck. We start stay in Toronto, a recently completed mid-rise condo called Rainer. It was developed and designed by an all-women team – a rarity in the industry. The group aim to better translate the needs of residents into the building, and the result is a family first space. One of the firms behind the project was BDP Quadrangle, the Toronto studio of global architecture design and urbanism firm BDP. And I'm joined now by a principal at BDP Quadrangle, Heather Rolliston. Heather, thank you so much for joining us. Now, let's start at the beginning with how this idea came about. It prompted the creation of an all-women team. Well, it was an interesting story. Client of mine, Urban Capital, Teyakuk, who works there, was reading an article in Toronto Life magazine, and the title of the article was Condo Kings. And it was about three or four men who had been building a lot of condos, transforming Toronto's skyline. And she thought to herself, "You know, I've been working in this industry for many years, and it's time for this conversation to change." So she and Sherry Larjani from Spotlight got together and brainstormed this idea of having a women-led team. So women developing it as many women consultants as we could get, which we did actually get every consultant to be a female, which was great. It was hard to get, you know, some of the engineers also tried to get as many women constructors on site as well. So that was the kind of impetus for the project. And so I was interviewed with other female architects and ended up winning the job, which I was thrilled about, of course. How nice. A kind of gentle light, too, fingers up to the world of May, a little bit. A meld-off-nated business in the city, and resetting the parameters, and then seeing what happens. The building is beautiful. It's a condo in Toronto. Just tell me the scale of the building and what you've built. Yeah. It's nine stories. I'm actually here right now doing the interview. And it's a kind of U-shaped courtyard building. It's a mid-rise. And it sort of gently terraces down towards the adjacent, low-rise, established neighborhood. So it's on a main street, the Queen's Way. It really feels like a neighborhood, a well-established neighborhood. There's a public school right to the west and a vibrant shopping street. And then ironically, this project actually replaced a gentleman's club. So that was also something that was like a great topic when we had groundbreakings and you know, other events on site. Heather, so fascinating that you have this team. Construction workers, engineers, all women working on this project. How did that change the decision process? What kinds of things did you implement? Because actually when you had a group of women speaking together, they said, hold on. This is the kind of thing that normally gets overloaded. Yeah. So from the very beginning, we actually were surprised by the amount of attention that this topic and this project got. So we were unprepared for that. And we were feeling the pressure actually from the very beginning. We did want to come at this condo from a different angle. But again, the kind of attention that the project got really forced us to think differently. And so a lot of that came from doing outreach and engagement because it was a condo with an amid rise condo with a very tight budget. We had to meet all the same parameters that any other condominium would with respect to efficiency, affordability, you know, sweet sizes that were great for everyone. But we were aiming higher than that on this project. And we started to have conversations with the community. Our client hosted a giant brainstorming session, which was great and just talking about the pain points that people experienced in condominiums and a lot of very detailed conversations started to be had. And so from the very beginning, it felt more like this was going to be a kind of community led process because we did cast a very wide net and listened to people who are often underrepresented, I think, when it comes to multi-unit residential housing. And just tell me who are the tenants because I know that happens there are 30, 40 young children who tend to be among the tenant makes. Yeah, there is a wide variety. There's a lot of families, a lot of teenagers. We also designed some intergenerational suites on the ground floor here, so there are people living here with their aging parents, with their kids in their late 20s, who you sometimes want to have an arm's length relationship with. There are single people with dogs. I mean, there's everyone here. There's a great sense of community. And really the amenities that we've designed here, I think, attract people that are like minded, it just feels like a very happy place, actually. I looked at the list of things that you had done. It's simple things. A stroller park. Now, you go into many nice condominiums, people have to drag the buggy up to their apartment, there's no other parker, or they're left in hallways and cause a rupture in between neighbors and suddenly there's a fight breaking out about why did you leave that there. But really simple things, you thought, okay, let's just sort that out from the beginning. Exactly. When we did ask about people's pain points, that was one of them that came up for sure. And I also think times are changing. For a long time, condominium lifestyle aimed to be like a kind of hotel lifestyle mimicking that. And now it's a different time. I mean, the idea of a great place to put your stroller that is in an underutilized place in the building, having a share library so that you can just sign out the kitchen aid mixer that you need a couple times a year or just at Christmas time to make cookies instead of having it take up a giant amount of space in your linear kitchen. All of these things were suggestions by people. Just planting the ground floor so that families, people could be working out in the gym and then overlooking where your child is playing safely. These are not difficult things to think about. But when someone suggests that you're like, yes, why isn't it like that? So kids, rather than having them be so well behaved and trying to adapt to the hotel lifestyle, here we have messy rooms, art rooms, music rooms, all of those places where you can offer like a slight escape from the place that you live. And how amazing if you're a woman, you happen to be at home, whether you're a single mother or a part of a family unit, you can think, I don't have to say my apartment with my kid or that until someone comes to relieve me and take over control of the child for a few hours, we can both go to the gym together. Life can continue. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And there's all these places in the courtyard to plug in so you can like charge your phone or you can be conducting meetings and then it's just a beautiful space. So it really is just about working from everywhere. Having things just thought out, you know, smartly beforehand, it's just about ease of lifestyle really. And intriguing thing that you're describing here is you've created a building where the end users are the key focus. Now that may sound to our listeners, of course, that's how you make a building, but normally when a building gets made, it's like, okay, there's an investor, there's a developer who wants to make sure they maximize their profit and things like, oh, let's have ample space for parking strollers or let's put aside additional space for kids to play while mum or dad goes to the gym. So those things often get value engineered out very quickly, even like the green space that's put aside the quality of that. Is this an example of When a woman is in charge of the process or the women are in charge of the process you're like hold on We don't need to do it in the same old way that everyone else does it. Yeah, I think it is a little bit of that It was taking more time in the design process Knowing that this was going to be more of a community building from the beginning so it's not you know a point tower Downtown it wasn't you know screaming for investors to be the buyers Yeah, we really wanted to you know make a mark with this project It was about designing from the inside out in a lot of ways which is Something that has I think fallen out of favor recently. It's you know the architecture lately has been more about Ego, you know what things look like from the outside what's gonna sell you know in different countries What looks good on paper? This was not that I'm also proud to say that I also think the building is Beautiful, you know, we didn't sacrifice any of the beauty in that process of designing from the inside out No, the building has these kind of wave balconies that go along the the front facade As you say the way it steps down of the bag the green space on the roof and some of the shots You have on your website when I looked earlier today surrounded by Automal leaves and this white building it wow it really stands out. Just tell me personally How did you you feel at the end of it? You know you'd been in the spotlight? You kind of challenge the industry and you'd done it and how did you feel at the end? Yeah, I think I'd gotten over the shock of Everyone being interested in an all-women development team Being something novel because of course It's hard to be objective about yourself like I've been in this industry you know ever since I graduated architecture school So I was baffled at the beginning to think that people were interested in it But then I started I think it was when the New York Times actually picked up Us as an interest and like okay, I think I now have to admit to myself that this is of interest to people so After I got over that and started to really lean into the process Hitting on the design took a while, you know It was a little bit of trial and error, but I'm immensely proud of the product in the end and I'm just really happy that it's kept up this momentum like it didn't flame out during the process and Talking to the people who live here. They're so happy and the woman who is the concierge who greets everyone She loves working here. She said everyone that comes in the building is just like wow So I hope that this happy community this tight community atmosphere Just keeps going and finally just Tommy, you know Heather because what an amazing achievement and it's great that all of you came together and Produced this building, but surely you don't want that to be the end of the journey I imagine you're thinking hold on this has to have an impact beyond here, please And I'm sure you don't want to be that the hot carrier as it were of emotions You want other people to get in there and say let's just change this game. Let's just change this game Exactly. Yeah, I think so I'm thankful that from the very beginning Taya and Sharia clients they said that they didn't see Raina as a one-off You know that there would be Raina - Raina 3 So that was always the plan, which I think is great and when I look back on my career I remember one article where the writer said that I was part of a tiny sorority of women who designed tall residential buildings and I I would really like that to be not part of a tiny sorority honestly So as much as I can contribute to that conversation and I think it's changing Women have been behind the scenes for quite some time. So it's great. Just hear more diverse voices Heather Olliston, thank you for joining me on the Urbanist The ways in which our cities embrace and promote their cultural history can have a direct impact on their economies But telling complex stories about what makes your metropolis special and Embedding that character in the built environment can be tough to execute and even tougher to coordinate My next guest, founding partner of Mumbai-based SJK Architects, Shimmel Javari Kadri has a solution Shimmel believes that using public experience, craft ecosystems, adaptive reuse and heritage led urban development Can keep cultural histories economically active She calls the process "story-telling infrastructure" and her firm's projects reflect this ethos I caught up with Shimmel recently and I began by asking her what this idea of storytelling infrastructure means to her I think fundamentally I see a city much as an organism and an organism that needs to Know itself its strengths just the way humans should This very important thing that you will know Harari and Sapin strokes about that Humans kind of became a dominant species because they have the power to Tell stories create myths. I feel like any city needs to first Understand What is the culture of that city? What are its strengths? What is the ethos and then find a way to Make those prominent and storytell about those and I think the most successful cities are able to do that Both through culture and place-making Once you get to know what makes your cities culture particular and special Once you've grasped that what's the benefits? What flows from that for you? I think what flows is an immense energy that allows a city to become a magnet When there's a strong story people are attracted to that city They want to be part of that story. They want to come to it. They want to participate in it I was in Copenhagen recently and you know the old stories of Copenhagen were around the mermaid etc and I never wanted to go But the current story of Copenhagen which is just about how there's no walls, no fences Space needs to be public and the way that they've gone about then creating public space That is accessible whether it's a mall or a you know hotel or a Government building Everything is public space and I think that's probably why Copenhagen is the most livable But also the most visible I mean it's such a joy to visit a city like that That has an identity and this is not related just to a cultural landmark It's actually Creating an ethos and then building around that ethos and that really attracts people I want to focus today of course on India but with example of Copenhagen Where does that flow from? Because it's interesting. Obviously, I have one most famous urbanist ever Yangale Who helped make the city pedestrian and open? Many decades ago. It's a social democratic political system There's an notion of Sharing of not trying to stand on the shoulders of others to get ahead For you is that the culture that they've embraced to find their identity or does it come from somewhere else? Yeah, totally. I think it's the culture they've embraced But then to make that culture physical reality The amazing interventions that you know both Jock and Jules big architects has brought in As well as many many other architects that have been kind of commissioned to Open up the waterfront edges to create these beautiful Cycling pathways even along Main arterial roads that climb up and down through new corporate buildings You know all of that I find there is Physical translation to the idea. They what they call the edge zone has been so well articulated That everything in the city feels accessible by all So let's take the story back to India your practice has created buildings and projects From the north to the south from the west to the east So when you first go to a city and you begin to think about inserting a project making a building a museum a hotel Is it important for you to know what the essence the story is of that city before you start putting pen to paper or or start making a computer model? Do you have to somehow Embrace take in the culture? You know that's one of the most exciting parts about a project where you Enter this City this town this area that may be on the margins of urban and rural it varies But you're going in there and you're trying to figure out what are actually the cultural stories that deeply resonates that people hold on to that people love Because there are many stories and many angles from which you can Approach culture in any urban space and I think for us in India particularly Because we build so much within very kind of historical realms Figuring out which is that cultural story that we want to do? tune in too. And the reason that we tune in or we're attempting to tune in with such enthusiasm is because we feel that human beings really want bridges to the past. Anything that really takes them out of their cultural realm seems to create a certain amount of alienation. So they'll enjoy the bridges, but they're very careful to make sure that it's only a bridge that we're still talking about a very contemporary idiom, contemporary technology in creating that bridge. So for instance, when we went to Tirupati, which is where a large number of people visit on a daily basis in order to get the blessings of Lord Balaji, it's one of the highest visited temples in the world and one of the wealthiest for sure, temples, I think we were really looking at this very highly ritualistic culture in the city. And we were looking at what is it about this temple, how do we reflect the Hinduism that is practiced in this area, but how do we reflect it in a very contemporary way and more than anything, how do we bring emotion into it such that people who come to visit this hotel actually feel that sense of divinity, that sense of peace that they are coming to a religious place for finding those cues and then bridging them and creating emotional cues is something that we consider extremely important. Now, not just in India, but in any place which is changing fast, building fast, putting up new buildings at a pace to keep abreast of economic change, of migration. The temptation is to fall back on structures which are a bit identicate whether you're building in Mumbai or in Delhi, in Kolkata, how much does that worry you, that in fact lots of people are not like yourself, are not thinking about how individual buildings fit in, not just with the streetscape but with this in almost invisible cultural streetscape, does it worry you that in other parts of India that people are having to build fast and not really thinking about those questions? Oh, it's tremendously worrying, especially in India right now because private enterprise is that it looks at its own private needs and therefore governance is important so that the private actually tunes into what is publicly needed and I think ensuring that there is public governance around retaining the old enhancing the old and building new in ways that complement the old is super important and the city you mentioned Delhi is actually a prime example of that because Delhi has seven old cities on which it has been established. There were seven different phases during which cities were established in Delhi and therefore it has tremendous old infrastructure and wonderfully a large part of that has been retained in old Delhi because it is the capital and kind of the showcase of India and all the kind of random, extremely capitalistic development is happening on the outskirts of Delhi creating this large national region but some of that is overbuilt, rather horrendous but it's on the margins and it's able to still retain the beauty of old Delhi but there are other cities which have not been retained kind of as showcases of the old heritage of the country and the old and the new are just intermingling very often the old is being broken down completely and sometimes even what is the definition of old is important Delhi has broken some beautiful pieces of modern architecture which we consider cultural history so knowing what is the right cultural history is also super important. Well I looked at your website and I would encourage my listeners to do the same in your of course SJ Architects. There are some amazing projects and one of them is this recently inaugurated Samrat Samrati Museum of Jane Heritage in Kobar in Gujarat. What an amazing beautiful building is I presume white marble walls, the central courtyard, the use of water, the way it signals its presence from a distance. So when you see a building like that which was incredibly contemporary but has clearly picked up on the traditions and the beliefs of the Jane's just tell us a little bit about that project and how this fits in with your way of thinking. Thank you so much for pointing in on that project because it is for us one of the most important in translating this ideology into physical space. When the clients came to us they actually wanted a very literal translation of Jane mythology and architecture into a museum building and for us the most important aspect of this building was that it should speak of a contemporary Jane people and more than anything as a museum it needs to be a community building and therefore one of the things we did is we drew a little bit from all the Jane tenets which is you know a very serene but also a very stark ascetic religion. It believes a lot in self-restraint nonviolence and what we've done is at two levels in the physical realm we've actually drawn on some of the mandalas one of the mandalas of Janism which is a sacred geometrical diagram and created this square building with the courtyard in the middle retaining the old trees and creating a water body around them but fundamentally what we've done is lifted the entire building on two stills so that the ground level becomes extremely porous and people can roam around the ground level use the water body in the middle feel the extreme serenity and asceticism of the religion before they take that journey up a ramp to the actual exhibition spaces at the first level the extreme whiteness of the building is not just a tool for serenity but it's also kind of a nod to the beautiful white marble temples of Janism so a large part of the Jane a lady kind of lives in Gujarat and Radhisthana where there's a significant amount of white marble and most of the Jane temples are built in white marble so it's all these cues that we picked up to create this extremely contemporary building but finally for us creating emotion in that building has been the most important. As Shimmel I could talk to you all day because this is such a fascinating topic this notion of storytelling infrastructure and I know you also talk about it as being a kind of cultural sustainability we all understand about environmental sustainability we're this is cultural sustainability for a city I just wanted to ask you a final thought because what you're describing wonderfully we've found here time to talk about moments of purity and beauty and elevation and religion and faith and this urban memory but there is another side which I understand you see a more practical and prosaic element which is that perhaps this drives the economy of a city done well you can have a city which is a humming thriving centre of trade as well if you understand these cultural tools just maybe finally is that another important element for you? Oh my god totally I mean right now we're building two projects in Hampi we're adding to the old museum of Hampi and we're creating a public plaza right at the entrance so that people are drawn into the museum you know with ease and we're also creating a hotel in Hampi but more importantly what we see in Hampi is an amazing tradition of craft and I think if one can actually seat the sculptural storytelling into the entire population and have people feel the pride in what they've inherited both in terms of the physical infrastructure as well as the skills that they've inherited in terms of the craft in terms of the food their food traditions which are amazing and be able to create not just you know retail restaurants a whole cultural experience that actually utilizes the skills brings in the people and creates a collaborative environment it's such a win-win for the entire place to be able to bring in all aspects of culture and that's what people would really get attracted to but it has to be done with a certain clarity and purity. My thanks there to Schimmel Javari Cadre for joining us. And that's all for this week's episode of The Urbanist. You can follow us for new editions of the show every week. And you can subscribe to Monaco Magazine, reports and all things design, architecture and urbanism too. Just visit Monaco.com. This episode of The Urbanist was produced and edited by David Stevens. I'm Adra Tuck. Goodbye. And thank you for this next City Lovers.