Chapter 7 - Conclusions

The discussion and framework design exploration of this thesis has been centered around how to address change and uncertainty. Resilience theory, specifically engineered resilience and ecological resilience, have been used to help define how certain systems, planning frameworks, and designs, address change and uncertainty. We can recognize that strategies based in engineered resilience are limited based on their inability to imagine different states for a system to shift to.

It was recognized that adaptability in cities is addressed at a planning framework system level. We can consider adaptable architecture to address uncertainty, but architecture is ultimately beholden to the limitations set by the planning framework system. If we wish to consider creating adaptable architecture, and by extension an adaptable city, then we must reconsider the framework of the urban system.

Toronto is rooted in engineered resilience-based planning systems, as seen in the zoning framework of the city, and the proposed development of the Port Lands. The zoning system has limited the city’s capacity to change by maintaining its envisioned system state. As a result, the city is now faced with issues such as a housing shortage and affordability crisis, and an imbalanced distribution of urban density. Toronto only allows for change in certain areas of the city, like the Port Lands. In doing so the hyper density and massive buildings built in those areas don’t allow for change beyond that inflexible building scale. This results in further unchangeable areas of the city. These hyper dense areas of the city in their unchanging scale echo the ideas of high modernism that were covered in Chapter 2. Both the hyper dense and lower dense areas of the city are limited in adaptability and change by the zoning framework in place. If the city wishes to create an adaptable urban environment, and simultaneously address the imbalanced density and housing crisis, then it must reimagine its zoning framework.

To create an adaptable city we can base our framework systems in ecological resilience rather than engineered resilience. This involves creating rules that ensure that the parts of the urban system are adaptable. This means that building sizes are limited within adaptable scales, building typologies are allowed to mix, ecological systems are integrated into the city, and building density is not limited by single family requirements.

By adjusting the zoning framework of Toronto, we would balance the density of the city over the entire built area rather than the small changeable areas of the current plan. This would create a middle range of density that is often described as missing from Toronto’s