Building more housing with less embodied greenhouse gas

This research has two goals to a) increase our understanding of the quantity of construction materials and embodied GHG used, in current practice, to create new housing in the City of Toronto and b) to identify opportunities to use changes in building and neighbourhood form to create more housing with less total embodied GHG. The focus of this project will be the study of missing middle buildings (e.g triplex, fourplex, attached houses, secondary suites, low rise apartment buildings) and their potential to provide new low embodied GHG housing. Using construction drawings the project will examine where and for what purposes construction materials and embodied GHG are being used in the provision of housing. Comparisons will be made between different types of housing (e.g. single family, missing middle, midrise, high-rise) to identify their relative advantages. Opportunities to use building shape and design will be identified to maximize missing middle sustainability. The results will be used to recommend sustainable building forms to maximize housing while minimizing GHG. Urban housing policy (e.g. zoning) recommendations will be developed based on the analysis.

Faculty Supervisor:

Shoshanna Saxe

Student:

Partner:

City of Toronto

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Health and Related Sciences & Technology; Public administration; Utilities

University:

University of Toronto

Program: