This is a brief walkthrough of my OCAD Environmental Design thesis, completed in May of 2009. Essentially it was an investigation of the connections that exist between architecture and food. At a theoretical level, I have attempted to identify and clarify the links between the way we build and the way eat and demonstrate why this relationship is so important in terms of nurturing a healthy and sustainable urban community. In doing so, I have made a point to research and explore how architecture can respond to an existing urban context the same way that food plants do. This language became what I have identified as an architecture of opportunity, wherein a new built form grows organically around and on top of an existing context in a way that is both respectful and responsive.

At a more practical level, I have designed a living architectural system that integrates three key components: housing, farming and a market place. These components work together in a sustainable cycle that allows people to reconnect with food, even in the most urban of environments. Though this particular project is suited very specifically to my chosen site at Queen and Ossington, in the near future I hope to expand on this idea as more of an architectural strategy to integrate sustainable food systems into other blocks of the city.