DIVERS-CITY is an alternative urban proposal for Griffintown’s development. Its design and process suggests a more human and responsible approach to the neighbourhood by having small scale interventions. The aim of the project is to produce a more dense and diversified architecture that respect the built environment and encourage social interactions.

Each intervention would assess a specific street bloc. The first step consists of identifying the value of the existing structures of the bloc.
The vacant lots (parking/demolished buildings) would then be used as infill for new constructions. Then, parasite structures would leap over partially or totally existing building in order to achieve a greater density.

The new additions to the bloc would form small complexes with a shared entrance. Each roof top would function as a community garden. Such green roofs would not only act as ecological features to the complexes, but as social features by stimulating human interactions.

The additions would be built in accordance with the character of the area, in order to enhance the existing urban fabric. They would help re-establish the front line of the main street axis, which was a main feature of the urban landscape of the 19th Century. They would also emphasize the volumetric changes in height and width of the industrial heritage complexes.

To diversify the types and the number of activities in this neighbourhood, vertical mix-use buildings would be valorized. The ground floor would serve commercial functions; the first floor could be occupied by offices with residential over it and finally the gardens on the upper layer.

A careful sun study would direct the design of the buildings within each complex. Each living unit within a complex would also have at least two outside walls in order to have natural ventilation. They would offer either a spectacular view of the Industrial Complexes of the Lachine Canal, or of the vegetated courtyards created along the center of the blocs.

Each bloc would therefore be similar to living organisms; growing and changing over time. Its inhabitants would develop a feeling of identity towards them, contrarily to those large monolithic developments where the criminality rates are the highest.