As the world continues to seek solutions to a housing emergency that is reaching all corners of the globe, architects are increasingly being called on to contribute solutions.

So it was appropriate that the International Architectural Roundtable held during the Buildings Show in Toronto Nov. 29 was billed as Design Solutions for the Housing Crisis.

Delegates were told the crisis will affect an estimated 1.6 billion people by 2025, fuelled by a shortage of land, lending, labour, materials and effective policies.

 “We believe our profession can offer new technologies and approaches that advance climate action and focus on intensification in already developed areas,” commented Settimo Vilardi, president of the Ontario Association of Architects, sponsor of the roundtable.

The session started with a focus on Toronto. The city’s newest tool for “citizen developers” to create multiplexes where singles now rule is called ReHousing. Janna Levitt, partner in charge at LGA, told delegates that ReHousing is a proposal that is “based on the local” but its partners and supporters believe it has global relevance. 

The next panellist, Ouri Scott, principal with Vancouver’s Urban Arts Architecture Inc., is the first Indigenous female architect in British Columbia. The discussion in the province is usually about housing affordability “even for people who are making lots of money,” Scott said, but what’s often missing is the realization that the problem goes deep into the province’s underbelly.

Ontario-born Alison Brooks, principal of U.K.-based Alison Brooks Architects, further made the case that powerful leadership with enlightened policies can turn things around. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has reshaped the social housing brand of the city since his election in 2016.

“Design solutions are only one part of addressing the housing crisis,” she said. “London has a housing crisis. It’s been in crisis I think since around 2000, the last 23 years, and seems to be getting worse, but positive things are happening.”