Eva’s Phoenix

Can architecture play a key role in stabilizing homeless and at-risk youth? Eva’s Pheonix’s unusual design offers simultaneous privacy and supervision to address its residents’ complex needs.

A precedent-setting adaptive reuse project, Eva’s Phoenix is a transitional housing facility and skills training centre for youth aged 16-24. Creating a safe, uplifting, boldly non-institutional space was crucial. 

Occupying the heritage-designated site of a decommissioned waterworks complex built in the 1930s, our design stitches together two art deco warehouses to establish an expansive atrium which we filled with ten ‘townhouses’.  Accommodating a total of 50 residents, the townhouses together form an internal street, which serves as the primary gathering space for this safe, self-contained community. 

Each townhouse includes private bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a communal living space and a kitchen. Careful layering between the private bedrooms, semi-private townhouse spaces, and internal main street enables residents to choose their level of privacy and acclimatize to social interaction at their own pace. The design optimizes visibility and audibility, while creating an environment that feels secure.

According to Eva’s executive director, Jocelyn Helland, “Eva’s Phoenix was designed to be a warm, welcoming space that says, ‘You are cared for, you belong, and you deserve a great future, no matter what’s happened in the past.’ ” By creating a neighborhood within the building, LGA succeeded not only in providing a sense of refuge for Eva’s residents, but also a sense of home.

– Josephine Minutillo, Architectural Record

Above one of the townhouse rows, we inserted offices and ‘rooftop’ meeting areas that provide humane, semi-private, light-filled spaces for working, meeting, and counselling. There’s a demonstration kitchen on the ground floor and a full-service commercial print shop in the basement.

A key challenge was to adaptively reuse a building that lacked exterior windows on two sides while meeting the code requirement for bedrooms to have exterior windows. We worked with the municipal building department to devise alternatives specifically for this project, such as opening up approximately 30 per cent of the roof with skylights. Carefully calibrated skylight fritting provides views of the sky from within Eva’s, while also ensuring that residents in the condo tower above do not have sightlines into the shelter. The design also integrates daylighting with the lighting system to save energy – strategically located atrium ‘streetlighting’ turns on only when the natural light level falls below a set threshold. 

To minimize cost and new material consumption, we exposed existing materials wherever possible and used new materials only where needed. Light fixtures were salvaged from a soon-to-be-demolished building, and bedroom flooring was donated by a supplier with surplus stock. As part of the skills training program, several residents worked on the project construction.

The City of Toronto later launched a full block redevelopment around Eva’s that now includes a food hall, a YMCA, a condo tower, and a neighbourhood park.