Discover the partnership websiteLiving Atlas of Quality
Publication:27 March 2025
| Location | Canada|Alberta|Calgary |
| Typologies | Residential architecture|Houses, cottages and residential units |
2018
Évaluations de site pour la décarbonation_Concordia_#11A building decarbonization feasibility study for elderly-oriented housing in Montréal, restyled into a clean teal-and-white visual system with consistent leaf-icon headers, card layouts, and native charts throughout. The 26-slide deck walks through a life-cycle carbon framework and research methodology, then presents two case studies: La Cité des Bâtisseurs, where simulated retrofit scenarios (window upgrades, heat pumps, green roofs/façades) are compared on energy performance and cost, and Rosemont Les Quartiers, a real-world site survey comparing an older exemplar building against a newer one on the same lot. It closes with cross-case findings and recommendations. Beyond the visual refresh, it adds several new data-grounded visuals not in the original ( monthly seasonal-demand comparisons across retrofit scenarios, a retrofit options-at-a-glance matrix, a decarbonization/biodiversity/livability outcomes table, and a clean chart of the exemplar-vs-recent-design energy gap), all built from figures already present in the source report's charts and tables.
Liens entre qualité de vie et biodiversité dans l'environnement bâti_Concordia_#9Urban design and ecology usually operate in silos despite their shared goal of advancing sustainable cities. Livability is predominantly concerned with the quality of the built environment, often neglecting ecological considerations. Conversely, biodiversity focuses on preserving life forms and ecosystem functions, often overlooking the intricacies of the built environment. This disjointed approach limits our understanding of the interactions between these fields and hinders interdisciplinary practice. Our research explores the existing relationships between biodiversity and livability to expand our understanding of the exchanges between the two disciplines, and their combined effect in improving our cities. To achieve this, we employed an expert elicitation method grounded in a heuristic, exploratory, and knowledge-based approach. This methodology enabled us to first deconstruct the broad and often ambiguous concepts of livability and biodiversity into concrete domains, each with its own specific components, and then examine the connections between the two fields in the urban environment. The results of this study reveal that although urban designers and ecologists approach the concepts of livability and biodiversity through strict disciplinary lenses, the two share significant areas of interaction. Our findings indicate that biodiversity acts as a hidden driver of livability. Functional Diversity emerges as a key domain of biodiversity, impacting domains of livability such as Comfort, and Sense of Place. Conversely, specific livability components such as Environmental Hazards Mitigation, Maintenance, Civic and Social Involvement, and Infrastructure Accessibility have the biggest impact on biodiversity across all domains. By Carly D. Ziter, Nicole Yu, Morteza Hazbei, Tatev Yesayan and Kayleigh Hutt Taylor.
