A multiplex building at 367 Howland Ave. in Toronto by builder Greenstreet Flats, design by Craig Race Architecture.Craig Race Architecture
Here’s a missing middle design riddle crying out for an answer: how many front doors should a multiplex have?
Answer: Well, it depends on what you mean by front door.
With small-scale builders hustling to take advantage of new-ish zoning rules allowing multiplexes in residential neighbourhoods or on major streets, the architects and contractors designing them have stumbled on quirks in the building code that yield odd configurations.
Such as: multiplexes sporting a row of four to six front doors, one for each unit; projects that have no front-facing entrances at all; those with individual unit entrances on all four sides; or three-storey stacked apartments accessed by so-called scissor stairs that extend up a stairwell in the side of the building. A recently approved example: a three-storey, 10-unit multiplex on the site of a former bungalow on O’Connor Drive, near Woodbine Avenue. It will have three doors on the front, three at the back and two on each side.
Schematics of a planned multiplex home at 661 O'Connor Drive.Brander Architects
A rapidly growing number of projects must now confront these decisions. Since 2023, the city has issued 2,629 building permits for multiplexes, representing 4,880 net new dwelling units, including some that have been added onto existing homes.
“Some developers say every unit needs its own front door and its own access,” observes architect Gabriel Fain, whose firm has taken on several multiplex projects, including one with no front entrance at all. For larger multiplexes, with 10 or 12 units, he adds, “all the doors are on the side of the building, which means that a lot of these projects don’t even have a front door.”
Yet some simply resemble traditional duplexes or semis, and blend quite easily into existing streetscapes, as is the case with a six-plex Fain’s firm designed for a site on Montrose Avenue, south of Bloor West. It has four units facing the street and two laneway suites in the back.
Montrose Sixplex by architect Gabriel Fain.GABRIEL FAIN ARCHITECTS INC.
These eclectic configurations are the result of 1980s-vintage Ontario building code rules that pertain to residential structures that are up to three storeys in height, not including the basement, as well as developer calculations about how to make such projects profitable. (Larger apartments require two sets of staircases with exits on each floor, as well as elevators.)
Those with separate entrances for each unit have been financially optimized because they contain no common areas, such as shared staircases or foyers, which bring more stringent building code requirements, says Uros Novakovic, co-founder of Office Ou. He adds that such configurations discourage accessible units. “The effect of the actual current zoning regulations is to create these six-plexes that are not going to be accessible.”
The front entrance question, curiously enough, has triggered all sorts of Toronto planning conversations, from a controversial 2019 push by the late Don Valley West councillor Jaye Robinson to ban second front doors for secondary suites, to more recent efforts to allow so-called single-exit apartments, which are common in much of the world but still banned here. Mr. Novakovic adds that back in the early 2000s, the city deployed new urban design rules to crack down on a deluge of stacked-townhouse projects, whose façades tended to be a tangle of front doors and entryways.
In fact, aesthetics has long been a significant factor in these discussions, as a single front-facing entrance is very much part of the city’s traditional residential architecture, including that of apartment buildings. In fact, in some parts of the older city, such as Oriole Parkway, prewar two-storey fourplex apartments with a single front entry or alcove that contains four doors, are commonplace.
“Designing a building with one primary entrance is effective and it’s easy to make beautiful,” says architect Craig Race, whose firm was one of the pioneers in the move to develop rental laneway suites.
A new infill building at 1169 Davenport near Ossington.John Lorinc/The Globe and Mail
In the current environment, however, much will be determined by lot size and location, as well as incentives offered by the city that allow builders to avoid development charges on small projects.
Narrower properties, plus the rules around setbacks, can make side entrances tricky to design. On major streets, builders may now erect larger multiplexes with 10 to 12 units by conjoining adjacent properties to create semi-detached multiplexes, which may have several separate entrances as well as stairwells leading to basement apartments.
“It’s getting complex, and that means the competency of the architect and the developer becomes much more apparent in the outcome,” says Mr. Race. Because most multiplexes have no common area, “you kind of have to use the site to be your common space, and that just means we have to do things that we’ve kind of never done before.”
He mentions one of his projects – a three-bedroom upper with a rooftop terrace and a view of the downtown. “[You] can only get to it by walking down the side yard between my house and my neighbour’s house. You’ve put something extremely attractive behind an unusual entry procession.” As Mr. Race adds: “Side yards are inherently awkward, and you have to know how to build them effectively to make sure you have clearance to move the couch in and have lighting and feel safe.”
What’s clear, at this nascent stage in the advent of an emergent housing form, is that investors and tenants aren’t making a big fuss about front door feng shui. “These are extremely marketable,” says Mr. Race. “You can’t find 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom units anywhere other than in multiplexes. The smaller units are the most affordable in the city because the typology costs so much less than mid-rise or high-rise buildings.”
Editor’s note: The caption accompanying the second photo from the bottom has been updated to correct the name of Montrose Sixplex.