Renderings of the 'subdivillage' by Smart Density. The concept was one of six winners of the Ontario Association of Architects SHIFT 2025 Challenge, Reshaping Communities, that asked firms to reimagine the built environment and address challenges like climate change, housing, and social shifts.Smart Density
Picture this: You and your partner are invited over for a grand dinner party to celebrate your friend’s new house in suburbia. Arriving at night, things look pretty much as one might expect, with big houses and two-car garages, big backyards and little culture. After too much celebrating, you stay the night. And as you wake up to the sound of dozens of children playing in the street, you wonder if you’ve entered the Twilight Zone.
“They get out and they see that it’s not their typical suburban [subdivision]; they don’t see cars parking everywhere, they actually see no cars at all when they open the door to that mews street, for example,” says Naama Blonder of Smart Density. “It is much narrower than the typical width of the street. They are able to say hi to the neighbour. Even the surface between you [and that neighbour] is not asphalt, it’s paved in another way.”
Sounds like Rod Serling territory. Soon we’ll learn it was all created by aliens who keep humans as pets, right?
Not quite. While Smart Density’s idea for the “subdivillage” is still fiction, it’s not all that strange. In fact, it’s so human-centric, warm and possible that it was announced, last month, as one of six winners of the Ontario Association of Architects SHIFT 2025 Challenge, “Reshaping Communities,” that asked firms to “reimagine the built environment” and address “challenges like climate change, housing and social shifts.”
The simplified standard subdivision layout for a Subdivillage.Smart Density
What is strange is that it took so long for another kick at the can on reshaping suburbia since Andrés Duany tried, in 1980, with New Urbanism. And that Ms. Blonder and her husband, Misha Bereznyak, avowed inner-city dwellers – they’re raising two young children in a 1,000-square-foot condo on Adelaide Street and they don’t own a car – were the ones to dream it up.
“People want that lifestyle,” Ms. Blonder says of the wide-open spaces of Markham or Milton. “There used to be some qualities of that past. But now, with the pressure and the density, [suburbia] lost the good qualities.”
“So we said ‘how can we look back and make it so much better so that you could actually let your kid ride [a bike] to school.‘”
Turns out, with a few tweaks, it’s not that hard at all. First, change how streets work, and the hierarchy of usage.
Mews streets, for example, put people and cyclists first, and allow automobiles to drive along at walking-speed. Here, garages contain homeowner’s cars but there is no parking allowed (that’s on through streets), which encourages impromptu adult gatherings and, for the kids, street hockey and endless games of hide-and-seek.
Through-streets get traffic moving through the area, and allow perpendicular street parking for those dinner party guests. Here, private garages are eliminated.
No matter which type of street, the houses seem more open to one another (even the garages seem friendlier).Smart Density
Green streets are where things get interesting. No automobiles allowed, only emergency vehicles. Here, walkers, cyclists and front-yard gardeners are king and queen. But unlike “recreational trails, these are actual streets lined by houses” with “passive surveillance” to “ensure safety at all hours of the day.”
A look at the street grid reveals that, despite the idyllic nature of the green streets, they’d be far outnumbered by the other two types, which means ‘regular’ traffic wouldn’t suffer, and, perhaps, houses on the green streets might actually command a premium price tag. And speaking of streets, Smart Density suggests that long curves and cul-de-sacs are passé, an outdated way of slowing traffic down, so they won’t be found here.
“The moment you design the street to be narrower, the driver drives slower,” explains Ms. Blonder. “It’s been researched exhaustively; we laugh that the greatest urban designer is actually the traffic engineer, because they come with their manuals … and everything else will be an afterthought.”
Thankfully, while Smart Density did have to address traffic engineering in the Subdivillage, they are also architects and urban planners who ruminate constantly on the unquantifiable qualities that make neighbourhoods inviting.
“What happened to charm?” Ms. Blonder asks rhetorically. “Why is no one allowing themselves to say this is a quality that we want to bring? Because we have all these crises of the world we need to take care of?”
On green streets there are no automobiles allowed, only emergency vehicles. Walkers, cyclists, and front yard gardeners rule the roost.Smart Density
Judging from the images, which Ms. Blonder admits were created using AI (but then refined, readjusted and added to), there is a lot more charm in the Subdivillage than traditional suburbia. No matter which type of street, the houses seem more open to one another (even the garages seem friendlier) and, because of the narrower width, interaction between neighbours isn’t forced. On the green streets, common spaces multiply, and so too would interaction.
But it all begs a few questions. One, does this exist in real life anywhere in the United States or Canada? Mr. Bereznyak points to a tiny fringe community outside of Palmetto, Ga. (Swann Ridge) that features large houses on narrow streets, pedestrian-only zones and centralized car parking. And then there’s Jakes Lane in the Mount Pleasant suburban of Charleston, S.C., which “serves as the frontage for some properties.”
And, two, will an Ontario developer step up and actually build a subdivillage? “I go to a dinner party and everyone around the table has their suburban home in King City and Vaughan or whatever,” Ms. Blonder finishes. “And I try to imagine what if these people lived in the subdivillage? What happens when you open the front door? Because a lot of developers are focusing on [only] the house, the pool, and how many bathrooms you have.
“I always say to the developer: ‘Your competitive advantage will be to sell the environment.‘”