Transformed Headline: Naama Blonder's Innovative Approach to Urban Intelligence in North America through Smart Density
In the heart of Toronto, architect and urban designer Naama Blonder is making waves with her firm, Smart Density. Four years ago, she co-founded the company with a mission to address the city's housing affordability crisis, a problem she came to understand deeply when she realized "that way more people need housing than libraries."
Smart Density champions the "missing middle" housing model, which encompasses housing types such as fourplexes, sixplexes, and low-rise apartments. These housing solutions fit neatly between single-family homes and high-rise towers, offering a more sustainable and family-friendly alternative.
Blonder's approach is not just about building more housing units; it's about creating complete, family-oriented communities. She advocates for scaling up missing middle housing as a neighborhood-wide solution, ensuring access to parks, shared amenities, and a sense of community.
To achieve this, Smart Density is pushing for municipal policy changes. They advocate for zoning that allows missing middle housing by-right on large sites, revising infrastructure planning to accommodate higher density upfront, and aligning developer incentives through fee reductions or expedited approvals for such projects.
This policy framework supports affordable, family-friendly housing expansion while ensuring sustainability by enabling efficient use of existing urban land. The goal is to address Toronto’s housing shortage more effectively by providing diverse, scalable housing forms that balance affordability, community needs, and environmental sustainability—all within accessible neighborhoods rather than isolated developments.
One of Smart Density's most notable projects is the proposal of a 108 km long cycling network in Toronto, which won the Ontario Association of Architects' SHIFT Infrastructure 2019 Award. Blonder's work also includes providing a vision for maximizing affordable housing options at Kennedy Station in Toronto, a plan that includes 809 new housing units located at a site that was previously a parking lot.
Blonder's projects are designed to showcase how to create space in dense cities and live comfortably surrounded by the wonderful amenities of inner-city life. She is a strong advocate for easy access to amenities such as childcare, work, and public buildings in inner-city living.
Toronto, with its rapid growth and housing crisis, particularly due to rapid immigration, is the perfect testing ground for Blonder's innovative ideas. She plans to continue having difficult conversations with Toronto communities to change the stigma around multi-family units.
For those interested in architecture, Blonder's advice is simple: be involved and curious. She has developed a series profiling Toronto's city-building innovators, which can be found online. Currently, she is hosting webinars on topics such as affordable housing, Dutch Urban Design, and modular construction.
With her sights set on global expansion, Blonder aims to grow Smart Density and bring her vision of sustainable, affordable urban housing to cities around the world.
In her mission to address Toronto's housing affordability crisis, Naama Blonder, the co-founder of Smart Density, is advocating for the development of missing middle housing solutions, such as fourplexes and low-rise apartments, as a means to create family-oriented communities. To achieve this, Smart Density is investing in municipal policy changes, focusing on zoning alterations, infrastructure adjustments, and developer incentives that promote sustainable, affordable housing expansion.
