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Naama Blonder portrait with Toronto skyline in background

Is Naama Blonder an architect or an urban planner? Leading up to our conversation, the question lingers in the back of my mind. As the co-founder of Smart Density — and the winner of the OAA’s Best Emerging Practice in 2022 — the Toronto-based designer’s work encompasses a broad métier, ranging from thoughtful urban infill designs to master planning, land use studies and municipal approvals. But as I listen to Blonder talk, I start to turn the question back on myself; why box her in to begin with?   

As a practitioner and a civic leader, Blonder leverages her expertise to address the housing crisis at varying scales, from designing typologically innovative buildings to publicly advocating for land use reform and hosting a series of educational webinars with leading city-builders from around the world. Born and educated in Israel — as both an architect and an urban planner — Blonder is a refreshingly outspoken presence. Despite arriving in Toronto less than a decade ago, she has quickly emerged as one of the city’s most publicly visible architects, with profiles in the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, and CBC, along with a series of Op-Eds. In our recent conversation, we touch on the forces shaping Toronto’s built form, the architectural profession’s role in addressing them, and the realities of being a woman in what remains a male-dominated field.

You’ve been in Toronto for almost a decade now — and you’ve established a successful practice in a city (and a country) where opportunities are scarce for emerging design firms. How did you navigate this landscape?

Naama Blonder

I don’t know if I can still call myself a newcomer, but I’m definitely someone who came here later in life as an adult; I was 27 when I moved to Canada with my partner [Smart Density co-founder Misha Bereznyak]. And one of the privileges of that experience is having an outsider’s perspective. When we first arrived, I remember thinking let’s explore the city, so we hopped on the subway. And the experience of being on the train feels very cosmopolitan. But then, as soon as we got off, I thought; How fast did that train go? How’d we end up in the suburbs already? Even in a relatively central area like The Annex, I mostly saw single-family houses. I thought, this is pretty weird

The city’s growing quickly and it’s getting more expensive, yet even the limited transit that we have isn’t paired with meaningful urban density. And even though we’re building a lot of condos, the layouts tend to be bad — with long, long corridors and wasted space — and they rarely work for families. There’s value in seeing that from an outsider’s point of view.

A Smart Density proposal for developer R-Hauz and the United Church of Canada at 1120 Ossington Avenue in Toronto. The plan leverages a surplus church-owned site to build 26 units of deeply affordable modular housing.
A Smart Density proposal for developer R-Hauz and the United Church of Canada at 1120 Ossington Avenue in Toronto. The plan leverages a surplus church-owned site to build 26 units of deeply affordable modular housing.

These “outsider” observations have been central to your projects. You’ve worked on missing-middle typologies and garden suites, affordable modular homes as well as master plans for new public housing. Did you also feel like an outsider to the architectural culture?

As a designer, coming here was a cultural change. I remember going to a dinner party, for example, and people asked me what I do. I said I’m an architect. And then everyone would get excited start talking to me about houses and kitchens. But when I explained that I’m mostly doing condominiums and affordable housing, that excitement disappeared. I realized that there’s a public perception that developers (and tall buildings) are bad, but also that mass housing isn’t really part of the architectural culture here. And as a woman, it’s not the type of work you’re expected to do.

A proposed 2-storey, purpose-built rental development designed by Smart Density for Originate Developments on the east side of Huron Street, south of Dupont Street, in Toronto's Annex.
A proposed 2-storey, purpose-built rental development designed by Smart Density for Originate Developments on the east side of Huron Street, south of Dupont Street, in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood.

Development and urban density are very politically contentious in Toronto, as in much of North America. At the same time, architecture has traditionally been a male-dominated field. How do these factors shape expectations for women entering the profession?

We’re really lucky that there are excellent women architects in Toronto — like Heather Dubbeldam, Janna Levitt, Marianne McKenna and Shirley Blumberg, to name a few — who do important public work, including affordable housing. And we’ve made great progress in education and architectural practice.

At the same time, I think that design is still gendered. As a woman, there’s still an expectation that you’re focused more on the traditionally feminized, domestic realm. You see it in firms where the architects are men and the interior designers are women, where the building is designed by men and the finer details are designed by women. And of course, a lot of those details — like unit layouts in apartment buildings — are very important. But even in women-led practices, the focus is often single-family homes. It doesn’t help, of course, that there’s so much political distrust of density and housing. That really narrows the culture. When we start working with clients, we tell them we’re not the kind of architects that import marble countertops from Italy.

A Smart Density-designed mid-rise on Lake Shore Boulevard West in Etobicoke for developer Chris Spoke. The plan achieves a contextually sensitive design and a transition in scale while challenging Toronto’s angular plane policy, which reduces the scale and density of mid-rise buildings by mandating ziggurat forms.

You’re also not the kind of architects who mostly talk about form-making and aesthetics. In fact, a lot of your critiques of land use policy and housing tap into a discourse more dominated by urbanists and planners. Did your education as both an architect and a planner play a big role in shaping your perspective?

I went to a university in Israel, and the degree was in architecture and urban planning. Afterwards, I studied in Paris — at a school of architecture and urban planning. Then, when I came to North America and realized that there’s this entirely separate discipline of urban planning that is drastically different from what’s taught in Europe.

When I moved here, I didn’t know how to describe it. My first job in Toronto was in planning. I had to explain it to my friends back in Israel, and I basically said that it’s kind of like being a lawyer. Here, urban planning is very heavily driven by deep understanding of policy and precedent, which almost makes it a branch of the legal profession. In Europe, architecture and planning are much more closely integrated, and planning is also part of design.

The separation of disciplines also means that most designers know relatively little about policy — about land use regulations and the Official Plan, or applying for zoning changes and variances. If I was trained as an architect in the North American tradition, I doubt I’d be doing what I am.

Section of a Smart Density-led master plan to develop car-free streets.

To my (North American) way of thinking, the popular kitchen-table issues you address — like density and housing affordability would mostly fall under the aegis of urban planning. Maybe the fact that we don’t train (or expect) architects to address these questions is part of the problem?

When I get interviewed by the Toronto Star or the CBC, they usually want to talk to me as an urban planner, and I have to remind them that I’m also an architect. In the mainstream media, I have the authority to speak because these issues fall within the urban planning umbrella. It took me some time to understand why being an architect wasn’t as important to them, but many of the things I talk about are part of a discourse that excludes designers.

Did you ever feel a pressure to change your professional approach to fit the North American paradigm? To be either a planner or an architect?

When I first started being vocal and talking to media, I was worried about what it would do to my professional reputation. I thought I might be breaking an unspoken rule or crossing some invisible line. And that if I focused on affordable housing — and housing affordability — and worked on designing shelters for unhoused people, maybe they’d think “that’s all she does.”

But then I thought about that folktale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, where the emperor is swindled into walking around naked, and everyone’s too afraid to say anything. They all end up pretending to admire a new suit that doesn’t exist — until a child blurts out that the king is naked. There’s something to that. It’s a mentality of being an outsider who’s not afraid to point things out and say something’s wrong, that something needs to change. I was scared to do it, but it ended up being good for business. There’s value in being bold.

Naama Blonder portrait courtesy of Smart Density.

From the Outside In: A Conversation with Naama Blonder

The architect and urban planner reflects on coming to Toronto as an adult immigrant — and harnessing an outsider’s perspective.

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