Belmont Townhouses

Belmont Multi was a proposed eight-building townhome development in Calgary’s southwest community of Belmont. This development would have been west of MacLeod Trail and south of the Stoney Trail Ring Road, making it a short drive to recreational destinations such as Spruce Meadows and South Kananaskis Country. The developer chose not to proceed beyond Development Permit approval.

Four unit types ranged in size, from 945 to 1340 SF. All of these types had private garages on the main floor and open living spaces on the second. On the third floor, the smaller units had two bedrooms, and the larger three. All eight buildings had a modern-farmhouse exterior, with metal roof accents and steel canopies. The project was of wood frame construction clad with fibre cement vertical board and batten. These homes came with either single or tandem attached garages, and additional visitor parking was provided with surface stalls. 

The size of the parcel required a loop for fire access, but this loop wouldn't normally need to carry much traffic. This seemed like an opportunity to have this pavement double as an exterior living space. Gravity, therefore, borrowed the idea of the woonerf. This idea originated in the Netherlands in the 1960s as a method to calm and divert the traffic volume from residential roads, making them more pedestrian-friendly. Mainly, the woonerf introduced elements of the pedestrian realm, such as planters, benches and non-asphalt pavement, into the roadway so that drivers would reduce their speed.

The woonerf used in this development contained a shared community space and an open plaza. 818 Studio, the landscape architect for this project, designed a fire pit area and a wood pergola for the community space. This development also had a community garden near the property line to the east.

This site has since been developed more conventionally by another developer/architect team.

Architecture & Rendering: Gravity Architecture