When Moshe Safdie began work on his masters thesis in architecture at McGill University, little did he realize his work would become a Montreal landmark, Habitat 67. His dream was to create an apartment complex in which each unit had the qualities of a house. He went on to become one of the world’s most celebrated architects, and still owns a unit in Habitat (although it has been vacant for many years.)
Using 354 identical pre-fab concrete cubes, Safdie designed a 12 storey residential complex. The original 158 apartments were created by linking to five of the cubes, depending on the size of the unit. The current number of units is actually 146, as several owners combined two units into one larger one. Each unit has a terrace that is the roof of a cube belonging to another unit. The units range from 624 to 3000 square feet.
Over 50 million people toured Habitat during the run of Expo 67 “Man and His World.”
Today, condo units in the complex sell between $750,000 and $2 million. Monthly maintenance fees vary by the size of the unit (roughly $2,500 to $4,000).
I am such a floor plan junkie that I was thrilled to uncover this: