Painter’s Studio
A highly functional but also beautiful workspace, serving an established painter.
Location: Toronto, Canada
Status: Built
Date: 2022
A painter and writer wanted to build a new studio space behind their house, while also opening up their kitchen to the back yard and creating a new master bathroom in the basement. Working within a very constricted urban lot, this new studio, as with some of our previous work, takes a common building type - the detached garage - and finds new ways to use it. The studio maximizes working and storage space, taking full advantage of the maximum allowable height for a garage. The structure is highly insulated and air-sealed, and is heated and cooled with a discreet heat pump system, hidden above the bathroom. A compact energy recovery ventilator also maintains a safe airflow for dealing with paints, without major loss of energy.
The studio is finished in carefully detailed, hard-wearing materials: a polished concrete floor, hard maple veneer panels for the bathroom, and laminate shelves. Lighting was selected to provide the highest standard of colour rendering, and shaded skylights bring in controlled natural light. The new cedar fence, and cedar siding of the studio create a warm and natural environment in the back yard. By relocating the basement bathroom’s window, we were able to expand the rear deck, creating a seamless transition from the kitchen to the yard. The new master bathroom in the existing house adds some luxury, with terrazzo walls and floors, and a custom white oak vanity.
General Contractor: Khoi Design Build Inc.
Photography: Michael VanLeur
Filmmaker's Studio
An extremely efficient back-yard workspace, nestled into a lush rear yard garden.
| Location: | Toronto, Ontario |
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| Status: | Built |
| Date: | 2022 |
This small project was designed to serve primarily as an office space for a filmmaker / editor, and packs a lot of functions into it’s 26 square metre footprint. Cranking the building 10 degrees away from the side lot line created just enough space to pack in storage shelving, a fold-out bed for the occasional family guest, mechanical space for a ducted heat pump, and a compact bathroom. Its interior is visually expanded by windows or sliding doors on 3 sides, which look into a lush garden. Surprisingly, the yard feels larger than it did before - the new office creating a variety of distinct zones within the back yard, sheltered by a deep roof overhang
Materials are simple but harmonious: polished concrete floors, birch veneer custom millwork, and 2” ceramic tile with coloured grout in the bathroom. The roof is galvalume corrugated steel, and vertically arranged pine siding.
General Contractor: Vanderwall Builds Inc.
Millwork: Laneway Millwork
Photography: Michael VanLeur
Living in the Bocage Landscape
We believe that sustainability is about learning to live at peace with our environment. To do this, we must understand the identities of the local landscapes and ecosystems, and appreciate their unique features so they may play a defining role in people’s daily lives.
| Location: | Denderleeuw, Belgium |
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| Status: | Competition Finalist |
| Date: | 2021-2022 |
| With: | Metapolis, Traject, IDEA Consult |
We believe that sustainability is about learning to live at peace with our environment. To do this, we must understand the identities of the local landscapes and ecosystems, and appreciate their unique features so they may play a defining role in people’s daily lives.
Our proposal, “Living in the Bocage Landscape” creates a neighbourhood of 320 new homes that aims to channel the local landscape identities of the bocage, with its patchwork of agricultural fields, arbors and hedgerows, to structure appropriate urban densification, fostering community building, healthy living, economic growth, and increased biodiversity.
We believe the site can not only be a pleasant living environment for humans, but also a qualitative habitat for all kinds of animals. The Natura2000 zone shows that very high-quality nature on a limited surface is possible here.
We want to form a stepping stone in an ecological corridor through built-up and undeveloped areas, where all kinds of species can migrate to the newly created nature areas (toads and salamanders in the wet areas, bees and insects in the flower meadows and orchards, bats and bird species in the trees).
To successfully develop the project with local expertise, especially during COVID times, we formed a team of like-minded local designers and consultants that include Metapolis as well as Mobility consultant Traject, and sustainable development and Real Estate consultant IDEA Consult.
The Site in Context
Denderleeuw is situated in between two large-scale open space structures:
In the west a vast agricultural area structured by a number of streams such as Molenbeek or Wildebeek that flow into the Dender, acting as a network of ecological corridor composed of swamp forests and poplar groves.
In the east is a lower flood-prone valley composed of marshy meadows, numerous water bodies and dense forests.
The site itself is a triangular zone of bocage (fields bound by ecologically-rich buffers), defined by residential streets (“ribbon” development) to the North and West, and by railroad tract to the East. The core of the site is prone to flooding.
There are only three access points into the site, one from the North, one from the Northeast, and one from the Southwest. Each creates different opportunities to connect the new neighbourhood to Denderleeuw’s pedestrian and vehicular networks. The North access point is a key connection point between the nearby sports facilities and the core of the new development site. On the other hand, the Southwest connection point leads directly to the promising, but currently underused urban node of Iddergem with shops, a school and a church.
The Masterplan
We believe that the following composition of spaces can promote social cohesion in the neighbourhood, with various spaces fostering diverse interactions: Around the communal lawn you are in close contact with your closest neighbours, the front gardens on the street side facilitate conversation with the neighbours across the street, etc…
The masterplan is structured around four types of spaces:
A central neighborhood park that takes the potentially flood-prone area and the latent power of the canal as a starting point. Neighborhood gardens overflow into it. Together with trees and water, they form a reinterpretation of the bocage landscape.
The outer ring is a productive edge, with denser forestation alluding to the swamp forests of the region's typical meersen. It also acts as a buffer against the noise of the railway and a view through the backyards of the local residents. A number of existing parks, groves and plots with an ambiguous status are also included. The denser green border acts as a biodiverse green zone, a suitable habitat for animals and insects. In this productive edge fields mingle with vegetable gardens, orchards and parking bays and habitat nodes.
Between the productive edge and the open park landscape, we organize the housing as a series of residential courtyards giving out on the central park. U-shaped groups of buildings with an alternating code of strips of terraced houses and park villas around a communal green zone, with back gardens that continue into the shared courtyard.
On the other side of the courtyard, the houses along residential streets, a kind of car-free residential areas where the car can drive but is not allowed to park, so that the street becomes a social and child-friendly place.
Rows of trees, water features and soft paths run through these different parts of the master plan and connect them with each other.
The site is designed as a series of overlapping ecological and healthy living systems: water management, biodiversity, production landscapes and transportation
Walkable multi-generational communities integrated within the landscape
Productive gardens build communities around the values of healthy living and sharing
The bocage landscape acts as a rich biodiverse space and water management system
Various flexible housing typologies help create a demographically diverse neighbourhood (apartments, small houses, co-housing, assisted living, etc…)
Bloorcourt "Missing Middle" Development
This 3-story “missing middle” apartment building design provides 6 dwelling units of different sizes and configurations (to foster socio-economic diversity), and aims to be one of the first single exit stair buildings in Toronto.
| Location: | Toronto, Ontario |
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| Status: | In Progress |
| Date: | 2024 - Present |
The client acquired two semi-detached houses that lay vacant for decades. The aim was to bring new housing opportunities to an underused site, and to create a contextually-appropriate “missing middle” building that feels like a community.
The 3-story building contains six dwelling units of varying sizes. One basement dwelling unit, one two-storey dwelling unit split between the basement and ground floor, one ground floor unit, two second floor units, and a large third floor unit (for a total of 6 dwelling units and total of 15 bedrooms). An entrance lobby and mail room are located on the ground floor; a mechanical room and bicycle room are located in the basement. The building is also designed to support aging-in-place, as all units are provided with elevator access.
The project is aiming to be one of the first single exit stair buildings in Toronto.
Single-stair design is ideal for this infill project, allowing for optimization of floor plates, better unit layouts, and more leasable and habitable floor area. The municipal zoning by-law permits multi-unit residential buildings of up to 3 storeys and the design team explored many two-stair options for the site (with both interior and unenclosed exterior stairs). However, to maximize the potential for exterior landscape areas, optimize access to light, views and privacy for each apartment, and to minimize construction costs, the best option was to pursue a single stair solution.
Home and Nature: Delaware Ave Adaptive Reuse
Tucked away behind rows of houses, an old auto garage lay vacant for decades. When new owners acquired the site, they decided it was time to breathe life back into the old auto garage by converting it into their new home, but wanted to preserve its charm and industrial character.
| Location: | Toronto, Ontario |
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| Status: | Under Construction |
| Date: | 2024 - Present |
Tucked away behind rows of houses, an old auto garage lay vacant for decades. When new owners acquired the site, they decided it was time to breathe life back into the old auto garage by converting it into their new home, but wanted to preserve its charm and industrial character.
The layout and materiality of the existing auto garage showcases the evolution and history of the site, as it is actually composed of multiple amalgamated structures which have appeared on site over the past hundred years. This adaptive reuse project is focused on creating a comfortable home that meets ambitious energy efficiency targets while channeling the existing character of the industrial buildings on site.
Courtyards have been introduced within the old walls of the ex-industrial building, increasing the amount of light within the large footprint, and vastly increasing the landscaped areas on site (for enjoyment, water management and biodiversity).
Caledon Residence
A multi-generational luxury home in the Ontario countryside built to Passive House standards.
| Location: | Caledon, Ontario |
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| Status: | Built |
| Date: | 2023 |
The owners of a beautiful plot of land in Caledon wanted to create a passive house-level multi-generational luxury home for themselves, their children and other family members. The land was home to a large area of carolinian forest, and to a small apple orchard. The house was to be placed in an existing clearing on an escarpment, providing views and connections to both the forest below and the adjacent orchard.
The nearly 10,000 ft2 home is built as an assemblage of shared and private spaces, where people can find privacy or come together.
General Contractor: Caledon Build
Photography: Ben Dickey
The Garage Gem
This small structure re-imagines the detached laneway garage, often an under-utilized storage space, and makes it into a true extension of the home.
| Location: | Toronto, Ontario |
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| Status: | Built |
| Date: | 2019 |
This small structure re-imagines the detached laneway garage, (often an under-utilized storage space), and makes it into a true extension of the home. The 'Garage Gem' strikes a balance between between precious and utilitarian to support a wide range of uses: it is a functioning garage, occasional workshop, a three-season space for entertaining guests, dining, writing, and simply enjoying the quiet seclusion of the leafy rear yard.
The building features hardwearing terrazzo floors and countertops, an exposed douglas-fir structure, black-stained OSB sheathing, and meticulously detailed steel-framed windows and doors. The cedar exterior cladding will, in time, weather to blend in with the fence. In the yard between garage and house, a new outdoor kitchen repeats the theme of cedar and terrazzo, and custom designed globe lights tie the entire space together.
General Contractor: Derek Nicholson Inc.
Structural Engineering: Kieffer Structural Engineering
Photography: Adrian Ozimek
K-House, Net-Zero Strawbale Home
To reconcile the client’s needs for a home that is both familiarly comfortable yet sustainable, this house develops sustainable living practices within accepted notions of domestic comfort. The house explores how we can harness our understanding of culturally-ingrained lifestyles in order to affect change, reforming perceptions of suburban comfort from within, and making the adoption of widespread lifestyle changes as seamless as possible.
| Location: | Ancaster, Ontario |
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| Status: | Built |
| Date: | 2015 |
K-House reconciles the client’s needs for a home that is familiarly comfortable, luxurious yet sustainable and affordable. The house explores how we can harness our understanding of culturally-ingrained lifestyles in order to affect change, reforming perceptions of suburban comfort from within, and making the adoption of widespread sustainable lifestyle changes as seamless as possible.
The house imbues every element of the traditional house with new opportunities, from its spatial layout to the construction of its walls. The well-beloved massing of the local split-level home (part bungalow and part multi-story house) is augmented to promote connection to nature, spatial efficiency and accessibility. The house, while true to its beloved domesticity, becomes an active agent of change within its context. It interacts with the natural flows of the site, sun, water, wildlife and flora, framing the changing character of its setting, making seasonality integral to the experience of the home. The traditional walls of the house are also no longer simply spatial dividers, but highly efficient yet breathable straw by-products of local farming practices. The house uses the beloved image of the suburban home to unsuspectingly become the first electrically net-zero straw house in Hamilton (thanks to 36 solar panels located on the roof), rethinking the traditional spaces and features of the suburban home to create opportunities for sustainable mechanisms (like proper cross-ventilation and high-efficiency fireplaces to drastically reduce heating and cooling loads).
The house is composed of 16” thick prefabricated strawbale walls clad in magboard, plaster and shou-sugi-ban (charred eastern white cedar to replace suburban vinyl siding, insuring longevity and protecting against rot), creating a breathable yet optimally insulated building envelope (R-40). To replicate the versatility of traditional construction methods and replace straw construction’s mandatory large overhangs with recessed gutters, a different type of breathable wall was developed. While most straw construction clads strawbales directly with plaster, the house’s strawbales are shielded by magboard, covered in a rainscreen that acts as air gap, and then clad in plaster or wood. The plaster was additionally coated with a silicate paint rendering it hydrophobic. While the plaster invariably gets exposed to water, it is able to fully exhaust absorbed moisture thanks to the continuous air gap and the hygroscopic properties of the plaster.
The house is located right on the Dundas conservation area and the landscape design, composed of native and non-invasive species, cradles the house as if embedded within the conservation area itself. The planting scheme uses native species from the conservation area, including ferns, river birches, sedges and pawpaws.A system of channels, concrete dams, swales, and porous pavers manages stormwater from on-site and uphill neighbouring properties, replenishing the aquifer, thereby reducing strain on the municipal drainage system and the conservation area. The flat rooftop is home to a pollinator garden offering a habitat for birds, bees and butterflies.
A Family of Landscapes: LH Daejang Town Masterplan
| Location: | Daejang, South Korea |
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| Status: | Honourable Mention, Competition 3rd Place |
| Date: | 2020 |
| With: | SAC International |
Bucheon-Daejang area, located within the greenbelt of Seoul, is surrounded by diverse landscapes. Mountains to the south. Agricultural fields to the north, Gulpo creek to its east (and several smaller creeks running through it): Landscapes define the experience of the site.
The new town should be conceived as an articulation of (rather than erasure of) existing landscape, securing and strengthening its ecological function and fostering the creation of human communities within it. Creating a city that enhances biodiversity, and ecological strength of the landscape, will also foster a new kind of resilient human community.
Our proposal creates a hierarchy of landscapes, ranging from big nature corridors that perform the most important ecological and hydrological functions, active corridors containing sports fields, schools, and urban agriculture, ecological neighbourhood streetscapes, which combine transportation and ecological infrastructure, to intimate communal courtyards and pocket spaces.
The scale of landscape relates to the scale of the human community. The big nature serves the entire Bucheon-Daejang town. Each active corridor serves one district. Ecological streets serve a neighbourhood, and courtyards are shared with one’s immediate neighbours.
At each scale/layer/level the landscapes perform an ecological and hydrological function, a productive function - providing food, clean air, energy and carbon sequestration, they provide a connection to nature. By foregrounding the ecological, productive, and natural processes, the project also fosters new kinds of connections between the people and creates new resilient communities.
As one traverses outward from the apartment unit, the unit of engagement expands from one’s family, then to a collection of families, neighbours, who share a courtyard, to an entire neighbourhood that is a collective of courtyards. Multiple neighbourhoods comprise a district, sharing an Active Corridor. Finally, the Big Nature corridors are shared by the entire community of Bucheon-Daejang.
The hierarchy of landscapes is akin to a biological family, with each layer setting the stage for the next. It marks a continuum and mirrors the passage of a human's journey into and with the world. The innermost section, the Courtyards, embodies a sense of intimacy, enclosure and safety like an embrace as if to provide a shelter for an infant to begin the early steps into the world. The neighbourhood is a familiar and safe world for a child. While active corridors at the heart of each district facilitate diverse activities for young adults. Finally, the forests and creeks in the big nature corridors are like a wise mature adult.
As the landscape expands and opens up its physical presence, it breathes energy into the human engagement with the world as individuals and as a community, first with one's family, then with a neighbourhood, a community, then the world.
“Family of Landscapes” concept diagram
Masterplan
Masterplan morphology diagrams
Active corridor
“Big Nature” Corridor at SBRT Node
Neighbourhood square in Pilot Village
Ecological promenade and commercial zone section
Ecological promenade and commercial zone plan
Ecological promenade and commercial zone View