Architecture & Urbanism
In an ever-evolving technological world, one’s focus and engagement is increasingly concerned with the virtual. In my view, the very physicality of architecture provides a stabilising anchor to one’s sense of self through its unique capacity to engage all our senses simultaneously. The haptic realm that is unique to architecture acts a counter-measure to the cerebral but strangely hollow space of the virtual.
This design for a renovation to a full-floor apartment in Melbourn’e heritage Toronto House building in Flinders Lane, seeks to express these ideas. The project uses a modest client brief, - add two bedrooms with en-suite to an existing linear apartment loft volume, and create a new space that provides a spiritual anchoring for a much travelled family with teenage children.
Ideas of permanence, anchoring, nesting, enveloping and gravitas became important factors in our design thinking.
Blue Cave - A curvilinear vessel of space, the blue cave, finished in a fine, sky-blue venetian plaster, houses the two bedrooms and defines them as quiet personal retreats. Light falls into their interior through the large, spout-like forms on the caves.
White Nest - The linear white storage wall, the white nest, glossily white and sleek, houses multiple functions: office, ‘garage’, storage, reading niche, bar niche. It also houses a small army of seating and storage mobiles on that are used to create seating banquettes and social gathering settngs when required.
Client
Private
Area
375 m2
Levels
1
Status
Complete
Genre
Meta-Modern
Themes
Anchoring / Formal Dissonance / Retreat
Award
House Magazine Award:
Finalist; Best Apartment, Unit, or Townhouse (2013)
This design for a renovation to a full-floor apartment in Melbourn’e heritage Toronto House building in Flinders Lane, seeks to express these ideas. The project uses a modest client brief, - add two bedrooms with en-suite to an existing linear apartment loft volume, and create a new space that provides a spiritual anchoring for a much travelled family with teenage children.
Ideas of permanence, anchoring, nesting, enveloping and gravitas became important factors in our design thinking.
Blue Cave - A curvilinear vessel of space, the blue cave, finished in a fine, sky-blue venetian plaster, houses the two bedrooms and defines them as quiet personal retreats. Light falls into their interior through the large, spout-like forms on the caves.
White Nest - The linear white storage wall, the white nest, glossily white and sleek, houses multiple functions: office, ‘garage’, storage, reading niche, bar niche. It also houses a small army of seating and storage mobiles on that are used to create seating banquettes and social gathering settngs when required.
Client
Private
Area
375 m2
Levels
1
Status
Complete
Genre
Meta-Modern
Themes
Anchoring / Formal Dissonance / Retreat
Award
House Magazine Award:
Finalist; Best Apartment, Unit, or Townhouse (2013)