8th Annual Best of Canada Design Competition

Best of show: Residential

A client couple with a bustling family in Ontario’s cottage country requested a separate sleeping cabin for their personal use where they could watch the sunset in bed.
The project comprises a single, 275-square-foot room with a built-in bed and an outdoor deck and shower.

The hideaway gets year-round use, heated with a wood-burning stove augmented by an electric heater. Three walls of the cabin have floor-to-ceiling glass, wrapped by a horizontal cedar screen on two sides for privacy and sun shading. As the sun sets, the varied gaps within the screen filter the light into random patterns on the interior surfaces. A larger cut-out in the screen provides spectacular views of the setting sun from the built-in bed.

The cabin has cedar windows, doors and cladding, and birch plywood panelled interior surfaces. All storage is built in, including the bed and pullout drawers below and continuous cabinets on either side of the bed along the one solid wall. A green roof allows the cabin to blend into the landscape. This was deemed desirable because the cabin is visible from the main house atop a hill. The floor of the cabin extends outside towards the lake to become a deck with access to an outdoor shower, also enclosed by a cedar screen.

Alsop: The walls bring in the great sunsets. That’s why you go to a cottage.
Banse: I like the random quality of the slats.
Daoust: I love the quality of light.
Robbie: If you’re going to build a bunkie, this is the way to do it. It has a floating quality overlooking the lake.
Schleeh: These sweet details will weather nicely in 15 or 20 years.

Best of show: Institutional

Built by the Jesuits in 1928 in the foothills north of Mount Royal, Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf graduates have included many well-known Canadians, including Pierre Elliot Trudeau. The 175,000-volume theological library, the largest in North America and the repository for numerous antique books, now occupies the restored former chapel.

Over the years, renovations took their toll on the 5,400-square-foot space. A dropped ceiling, added during a 1970s conversion into a study hall, concealed architectural details. The restoration brings the space back to a style compatible with its original architecture while providing accessible storage for the entire library.

The chapel’s original proportions and coffered ceilings once again stand revealed. Natural light once again streams in from the high windows. Because the utilitarian-looking book stacks in the choir appear incongruous with the chapel’s architecture, a translucent glass partition screens them from the nave (the main space), which is reserved for school activities. Library storage areas in the side aisles are suspended at window-level, leaving clear the floor below.

The materials palette includes recreations of existing woodwork, plasterwork, marble and concrete moulded to resemble Ohio sandstone. High-performance contemporary elements include spider glass wall systems, steel walkways and the latest in heating and ventilation technology.
Artist René Derouin provided “Three Centuries of Migration to the Americas,” a series of eight murals in the style of early Christian frescoes. Aside from their aesthetic value, they conceal the acoustic treatment on the side panels.

Alsop: It’s interesting how they divided the verticality of the space into three zones. That was very brave. This is the freshest entry in the competition.
Banse: The wide-open space is fantastic.
Daoust: This was a very complex undertaking.

Best of show: Retail

As a prototype flagship for Shan, a retailer of men’s and women’s underwear and swimwear, the new boutique in the Montreal suburb of Laval boasts a signature look that should be instantly recognizable as branches roll out.
Fitting rooms housed within a white-lacquered, elevated, central enclosure – a metaphoric beach cabana – create a feeling of warmth and intimacy despite the generous, open, 2,669-square-foot space. Flooded with natural light and finished in white, the main space evokes the luminosity, vastness and serenity of a beach. As a quiet background, it helps focus attention on the merchandise displays. Modular, custom-made ottomans, display racks and storage units surround the cabana fitting rooms. Clothes and accessories can be displayed horizontally under the glass tops of the central storage units or hung face forward on the minimalist racks along the perimeter of the retail space. Large photographic blowups were printed on the window shades, where they are visible from the nearby parking lot and expressway. A similar, back-lit photograph stretches along the beach cabana’s main face, adding a focal element that matches the scale of the main retail space.

Bullock: For retail, they’ve gone real simple on the lighting. That’s unusual.
Drobot: That’s pretty cool, the box-like change room and the ramp leading to it.
Schleeh: There is a Montreal sensibility to the use of materials.
Banse: It’s a John Pawson jigsaw!

Project Winner

The client had grown up in this downtown Toronto Chinatown building, the site also of her family’s tofu-making business. But she had no sentimental attachment to its “found” state.

The building had fallen into disrepair and had been abandoned for years following an unsuccessful renovation attempt by a previous owner.

The client asked designer Johnson Chou to retain the commercial component, reduced in scale, for leasing purposes.

She also wanted an elegant, minimalist interior that would make the space appear larger. To that end, Chou gutted the premises to create a daylight-drenched atrium with spaces on the second floor linked by a bridge. Now rid of the former maze of little bedrooms, the upstairs has an open, loft-like feel.
To make the house feel larger than its actual dimensions, he cleverly “borrowed” exterior space by composing windows and circulation patterns to frame views of nearby Toronto landmarks such as the CN Tower and the new Ontario College of Art and Design. By focusing on long views, the building appropriates adjacent surroundings as its own, distracting the viewer from the foreground and giving rise to the illusion of a more generous interior space.

Robbie: I like the bridge.
Alsop: The way it brings in light from the top is quite interesting.
Niven: I like the level of contrasts: black and white, dark and light.

Project Winner

Taking its inspiration from the owners’ collection of glass art, the objective was to design a home that would double as a private art gallery and spa while blurring the boundaries between indoors and out.

Centred on a two-acre site, the two-storey, L-plan residence takes advantage of views of mature trees. Living quarters occupy the middle of the house with other functions in the wings. Essentially one room wide, the interior lacks doors and hallways, enabling expansive views from room to room and to the exterior. A large, sculptural circular staircase links the two floors.
Spanning two floors, the art gallery diffuses light from clerestory windows and skylights to illuminate the art while protecting it from harmful direct rays. The artworks show to advantage against the consistent backdrop of white plaster, French limestone and walnut flooring.

The fitness area, sauna, steam shower, swimming pool and whirlpool are framed by limestone decking that bridges the interior and exterior pools. Inside, water cascades from the fitness mezzanine into the swimming pool. Outside, it falls from one level of fountain into another, bringing tranquil sounds into all areas of the house. Indeed, the sense of water is omnipresent. Organically undulating ceilings above the art gallery and swimming pool hang like heavy drops of liquid.

Alsop: It’s a beautiful building, culminating in a wonderful pool.
Drobot: The juxtaposed, curved ceilings are intriguing to the eye without getting stressful.
Schleeh: The way the daylight falls over the fireplace is a wonderful detail.
Bullock: That shows what this place is all about: great natural lighting on walls for art.
Banse: I like its bluntness. It’s like a sculptural object.

Project Winner

A 19th-century timber-and-masonry warehouse was renovated to create a new, 37,000-square-foot home for the Bensimon Byrne advertising agency and its 140 employees.

The firm has gradually grown into a prominent international player since its inception as a 15-person company in a small downtown loft. In a bid to relive some of that old-time spirit, the design brief called for making the large, multi-level building feel intimate and cohesive rather than large and corporate.

The focal point is the large stepped assembly area within the three-storey space; it hosts weekly town hall meetings. From there, a stair made from salvaged timber and perforated steel leads to the newly created “pitch” room. Large areas of the existing floor space were carved away to create a sequence of double-height spaces and interconnected levels. Two new, large-scaled, open stairs within these openings lead to a perforated metal bridge that offers a dramatic formal entry sequence for clients and guests.

A glass-enclosed core space for offices and meeting rooms incorporates cabling and ductwork in its ceilings and adjacent perforated metal bulkheads. Open, custom workstations, clad in walnut veneer and white spray lacquer, occupy the perimeter of the floor, giving all employees access to natural light and views. These new interventions counterpoint the shell with its raw masonry and sandblasted timber.

Bullock: That big stair reminds me of Rem Koolhaas’s Prada boutique in SoHo.
Niven: The stair does double duty as an amphitheatre.
Robbie: The metal at the stair bottom has guts to it.

Project Winner

Sited in a hayfield with a panoramic view of Ontario’s Beaver Valley, this weekend house is approached by a long driveway that ascends the rolling fields. The family arrives through a skylit carport under a sheltering overhang.
Cement-parged masonry walls extending into the landscape shelter the house from the wind. The woody interior features sapele window frames, a fir floor built out to the pool deck and a fir plywood ceiling that continues outside under the overhang. Taking advantage of the sloping topography, the concrete floor steps down to give additional height to the living room.
Rooms are stratified into linear zones. The living area and all four bedrooms face the view. Secondary service spaces – washrooms, laundry, storage and mechanical rooms – sit behind. The exception is the guest suite, which faces the rear with its own entry onto the driveway. Forced-air heating and cooling supplements the in-floor radiant heating system with ground-source heat exchange. The living areas are spatially continuous, connected by a sun-porch whose glass wall pushes to the edge of the overhanging roof. The small bedrooms have efficient built-in cabinetry. The master bedroom opens onto a terrace facing the distant view of Georgian Bay.

Banse: I like the way the concrete wall slices through the building.
Daoust: The house has an interesting relationship with the landscape.
Drobot: This is quite beautiful.
Bullock: I like the deep overhang and the way the eavestrough avoids the corner as it comes down.

Project Winner

As the initial eatery of Joe Mercuri, the young Montreal chef known for his contemporary cooking, this project had a tight budget. The base-building’s ungainly, 30-inch-square columns, and the very long, windowed wall presented other challenges.

Upon entering, patrons are drawn to the bar. Facing it are several curved high-backed banquettes suitable for a romantic tête-à-tête. Above, a long light box is the first of many elements that focus attention lengthwise across the space. The images featured on the light box can be changed and customized for a particular season, theme or event.

Pink gels cover the overhead fluorescent bulbs.
Making a virtue of necessity, the bulky concrete columns near the circular banquettes were transformed into sculptural objects with the help of concealed lighting shining down on the columns’ amber film-covered glass wrapping. To make the window wall feel warmer and more inviting, long, thin, horizontal slats of wood form a metaphorical Roman shade. Stainless steel panels along the width of the window enclosures continue up and across the ceiling.

At the far end of the restaurant, soft blue light beckons guests into a private glass-enclosed room for wine tastings.

Robbie: I like the illuminated columns. They look like aliens encased in glass.
Alsop: The overall space is quite clean. But you wouldn’t fall in love with anyone in this place.
Drobot: I’m sure it’s more romantic at night.

Project Winner

This 3,500-square-foot house on a Toronto ravine knits together renovations, additions and remnants of the original 1930s dwelling that suffered from a lack of relationship to the ravine, small windows and a rabbit warren of small rooms.

The interior was gutted, except for the Arts and Crafts staircase. New black zinc panels and preserved local Ontario limestone and cedar siding tie the house to the streetscape of early to mid-20th-century styles. The gable roof was removed allowing the masonry box to become a plinth for a top floor addition that hangs down over the front of the house. The massing of this addition was scaled down to respect the neighbouring houses.

The rear addition has 10-foot-high windows to exploit the view. The master bedroom suite on the new third floor also faces the back yard, floating like a tree house amidst the densely wooded ravine. The master bathroom, featuring resin-embedded river stone, cantilevers out over the existing house. Inside, the ground-floor has millwork of walnut, deeply veined marble and blackened steel. Walls open at corners, giving tantalizing glimpses of adjacent rooms.

Banse: That’s cool, the cantilevered kitchen table.
Bullock: Yes, it’s amazing.
Robbie: Great fireplace detailing.
Daoust: There are many wonderful details here.

Project Winner

This 1,500-square-foot menswear boutique in the Toronto suburb of Woodbridge appeals to shoppers of diverse age groups, embodies the Italian client’s Old World notions of customer service, and showcases an innovative, easily reconfigurable custom merchandise display system.

In Johnson Chou’s design concept, the space is a pristine container enclosing four discrete, stainless steel-clad forms with shapes derived from their function. The forms are deployed to generate a sense of tension and enhance the sense of movement throughout the store.

At the entrance, a stainless steel-clad “tube” with a lowered ceiling defines the cash area. Aligned as if extruded from the storefront glazing, the tube initiates an intimately scaled introduction, its depth generating a proscenium effect that focuses and frames the view of the boutique from the street.

A walnut-veneer display wall along the length of the store divides it into unequal halves, the larger for casual wear and the narrower for exclusive labels. Storage racks above the fixturing system are sufficiently commodious that the owner was able to accommodate a downsized storage room, freeing up more floor space for retailing.

By confining merchandise display to this interior partition, the walls were able to remain clean and unadorned. Such a move carries luxury cachet in retailing, where revenue-generating clutter tends to prevail. A rectangular vessel perpendicular to the display wall at the far end of the store contains the fitting rooms and lounge. Chromogenic glass along the fitting rooms is clear when the doors are open and opaque when they are closed. In its opaque mode, the glass doubles as a screen for projecting still images or videos.

Daoust: Nicely done.
Banse: I like the linear quality.
Drobot: I don’t like the blue and orange at the back.
Niven: But it’s those conflicting colours at the back that draw you in. Schleeh: What strikes me is the quality of the detailing.
Bullock: I love that glass surround floating above the metal shirt display cabinets.
Robbie: This is a clever use of a narrow shopping space.

Project Winner

The sales office for the Malibu at Harbourfront condominiums is intended to evoke the sunny sensibility of California’s famed Malibu Beach.
The greatest design challenge was to work within the existing plan and structural and mechanical elements of the former automobile showroom to achieve open sightlines.

The custom-designed maple millwork and furniture features coloured acrylics. Paint colours mingle cool, Pacific-suggestive blues with beige, green and red shades found on rooftops and beachside hills.
Sand and seashells were strategically deployed to heighten the beach feeling. Light maple finishes reinforce the theme.
A reflecting pool by the entryway greets visitors. Its recirculating waters reflect the colour of the lighting, which changes throughout the day in a morning-to-dusk evocation. Suite floor plans printed on translucent stretch material are backlit with vivid colours, lining up along the walls of the main space in an uplifting, banner-like progression. In the “closing” rooms, tinted lighting behind translucent panels conjures up vibrant sixties colour-field art.

Drobot: You don’t often see backlighting used as a themed, focal art object.
Schleeh: I enjoy the punchy, sophisticated colour treatment.

Project Winner

St. Joseph Media, formed from the merger of Multi-Vision Publishing and Key Media, boasts titles such as Toronto Life, Saturday Night and Fashion. It wished to consolidate its 300 staff, scattered among downtown offices, and unify its corporate culture.

Canada’s third-largest magazine publisher now occupies 32,000 square feet on two upper floors of Toronto’s King Richmond Centre, originally a cluster of buildings sharing brick party walls. Suites were connected through scattered openings in the walls, which created a visual sense of compartmentalization.

There were misalignments in floor and ceiling heights. Fenestration, limited mostly to two sides of the perimeter, and the low ceilings, attenuated daylight in the inner area.
The design, by Teeple Architects with Superkül Inc. Architect, links the floors by making a long, double-height cut in the floor plate, creating an internal main street. The reception area anchors the street; a grand stairway connects the floors. Above the cut, a new, full-length skylight floods the offices with natural light.
The existing interior brick was sandblasted, wood floors were sanded and sealed and the heavy timber structure was left exposed to retain the space’s charming loft character. Custom millwork combines high-gloss plastic laminates and zebrawood veneer. Felt appears as a sound-absorbing surface on walls and ceiling canopies and, in laser-cut form, as magazine logos and in signage.

Drobot: This is an inventive example of adaptive reuse. I like the use of materials: not just frosted glass, but a mix of transparent and translucent.
Niven: Look how they balanced different textures instead of covering up all the brick.
Robbie: I know this building. Before the renovation, it was a dog.

Project Winner

For those who have yet to imbibe bubble tea, the beverage is described as a tea-flavoured milkshake or smoothie. A trendy item for years in Asia, its market has grown in North America with the increase in Asian migration.
Tea Shop 168, with over 30 locations in Canada and the U.S., wanted a fresh image to distinguish its franchise from its many competitors. Dialogue 38 obliged by designing diverse applications for a mall kiosk and sit-down destinations in Toronto and Mississauga.

Each variant suits its context: hip and vibrant for downtown Toronto, calmer for prevailingly suburban Mississauga, and playful and interactive for the mall kiosk. Yet each shares a distinctive retro, Swinging Sixties identity, characterized by rounded rectangular forms evoking the futuristic, youth-oriented fashions of French couturier André Courrèges.

Alsop: This is fun. A return to the Sixties.
Daoust: I’m drawn to the detailing of the wood. I like the way they concealed the lighting sources in the Toronto branch.
Schleeh: I love the sculptural quality.

Project Winner

When the Orange Room opened in the hip Guvernment nightclub complex in 1998, the design theme was Cubism meets the Sixties. Its most recent iteration might be dubbed electric fuchsia meets black, for the original citrus colour scheme languishes under recently installed layers of mirrors, mosaic tiles and chrome laminate.

Patrons enter the Orange Room through the entrance tunnel, a black and chrome-clad corridor with orange-fuchsia painted MDF slats. The tunnel culminates in a deejay booth clad in polished chrome laminate, where the turntable-spinner floats above the partying crowd.

The bar is covered in retro mosaics patterned after textiles by Sir Paul Smith, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s favourite fashion designer. The mirrored backbar reflects the antique brass chandelier hanging above the deejay booth. Above the bar, go-go dancers gyrate on a platform concealed behind black velvet drapery. Dance-floor patrons seeking a modicum of seclusion can repair to banquette seating sheltered by a metal canopy with random-sized gaps that give glimpses of the happening scene. A custom-made beaded chandelier illuminates the dance floor with a sunset-pink glow.

Bullock: I’m not sure what’s a solid object in these photos and what’s not, which testifies to the mind-bending properties of the design.
Daoust: Those cut-outs in the enclosed area look like mirrored laminated strips. That’s inventive.
Drobot: Here is an exciting integration of lighting in the space.