builders
Construction firms specializing in peerless residences
A DEDICATION TO EXCELLENCE IN DESIGN, MANAGEMENT, AND CONSTRUCTION by Daniel Casciato Launched in 1999, Toronto-based Derek Nicholson Inc. has quietly built a stellar reputation in Ontario’s residential-construction marketplace for its renovations and custom-designed buildings for Canada’s most esteemed architects. As a full-service company, it provides excavation, footings, foundation walls, waterproofing, framing, steel installation, concrete formwork, drywall, and finish-carpentry services for clientele. The company was founded by its namesake, Derek Nicholson, who graduated with an architecture degree from Ryerson University. Prior to gradu-
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luxury home quarterly
MARCH 2011
ation, Nicholson was offered a position with the City of North York (later amalgamated into Toronto) Parks and Recreation Department as an architectural technologist. Nicholson was subsequently promoted to a senior management position with a staff of 25 employees responsible for the design, development, and construction of the city’s 300 parks and 80 buildings. “It was through these responsibilities that I was able to engage and collaborate with the top landscape architectural firms in the city,” he says. “Projects undertaken were widely published and won many national and international awards.”
The Weathering Steel House This private residence, designed by Shim-Sutcliffe Architects (shimsutcliffe.com) and built by Derek Nicholson Inc., features a materially rich, dark, and abstract composition of oxide-red weathering steel. The L-shaped house frames a reconfigured landscape created around shaped, tree-covered mounds and a sweeping meadow. Embedding into the center of the house, the linear, linked reflecting pool and swimming pool form an intermediary zone between the building and its landscape, weaving reflected light, motion, and sound into the heart of the project.
luxuryhomequarterly.com
Photo: Michael Awad
Derek Nicholson Inc.