Canadian Interiors July August 2019

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Best ofCa nada The Winners As this year’s Project and Product winners demonstrate, there is no shortage of domestic talent propelling the best design this country has to offer.

By David Lasker / Forward by Peter Sobchak

When Paul Simon wrote the lyrics “I was 21 years when I wrote this song / I’m 22 now, but I won’t be for long / Time hurries on” in his elegiac yet catchy 1966 song Leaves That Are Green, he may well have been predicting the life of Canadian Interiors’ Best of Canada Design Competition, the country’s only design competition to focus on interior design projects and products without regard to size, budget or location. It feels like we just finished celebrating last year’s coming-of-age anniversary when we had to open the doors again for our 22nd iteration.

As always, we welcomed submissions from interior designers, architects, interior architects, decorators, and crafts persons, and once again yielded an impressive crop of entrants.

The two categories of Projects and Products require distinct judging exercises, which were held on separate days, both at the Teknion Toronto Collaboration Hub and with Teknion’s support. A stellar group of designers stepped up to tackle the daunting task of reviewing the submissions and selecting this year’s cream of the crop. For Projects we recruited: Danny SC Tseng, co-founder and architect, Syllable; Valerie Gow, partner, Gow Hastings Architects; George Foussias, senior associate, design director, Quadrangle; and Annie Bergeron, design director and principal, Gensler. On the Products side, three judges put their expertise to work analyzing material from an impressive list of candidates: Lisa Santana, co-founder, UnitFive Design; Deborah Wang, artistic director, DesignTO; and Stefan T. Sybydlo, principal, Bulthaup Toronto Inc.

Peter Sobchak

Ultimately, 33 winners were chosen, which include three Products and 30 Projects representing a cross-Canada spectrum. When it came time to select the Project of the Year, the judges discussed and debated at length until a unanimous choice became clear: Biscotteria Forno Cultura, an artisanal bakery dedicated to pour-over coffee and biscotti in Toronto’s fastpaced Union Station. “This project embodies all aspects of interior design: a defined aesthetic, a delicate treatment of details and the right balance of light, texture and proportion to deliver a clear vision. The result is a well-balanced design statement that does not overpower the artisanal food, which is the main showcase of this retail store,” enthused Foussias. “As interior designers, our work often inhabits quirky architectural spaces. This project represents the simplicity we strive to achieve, creating beauty from the essential,” added Bergeron.

The Best of Canada Awards also continues to celebrate the exceptional work of Canada’s product designers. With the Judges’ Pick, one of the Product winners got the nod for a trip package to attend Maison+Objet Paris as a VIP in January, 2020, thanks to the ongoing generous sponsorship of Maison+Objet. This honour goes to MIZA Architects for their Cross Laminated Table. “As someone who builds with my hands, I gravitated towards this table. I appreciate the technology and craft aspects, and the use of waste lumber,” said Santana. “We were informed of the numerous rounds of experimentation that went into making the legs sturdy enough to support the weight of the tabletop in a piece that is stable, handsome, clean. Simple-looking design takes much work. This is a shining example.”

14 Biscotteria Forno Cultura, Union Station 16 Split Rock 17 Myodetox 18 IMPerfect Fresh Eats 19 Train Car: B Hemmings & Co 20 PurParket booth, IDS 2019 23 THOR Espresso 24 Fresh on Front 25 Quetzal 26 Mister Chen’s 27 Restaurant Jérôme Ferrer: Europea 29 University of British Columbia Aquatic Centre 30 Government of Canada Visitor Welcome Centre 31 Senate of Canada 32 Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics, University of Pennsylvania 33 Wilson School of Design, Kwantlen Polytechnic University 35 Autodesk 36 MAVRIK Corporation 37 Pilot Coffee Roasters 38 Architects’ own office 39 Capcom Games 40 Kinka Family 42 Tesseract House 43 Manitouwabing Lake Residence 44 A Home Away From Home 45 Long Horizontals 46 North Toronto Residence 47 (Re)Edwardian House 48 Junction House Sales Centre 48 Arthur’s Restaurant 49 Moon side table 49 Horizon architectural screen 50 Cross Laminated Table

Projects judges (l to r): Annie Bergeron, George Foussias, Danny SC Tseng, Valerie Gow.

Products judges (l to r): Lisa Santana, Deborah Wang, Stefan T. Sybydlo.

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“

In this minimalist space with a Japanese ambiance, meticulous detailing elevates the simple act of purchasing biscotti into a profound experience.

The story behind this shop truly makes it the quintessential contemporary Canadian interior. — Danny SC Tseng In contrast to the fast pace of Union Station, this small bakery provides a welcome respite that exudes Old World charm. The dark storefront is offset by a large central display made of wood veneer and impeccable bronze detailing, its warmth inviting passersby in. This carefully crafted interior reflects the artisanal baking being showcased. — Valerie Gow

”

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Riley Snelling / Arash Moallemi

Biscotteria Forno Cultura, Union Station

Project of the Year

Toronto

Guido Costantino Projects Toronto

The commute to the nation’s busiest transportation hub got sweeter with the opening of Biscotteria Forno Cultura, the third location of Toronto artisanal bakery café Forno Cultura, in Union Station’s Front Street promenade. Despite the huddled masses passing by the store, this is hardly a mass-market eatery. Indeed, the design mandate seemingly derives from high-end specialty store interiors, where the challenge is to strike a balance between display quantity and quality: show too many articles and the place looks junked-up and down-market.

Biscotteria’s materials palette, comprising just limestone, teak, brass and glass, exemplifies discipline and restraint. This aspect, combined with the simplicity of forms for the custom display hardware, lends a feeling of serenity. These forms include the curved and straight brass-bar support structure for the glass display shelves in the middle of the space; and the super-elegant tall pulls, rolling on tiny wheels on miniature tracks set into the floor, for the drawers along the side wall.

Confounding bakery stereotypes of heaping piles of cookies, cakes and breads, Biscotteria presents its goods as a curated collection of exquisite objects similar to jewellry. “The way baked goods (produced off-site in Forno’s kitchens) are centrally displayed lends the products a museum-like reverence, the dry crumbly cookies seemingly transformed into small hard gems,” says blogTO. Except, museum displays have labels and Biscotteria’s goods do not, adding to the feel of exclusivity. The merchandise includes biscotti, Amaretti, baci di dama and pan forte. Even the coffee is imbued with stately ritual: each pourover takes four minutes, and there’s no sugar, cream or milk. Not for the dashing commuter.

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Photography by Scott Norsworthy

Split Rock Toronto

Kilogram Studio / dbdbdb Toronto

Split Rock is a compact retail store comprising two shimmering rock-like objects on the concourse of Brookfield Place in Toronto’s Financial District. They nestle beneath the escalator to the Santiago Calatrava-designed Allen Lambert Galleria above. The escalator’s imaginary waterfall-like force created the project’s asymmetrical forms. Actually, the shape of the store’s thin shells, of powdercoated diamond-patterned steel mesh, was determined not by metaphoric (or metamorphic) hydraulic and geostatic pressure, but by site conditions. The geometry responds to the challenge of tight adjacency to the escalator and the need for the store to be visible from above and from all directions on the concourse. The split plan addresses the busy traffic patterns of pedestrians through the concourse and takes advantage of the natural light spilling from above. The interstitial space between the shells forms a generous walkway whose skewed orientation opens inviting sightlines to merchandise and staff. Internal lighting gives the shells a translucent, beacon-like quality that reflects off the escalator’s mirror finish.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Riley Snelling

Retail

Myodetox West Hollywood, Calif.

Reflect Architecture Toronto

What the liver and kidneys won’t eliminate, a detoxification cleansing will. Myodetox, a Canadian company founded in 2015, has expanded rapidly across North America. Its branch in the West Hollywood district of Los Angeles was inspired by contemporary retail design rather than the traditional clinic design stereotype of a row of chairs, old magazines and small treatment rooms. Here, the public programs are visible from the street while the open-concept treatment pods repose in the back; a hidden curtain can be pulled around each pod when privacy is required. In keeping with the brand’s corporate identity, the materials palette, including ribbed acoustic felt, slate wall tiles and white-oak herringbone and plank flooring, was chosen to project a feeling of luxury. The aesthetic borrows from technical athletic wear, which translates to the tailored look of the faceted reception desk and the backdrops of greys, browns and black. In a nod to local context, the asymmetrical “X” feature element was inspired by the forms and finish of a surfboard.

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Photography by Revelateur Studio

IMPerfect Fresh Eats Toronto

Syllable Toronto

More than a third of fruits and vegetables destined for the food industry end up in landfills because they are undersized, discoloured or oddly shaped produce. Loblaw’s No Frills stores sell economy packs of this imperfect produce; now a hospitality entrepreneur has seized on the concept. IMPerfect Fresh Eats, on Toronto’s Adelaide Street West, claims to be the first Canadian restaurant to offer imperfect produce. (The menu boasts another first: instead of prices across from food listings, “GF,” “DF” and “V,” for gluten free, dairy free and vegan, appear.) The long, narrow space flows efficiently while offering a sense of calm to those eating in. The seating area evokes al fresco vineyard dining, with programmed undulating light effects playing on flowers and foliage that hangs from a suspended wooden trellis. A linear condiments bar separates the dining area from the high-traffic entry where customers queue to pick up their takeout orders. A chevron pattern applied to the walls, suggestive of roof rafters, sounds a farm-inspired theme.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by dkstudio architects

Train Car: B Hemmings & Co

Retail

Toronto

dkstudio architects Toronto

Last year, upscale luggage and leather goods retailer Betty Hemmings rebranded as B Hemmings & Co and relocated to an impressive new store in Toronto’s Yorkville district. The shop carries a range of exclusive, handmade artisanal brands, such as London’s Globe Trotter, established in 1897, which makes the Queen’s luggage. These luxury goods, like the new store, evoke the Roaring Twenties Art Deco glamour of the golden age of train travel. The main central room, with its vaulted ceiling framed by riveted bronze ribs, is an abstracted update of the interior of the fabled Venice Simplon-Orient-Express; its rear feature wall is made of 480 pressed and molded pieces of luggage leather. Rooms are linked with curved, metal-framed portals highlighted with metal frames like the bulkheads separating compartments on a train car. The façade’s riveted steel girders borrow from the architectural language of grand 19th-century railway terminals. And, say, who’s that dandified short Belgian with the egg-shaped head, twirling his pointy, pomaded moustache, at the men’s wallet bar? Why, it’s Hercule Poirot!

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Scott Norsworthy

PurParket booth, IDS 2019

Exhibit

Toronto

Mason Studio Toronto

“Woodman, spare that tree! Touch not a single bough! In youth it sheltered me, and I’ll protect it now.”

PurParket’s booth for this year’s IDS exemplified a back-to-nature trend, demonstrated by George Pope Morris’s famous poem, which pervaded the show. The booth stimulated the tactile and visual senses with its contrast of rough versus smooth materials, pitting—from a wood-joinery standpoint— fois gras against offal. The rift-cut oak veneer cladding of the wood-flooring manufacturer’s booth makes one ponder how they made those seamlessly smooth radiused edges at the corners of the capsule-shaped floor plate (is their secret sauce a bladder press?). Upon entry from the two access points, guests are greeted by the contrasting textures of a display wall of raw wood logs, and integrated product offerings seemingly pried right out of the tree. In turn, these parallel inner log walls act as stockade fences wrapping an inner sanctum. In this quiet contemplation zone, visitors can sit on tree-stump stools arrayed around a faux campfire. Bring out the s’mores.

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Hospitality

THOR Espresso Toronto

Phaedrus Studio Toronto

A jagged, angular landscape evokes the surreal expressionism of the first horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), while lending a scale-inflating monumentality to diminutive THOR Espresso. Shiny spiky stainless-steel portals delineate the entry to the 750-sq.-ft. coffee shop located inside an industrial brick-and-beam loft building in downtown Toronto. The primary surfaces, clad in matte black acrylic, act as backdrop for the “show”: faceted sculptural forms that fold along datum lines derived from counter, door and beam heights. This progresses through brushed stainless steel; polished stainless steel; and black-tinted, mirrored stainless steel. The subtly varying skins react to changing lighting conditions and visitors’ movements in ways that play with perceptions of light and dark, reflective and matte, and solid and void. The barista station is equipped with under-counter equipment that removes the clutter that often separates barista and customer, and here would detract from the project’s visual impact. The designers specified Faz side chairs by Spanish designer Ramon Esteve for Vondom to continue the fractal-geometry lesson.

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Fresh on Front Toronto

Navigate Design Toronto

Fresh on Front is the newest and largest Toronto outpost in the vegan-friendly fast-casual Fresh eatery chain, with a seating capacity of 100 and, for the first time, a cocktail bar. The décor conveys style on a budget, which suits Fresh’s customers, who seek out its $10 Buffalo cauliflower and $17 phytosalad.

Tongue-in-cheek retro touches take inspiration from mid-century Danish modern, with dining chairs featuring chunky tapering wood-dowel frames. There’s Fifties dinette-suite kitsch in the thin shinytubular-metal-framed seating at the cocktail bar, and the glass-globe lighting suspended as pendants from the pergola and atop the banquettes. The salmon-upholstered chairs, curving pergola frame and the turquoise banquettes come straight out of the Eighties PoMo colour palette. Additional lively details include the long carpet runner with intriguing colour variegations (blue fading to complementary pink) and the jazzy-patterned ceramic tile on the cocktail-bar floor and on the wall with the kitchen pass-through. And nothing says “vegan” like actual vegetation, here evinced in the backlit ferns draping the cocktail-bar shelves and the living-wall mural.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Doublespace Photography

Quetzal

Hospitality

Toronto

Partisans Toronto

In Central America, the quetzal is a large bird with iridescent green plumage. In Toronto, it signifies a high-end Mexican restaurant whose white asymmetrical one-piece wrapper of ceiling and walls evokes the sculptural, cave-like forms of Eero Saarinen’s TWA terminal at JFK. However, the stated inspiration of the narrow (24-ft. wide), low-ceilinged 3,000-sq.-ft. space was more apposite: Oaxacan pottery and the billowing tarps of Mexican market stalls. The wrapper’s curve motif recurs in the flaring sides of the projecting countertops of the cocktail bar and grill fronts, in the back-bar cutaway for stowing glassware and in the rounded corners of the bar top. Projecting ribs in the ceiling conceal the clutter of lighting, loudspeaker and HVAC registers. The last-mentioned items are large enough to provide a curtain-like downwash of cool air that shields diners from the open galley kitchen’s heat, reaching 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, from the clay oven and the blazing grill in what is one of the few North American professional kitchens to be fueled exclusively by wood-burning fire.

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Photography by Jamie Anholt

Mister Chen’s Calgary

FORT Architecture Calgary

In Calgary, Mister Chen’s employs the de rigueur Chinese-restaurant apparatus of red lanterns, Imperial garden lion sculptures and replicas of soldiers from Emperor Qin’s terra cotta army. Then it gets creative with wall segments finished in custom-raked, textured concrete suggesting a faded, weathered old barracks, and abstracted versions of Red Army propaganda posters on the walls. The design of the restaurant and late-night lounge was inspired by the glamour and grit of Shanghai nightlife. These contrasting yin-and-yang opposites include plush velvets and rough plaster mimicking concrete. To eke out the budget for renovating the existing bright, white space, the designers reused the original tile floors and buried existing white marble walls under the faux concrete. A decorative screen adds Asian detailing to the windows; the backlit glass-block bar front and wall recall old store fronts on Shanghai back streets.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Laurent Guerin

Restaurant Jérôme Ferrer: Europea

Hospitality

Montréal

Provencher_Roy Montréal

Montréal-based celebrity chef Jérôme Ferrer’s new multipurpose restaurant Europea comprises a grandiose two-storey fine-dining area with tall arched entry, fluted columns, glassed-in display kitchen and dramatic spiral staircase; double-height wine cellar; a more casual, less-expensive brasserie; a tearoom; and a lunch counter. Among the memorable touches are banquette and bar alcoves faced in dark, heavily veined, in-your-face marble; and carpeting with an oversize floral print pattern inspired by the work of American florist-turned-photographer Ashley Woodson Bailey. While the design credit goes to Provencher_Roy, some of the project’s impact can be attributed to actor, director and producer René Richard Cyr, who has staged shows for Cirque du Soleil, Celine Dion and Montréal Opera. As Chef Ferrer stated in Tourismexpress, “The idea of staging will be a world first and to realize this dream, I immediately thought of René Richard Cyr. The outing to the restaurant will now rise to the rank of a real evening show.”

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Shai Gil and Ema Peter

University of British Columbia Aquatic Centre

Institutional

Vancouver

MJMA / Acton Ostry Architects Toronto / Vancouver

The new University of British Columbia Aquatic Centre serves two user groups: elite athletes in training and competition (UBC sent more swimmers to the 2012 Summer Olympics than anywhere else in Canada); and students and “townies.” A central spine of Y-shaped columns and continuous skylight bisects the LEED-Gold building lengthwise, providing a virtual separation of the two groups’ facilities.

These include a competition pool, a diving well with moveable floor, a warm-water leisure pool, hot tub, multi-purpose rooms and spectator seating. Angular massing, a soaring roof canopy and extensive glazing combine to create a dynamic form that reveals activities taking place within, including swimmers showering in their bathing attire, a consequence of the politically correct but impractical programming of unisex lockers and showers. A more felicitous vignette is the diving-board backed by a wall whose pixelated mixture of white and dark-and-light blue miniature ceramic tiles evokes splashing water.

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Photography by James Brittain

Government of Canada Visitor Welcome Centre Ottawa

IBI Group Architects / Moriyama & Teshima Architects Ottawa

The Visitor Welcome Centre is a two-level underground complex serving as the new entrance to Parliament Hill. Its purpose is to improve security and enhance circulation among buildings on the historic site. A sense of grandeur is evoked through a modern interpretation of vaulted ceiling forms that introduce lightness and verticality within the constraints of restricted underground floor heights. The white plaster vaults, honed Danby marble-clad columns, Adair limestone walls, bright terrazzo flooring, white oak finishes and bronze accents reflect the limited amount of natural light.

Upon entering, visitors enter a cross-vaulted entry hall with security screening facilities.

Visitor spaces are easy to navigate thanks to overlooks and glass walls allowing glimpses into the rooms ahead, floor-to-ceiling windows and bronze filigree screens with views to the concourse level below. The marble columns’ pleated profile reduces their visual weight while accentuating the spring point of the vaults. This language of pleating, relating the parts to the whole, reappears in the chiseled stone frames of the exterior arches, the bronze stair handrails and millwork.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Tom Arban

Institutional

Senate of Canada Ottawa

Diamond Schmitt Architects / KWC Architects Toronto / Ottawa

Ottawa’s former Grand Trunk Station typified the many grand Beaux-Arts-style institutional buildings in the early 20th century inspired by the Roman Baths of Caracalla, with lofty vaulted coffered ceilings rising above thermal windows springing from colonnades of Ionic columns. The grandest was Pennsylvania Station in New York, where they demolished the building; in Ottawa they tore up the tracks. The need to relocate the Senate during the ongoing renovation of Parliament’s Centre Block provided a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone opportunity to renovate the former station, recently a conference centre.

The brief called for restoring the marble floors and faux travertine finishes, and in the 3/4-scale copy of the Great Hall at the Baths of Caracalla and now designated as the lobby, the cast-plaster ceiling and cast-iron windows. New elements include bronze panels framing landscape photos rendered as half-tone images. Maple leaves hand-carved by the Dominion Sculptor of Canada were 3D scanned, machine-carved into doors and used in cast-glass panels. The wood-paneled Chamber incorporates carved wood pilasters of an abstracted pinecone pattern framing heraldic shields.

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Photography by Adrien Williams

Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics, University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia

KPMB Architects Toronto

The University of Pennsylvania’s new Ronald O. Perelman Center brings together UPenn’s political science and economics departments. The project involved the adaptive reuse and expansion of the circa-1925 Art Deco-style West Philadelphia Title and Trust Company building. The 110,000-sq.-ft. project doubles the capacity of the original building. The exterior elevation maintains a clear contrast between the heritage original and new addition. In scale, proportion and detailing, the addition was inspired by the vertical proportions of the bank building, whose façade was restored. The interior spaces, all contemporary, are notable for a monumental three-storey steel and terrazzo stair located in the space between the old and new areas. The Ivy League school’s signature indigo blue is woven throughout the project as an accent colour in a range of intensities, from soft blue-grey in the terrazzo floors, denim in the stained wood walls of the auditorium and vivid indigo along corridors in the upper levels. And, hallelujah: all windows are operable.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Andrew Latreille

Wilson School of Design, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Institutional

Richmond, B.C.

KPMB Architects / Public: Architecture + Communication Toronto / Vancouver

The new Wilson School of Design fosters interdisciplinary communication and collaboration by positioning design studios, labs, open offices and shared collaboration spaces across all five floors.

The interior is organized around a central skylit atrium where oversized glulam beams, evoking the post-and-beam timber frame of old industrial loft buildings (the kind that creative types like to work in), breaks down the scale of the monolithic béton brut building core. At the atrium’s lowest two levels, a wood-trimmed grand concrete staircase with deep treads and risers doubles as bleacher seating that is overlooked by glassed-in study areas on the upper level. Every campus needs a communal space like this, a place that encourages serendipitous tête-à-têtes and student demonstrations. Operable windows bring in fresh air while the atrium acts as an exhaust plenum. The project is on target to achieve LEED Gold certification.

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ISA_full_page_Zen_Cnd.pdf 1 07/11/2019 1:40:25 PM

ISA

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INTERNATIONAL 1 9 7 6 - 2 0 19

ZEN SERIES WWW.HAVASEAT.COM | 1 .800.881 .3928

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Adrien Williams

Office

Autodesk Montréal

ACDF Architecture Montréal

The renovation of Autodesk’s 60,360-sq.-ft. Montréal office called for retrofitting three storeys of an existing building to create a space that better reflected the brand of the maker of leading 3D design, engineering and construction software such as AutoCAD and Revit. Another goal was to convey playfully the joie de vivre that Montréaler’s apparently feel, thanks to their city’s rich cultural, gastronomic and architectural diversity. Mission accomplished, and to a manic degree. The open-office space is remarkable for its sprinkling of giant-scale, brightly coloured geometric objects resembling monstrously enlarged versions of a child’s building blocks. Their fractal or curving forms express the scaling, twisting and stretching operations of the California-based company’s software. These objects act as wayfinding devices and house themed phone booths and meeting rooms, a media library, exhibit spaces and multifunctional event spaces. They also attenuate the reverberant acoustics. Indeed, sound transmission influenced the planning, with loud functions positioned around the central core and quiet ones along the fenestrated perimeter.

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Photography by Dirk Lindert

MAVRIK Corporation Montréal

FOR Design Planning Montréal

In the reception area of MAVRIK, a business consultancy in Montréal, the company’s wordmark stands out in bold sans-serif relief lettering incised into walnut panels as if made with an oversize cattle branding iron. It’s an appropriate detail considering that MAVRIK derives from “maverick,” which in southwest U.S. parlance refers to an unbranded calf or steer; and was the name of a popular TV Western series (1957-62) starring James Garner. Taking those cowboy connotations as their cue, the designers opted, they say, for a “modern ranch” look in the 2,500-sq.-ft. office project, where cactus plants and photos of giant saguaros abound. The materials palette features exposed concrete, tan leather upholstery and lacquered and matte steel, for a suitably upscale and masculine look. Indeed, the same earth-toned sample board and the den-like atmosphere with simple rather than frilly surroundings could serve as a steakhouse.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Scott Norsworthy

Office

Pilot Coffee Roasters Toronto

Williamson Williamson Toronto

The rapid growth of Pilot Coffee Roasters, which boasts six cafes across Toronto, necessitated an enlarged administrative office. Having used every inch of available space in the original facility for production, the only option for accommodating more admin space was to expand upward. An addition was conceived that would literally bridge above the existing facility with a 67-ft.-long steel truss, thereby obviating the need to add columns that could disrupt the already densely programmed production floor below. Thin tension members suspended from secondary beams allow the addition to hang above the existing roof. Borrowing from the industrial language of the original building, the secondary structure and roof enclosure were designed with open-web steel joists and corrugated metal deck. To highlight the structure and the lightness it provides, all visible members (truss, beams, joists and hangers) were painted in Pilot’s corporate-identity yellow, imparting a touch of the Paris Pompidou Centre’s colourcoded mechanical-system gaiety. That tech-y metallic look gives way to warmth in the adjoining executive office and flex space, enclosed by a rift-cut white-oak wall and oak-paneled cupping room.

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Photography by Maris Mezulis

Architects’ own office Toronto

KPMB Architects Toronto

After three decades in the historic Eclipse Whitewear Building in Toronto’s Theatre District, it was time to move. KPMB Architects’s new digs in the Globe and Mail Centre several blocks east along King Street recaptures some of the old quarter’s warm woodiness in its meeting rooms with white oak paneling lining the walls and ceiling. Despite the new location’s lower ceiling height (11’6” vs. 14’), its extra square footage (20,000 vs. 16,000) and improved floor plan makes the new premises feel more open, with communal space for interaction and informal gathering (and views to die for). The minimalist aesthetic that characterizes KPMB’s work shows up here along the lines of Mies’s Barcelona Pavilion, which initiated the Modernist prototype of minimalist forms embellished with extravagant materials (marble, red onyx and travertine). At KPMB, boldly veined black marble wraps servery backsplashes and the long table in the café, where a serpentine LED pendant fixture by Bjarke Ingels Group adds light and levity.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Ema Peter

Office

Capcom Games Burnaby, B.C.

DIALOG

Vancouver

Video game company offices tend to be loud, busy and suggestive of high levels of testosterone, like their products’ users. However, the new 52,000-sq.-ft. Canadian headquarters for Japan-based Capcom looks refined, contemplative and positively Zen-like. Capcom wanted a calm, soothing space that paid homage to its ethnic roots. What emerged is a bright white interior that updates traditional Japanese design elements. Side tables, the reception desk and meeting-room façades resemble hand-folded Origami boxes. Wood-slat ceilings and doors are elegant abstractions of a tatami mat. Sand gardens encircle meeting rooms, metaphorically segregating them from the rest of the office. Travelling over stones to enter them, one ritually banishes everyday thoughts to engage in collaborative creativity. Still, there’s room for the fun that only a video game company can love, such as the atrium with a two-storey-high “digital” koi pond. And, you know you’re not in Cubicle CorporateLand Kansas anymore, Dorothy, when you look up in the community café and see the cartoonlike concept sketches of Capcom’s characters etched into the concrete ceiling.

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Photography by Kerun Ip

Office

Kinka Family Toronto

Dialogue 38 Toronto

Founded in 2009, Kinka Family has evolved into Canada’s largest Japanese hospitality group, with restaurants and cafés in Toronto, Montréal, Tokyo and Seoul. Toronto eateries include previous Best of Canada winners both by Dialogue 38: Kinka Izakaya, a bustling Japanese pub; and Kinton Ramen, the first authentic ramen shop to open here. Each concept is unique in its offerings, ambiance and service style. Kinka’s office combines a modern approach with a nod to traditional Japanese culture.

The bones of the existing building—exposed brick, wood joists and ceiling—remain intact and became an integral part of the design. Raking lighting enhances the wood and brick textures, adding richness and a sense of depth to the space. Custom-designed, long bench-style work desks were created for the bullpen where employees collaborate with their teammates. In the reception area, the palette of marble, stone and large-format tile balanced with white oak exemplifies a trend one sees among this year’s Best of Canada winners: dramatically veined dark marble, or very realistic-looking large-format ceramic tile simulacra, are gaining popularity as a material to highlight a focal point.

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Inscape Inspired by today.

Built for tomorrow.

www.myinscape.com/rockit

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Photography by Ryan Fung

Tesseract House Toronto

Phaedrus Studio Toronto

What’s the angle on the varying angles, light-penetrating carve-outs and broken-down massing of this bungalow renovation in Toronto’s west end? They brighten an otherwise gloomy interior in the 2,080 square feet of above-ground living space on the property’s deep, narrow lot, measuring 25 by 125 feet.

A rooftop skylight with lightwell brings daylight, supplementing the light from windows at the front and rear of the house, down to the kitchen and living room. An opening was punched into the side wall near the rear of the second floor to make room for a rock garden. Windows on its three inner sides brings daylight to the top of the stairs. Corrugated-steel cladding wraps the house’s sides and front, where window embrasures are clad in knotty-grained cedar that evokes formwork for poured concrete. The ground floor is open in plan and elevation, allowing passersby to look through the big frontfacing dining-room window to the backyard. They can see, in the middle of the floor, the 12-foot island sheathed in Brazilian soapstone that anchors the kitchen.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Shai Gil

Manitouwabing Lake Residence

Residential

Township of McKellar, District of Parry Sound, Ont.

MJMA Toronto

The client asked, “Can you design a Canadian cottage where Frank Sinatra would hang out?” The popular crooner‘s mid-century-modern Palm Springs home is long, low and flat-roofed; the interior and exterior feel like a continuous space focused on the piano-shaped swimming pool. Ditto MJMA’s cottage, except that here the focus is a pair of boulders in the central courtyard that mimic chunks of Canadian Shield on the hill overlooking Manitouwabing Lake. These boulders seem jarring and surreal because they beg the question “Are we indoors or out?” The 2,746-sq.-ft. cottage features an expansive terrace and deck that seemingly levitate several inches above the ground. Deep overhangs and large glazed areas on the south and west protect against solar build up in summer and allow for heating gains in winter. North and east faces are opaque, minimally articulated and highly insulated to protect from wind and heat loss. Concrete radiant floor heating contributes to energy conservation, creating heat sinks through the day and night.

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Photography by Kuomin Lee

A Home Away from Home Taipei, Taiwan

X-Line Design Taipei

The mandate for this Taipei apartment renovation, the designer states, was to “eliminate the sense of oppression on the inside” and create a sense of openness within a narrow footprint. Borrowings from the interior designer’s bag of tricks break up the scale of the space and create the illusion of taller ceiling height. In the ensuite, grids recur as a unifying leitmotif: reveals are incised on the walls of the bedroom, the bed canopy and the bathroom exterior. In the living-dining-kitchen area, dark dropped bulkheads alternate with bands of taller white ceiling. These planes are punctuated by pendant lighting, recessed pin lighting and track lighting, creating a rhythm of long horizontals that enliven the space. Co-ordinating and complementary surfacing materials in shimmering and matte finishes add richness and depth to walls and floors. The highlight material, nero marquina marble (or some such), with its characteristic bold contrast of white veins on a black field, imparts a feeling of luxury. A low-slung flue-less island fireplace (actually, a Safretti water-mist fire simulator) adds flickering tongues of faux flame to lighten one’s spirits.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Charles Lanteigne

Residential

Long Horizontals Petite-Rivière-Saint-François, Que.

Thellend Fortin Architectes Montréal

This home perches on a rocky headland overlooking the majestic landscape of the St. Lawrence River estuary. Built on a steep slope and unobtrusive on the street side, the house is completely open to the river, unfolding toward the horizon. Bedroom suites occupy the garden (basement) level. The public spaces, paneled in light wood, are upstairs on the ground level where their varying heights express their different uses. The tall dining room pulls away in its own separate pavilion from the main building. Massive concrete chimneys provide a striking contrast with transparent openings and the lightness of wooden volumes built on an overhang. The living room fascinates for its counterpoint of a regular grid system in the custom metalwork railing that flanks the stairway descending to the garden level and, across the room, the irregular grid of metal uprights that functions as standards supporting shelves recessed in the inner face of the chimney, then continues as fins flanking the opening in the chimney wall for the fireplace.

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Photography by Shai Gil

North Toronto Residence Toronto

Akb Architects Toronto

An infinity pool is a swimming pool where the water flows over one or more edges, producing a visual effect of water with no boundary. Is there a term for the analogous window? In their North Toronto Residence, Akb Architects (a Best of Canada Awards-winning firm formerly known as Atelier Kastelic Buffey) have fun with the concept. In the dining room, sunken living room, media room and bathroom, windows continue above the (dropped) ceiling so that the view out is a full bleed, to use printing parlance when a photo goes beyond the edge of where the page will be trimmed. It’s a familiar-enough approach in prestige office buildings, but innovative in residences. On the upper storey, a skylit atrium of multi-faceted ceiling and wall planes sends light down the central stair. Cedar shake siding on the upper floor exterior frames punched windows. Their contrast with the vast glazed expanses below expresses the difference between the intimate, domestic functions of the upper, bedroom floor and the more extrovert uses of the ground floor.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Revelateur Studio

Residential

(Re)Edwardian House Toronto

Post Architecture Toronto

In this renovation of a century-old rooming house, four existing features were deemed worthy of preservation: the brick shell with its 11-ft.-tall main-floor ceiling; the front door; main floor stairs with its lath-turned balusters marching along like so many shish kebab skewers; and the original mouldings.

On the main floor, hallways and doors were eliminated so that the stair, now painted black, is visible everywhere; large windows were added at the rear to bring in daylight and views of the backyard. The kitchen ekes out its modest square footage in the middle of the main floor with a built-in wall of tall cabinets, corner banquettes and a pantry that opens to reveal a bar and coffee station. The tall white cabinets in the living room are interrupted by a narrow slit of black bookshelves and a square black recessed fireplace that, in context, looks whimsically postage-stamp-sized. Upstairs, clerestory windows above bedroom doors evoke lonely film noir apartment corridors.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Kerun Ip

Marketing

Junction House Sales Centre Toronto

Dialogue 38 Toronto

Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood is so named for the confluence of four railway lines in the area. In the previous century, the Junction hosted Canada’s largest livestock market and meat packer, giving rise to Toronto’s Hogtown moniker. The 5,242-sq.-ft. Junction House Sales Centre, in a brick building that previously housed specialty wall-finish painters Moss & Lam, romanticizes the gentrifying district’s gritty industrial past. Base-building components act as the shell in a black-box theatre or art gallery, only here the objets d’art are a bench made from weathered railroad ties, existing old-timey radiators, and big display panels with condo images. These panels, located near the entry, and the display suite near the back, occupy their own pavilion-like substructures within the big space. Another dramatic gesture is the 32-ft.long white-oak presentation table, accented above by a row of shotgun microphone-skinny pendant luminaires, and below by a segment of the as-found raw concrete floor.

Best ofCa nada Photography by Raymond Chow

Single Detail

Arthur’s Restaurant Toronto

gh3*

Toronto

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Arthur’s Restaurant occupies one of a pair of partial-octagon apsidal projections flanking the entrance to the octagonal George Weston (Loblaw’s) headquarters tower at Yonge and St. Clair in Toronto, which dates from 1975.

Indeed, if a building is octagonal, chances are its architect was Leslie Rebanks, whose eightsided projects include the Fiberglas Canada Research Centre in Sarnia and the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses in Toronto. Viewing his work as sacrosanct and keeping changes to the façade and other architectural features to a minimum, gh3*’s main gesture is an octagonal suspended convex bulkhead or canopy that hovers over parts of the vestibule and main dining room. Deep facets, enlarging as they radiate toward the perimeter, cover the canopy. The detailing, lovely to look at, reduces the intimidating scale of the space and makes the steakhouse feel more intimate.

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Best ofCa nada Photography by Nam Hoang

Product

Moon side table Atelier Sun Toronto

How fitting that Toronto-based Atelier Sun would design a Moon side table. Its design was inspired by the phases of the moon in Chinese culture. On the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the moon is full, its round shape symbolizing family reunion.

The table comprises a circular top and three legs with semicircular cutouts. Depending on the angle of the table’s rotation when viewed straight on, the semicircular cutouts align to form a spherical hollow suggesting a full moon.

As one rotates the table it exhibits waxing and waning crescents, just like the real thing. The eight digits prominently engraved or printed on one leg give the time, day and month of the full moon (pink table) or first quarter moon (blue table) when the table was made. When the number is seen straight on, the table is at full moon. Available in painted MDF, solid wood and quartz.

Photography by Jeff Goodman Studio

Horizon architectural screen Sylvia Lee and Jeff Goodman Studio Toronto

The Horizon architectural screen is a customizable configuration of blown-glass pieces engineered to hang from the ceiling or secured from floor to ceiling. Explaining her design concept, Jeff Goodman Studio executive and creative director Sylvia Lee says, “I imagined looking through the keyhole of a door and seeing the horizon at sunset. I wanted to translate the intensity of colour in that micro experience into a macro expression. We use traditional blown glass as a vehicle to inject unapologetic, intense, beautiful colour into a space. This is about passionate colour and how we can live with glass as an architectural element in our everyday life.” Evoking red blood corpuscles, lentils and M.C. Escher’s flying swans, Horizon is eye candy with a sense of whimsy.

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Sponsored by

Best ofCa nada Photography by Warren Scheske

Product Judges’ Pick

Cross Laminated Table MIZA Architects Vancouver

“

The Cross Laminated Table is materially ambitious, yet spare. The submission demonstrated a commitment to testing and fabrication, combined with a contemporary design sensibility. — Deborah Wang

”

This table takes its name from its material, cross-laminated timber (CLT), a panel made of multiple layers of solid-sawn dimension lumber glued together. Adjacent board layers are crossed or stacked in perpendicular orientation, which adds strength. MIZA Architects’s goal was to make the tabletop appear as thin as structurally possible. Their first thought was simply to attach a set of off-the-shelf legs to a CLT panel because, they say, “CLT is visually interesting on its own: The panel faces appear like parallel butt-jointed boards and its edges display alternating layers of parallel grain and end grain.

However, we felt a table constructed of a singular material was a more conceptually rigorous approach and would achieve the monolithic expression we desired.”

After several design iterations, they settled on a 3’x6’ tabletop with tapered legs cut from the same 1½”-thick CLT panel. The fabrication process began by splitting and planning 2x10 Douglas fir lumber to achieve a consistent half-inch thickness, then aligned and edge-gluing the boards to create the lamination layers. These were then stacked perpendicularly, glued, and compressed in a hydraulic press.

The weight of the top caused concern that the legs were too delicate. Adding steel reinforcements was an obvious but undesirable solution because it would introduce a second material. The solution was to increase the cross-sectional area of the leg at the connection, improving its moment of resistance and making a stronger biscuit joint. The joint’s complexity is concealed; the finished surfaces blend seamlessly once sanded and filled. The bevel edges of the top and legs seem paper-thin when viewed from some angles. The bevel cut also exaggerates the alternating grain pattern along the top edges and the legs. The result is an elegant, materially rigorous and surprisingly slim table that showcases exquisite joinery.

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IDSva

Colours shown: Benjamin Moore’s Jet Black (2120-10) and Limelight (2025-40)

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