Design: Taylor Smyth Architects

Image Credits: Taylor Smyth Architects

This successful conversion from graphic design office into a residence for a bachelor relies heavily on its material composition and play between privacy and natural light. The exterior palette consists of simple raw materials that resonate with the urban environment—black zinc, grey concrete block, stucco, clear anodized aluminum and ipe. Natural light penetrates deep into each room as a result of the strategically placed linear skylights and glass slots. The house is a series of glass courtyards, provoking unique relationships between each of the spaces. 

 

 

On a narrow street of Victorian, working class cottages in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood, Bishop Street Residence is the conversion of a post-industrial building from a graphic design firm to a bachelor’s residence. The design negotiates the tightness and public nature of its urban site, while playing out desirable scenarios of a contemporary, urban retreat.
White walls and ceilings with black feature walls showcases the owner’s extensive collection of furniture, photography, lighting, and sculpture. This gallery-like concept is accentuated by the use of a tinted, hydronically heated concrete floor. In the dining room, a custom wine cooler is encased by floor to ceiling glass that creates illusions of floating wine bottles inside clear plexiglass boxes Blackened steel lines the staircase and continues to the upper hall floor, where a glass floor slot runs directly below one of the linear skylights, drawing more light onto the ground floor.