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Bold graphics and a checkerboard floor feature in a Superette marijuana shop in Toronto, which was created by the brand’s in-house team in collaboration with Canadian designer Emily Robinson. More
Toronto-based StudioAC has used industrial grating to create faceted walls within the interior of luxury cannabis dispensary Edition. More
Toronto designer Paolo Ferrari has created the interiors for Alchemy, a marijuana dispensary that “rejects staid cannabis clichés” with mirrored ceilings and custom-made sniff jars connected to digital display screens. More
Canadian studio Odami has redesigned a 1980s apartment in Toronto with bold and rich features like dark quartzite, walnut and green walls. The project, called St Lawrence, involved renovating an apartment that was previously transformed from a parking garage in the 1980s, with finishes that Odami said had now become dull and outdated.
Odami removed walls to open the kitchen to the skylight-topped dining room
“[The apartment] came to us completely in its original state: popcorn ceiling; an enclosed and very dated kitchen; mirrored walls; and beige carpeted floors,” the local studio said. “With a new owner, the entire unit was in need of an extensive update.”
Odami redesigned the 1400-square-foot (130-square-metre) apartment to make the most of two “very theatrical” elements: views of the Cathedral of St James and five level changes that are created by steps between the rooms.
Dark walnut contrasts with quartzite in the kitchen
“In general we were really looking for materials that were rich and had a lot of depth to them, which would create a sharp contrast with the white walls throughout,” studio co-founder Michael Norman Fohring told Dezeen.
“The change of levels and the views make the space naturally very theatrical, and using dramatic material and colour juxtapositions sort of amplified this.”
A ribbed, black quartzite fireplace features in the living room
A green sunroom, whose decoration references the Cathedral of St James viewed through the window, is one of the standout spaces.
“Pulling in the colours and shapes of the nearby Cathedral of St James, the room is painted completely in green, and fitted with a dramatic pendant,” said Odami.
A black wooden table and chair furnish the space
“With its warmth and depth this space marks a moment of calm and stillness, perched amidst the steady flow of the condo and the hectic city below,” it added.
Walnut engineered hardwood flooring runs throughout the apartment and, aside from the sunroom, all the walls in the condo are painted bright white.
A big window in the sunroom offers views of the Cathedral of St James
In the kitchen, the studio removed a partial wall and existing cabinets so it could be entirely open to the adjoining, skylight-topped dining room. Particle board cabinets in the kitchen are covered with a dark walnut veneer with solid walnut handles, contrasting the Super White natural quartzite.
Odami celebrates “earthly minimalism” at Sara restaurant in Toronto
Walnut steps lead from the kitchen down into the living room. Rich, dark materials continue in the form of a ribbed fireplace made of a dark quartzite, called Diamante Nero, with a matching black wooden table and chair. Wooden logs are stacked in an inlet to the side of the fire.
Steps lead from the living room down to two bedrooms
Two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms flank either side of the living room.
The main bedroom suite was rearranged to include a walk-in wardrobe featuring white wardrobes with black handles. A skylight in the wardrobe floods natural light through a frosted glass wall into the bathroom.
A translucent glass wall brings natural light into an en-suite bathroom
Odami is an architectural, interior, and furniture design studio that Canadian designer Fohring founded in 2017 with Spanish architect Aránzazu González Bernardo.
It has previously completed a restaurant in the city called Sara with curving plaster walls and designed a wood furniture collection made from one dying tree.
Photography is by Kurtis Chen.
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Pale woodwork wrapping white-painted walls forms storage to make more space in this 14-foot-wide house in Toronto, which has been overhauled by local firm StudioAC.The Borden project is the renovation of a Victorian-era, three-storey residence in Annex, a neighbourhood in Downtown Toronto.
Like many other properties in the area the house has a “very slender” width measuring 14 foot (4.2 metres) wide, which is approximately half the length of a London bus.
Focused on the the ground-floor living area and second floor bedroom, StudioAC’s overhaul aimed to emphasise the tall ceilings of the house and give the impression of more space inside.
It painted the walls and ceilings white and added short wood cabinets, which it describes as “contemporary wainscotting”, to highlight the height of the walls.
“With soaring ceiling heights, we wanted to articulate the interior in a way that felt intimate while maintaining an open slender floor plan,” StudioAC explained.
“We utilised a language of wrapping the flooring material up to counter-height to create a nestled feeling throughout the ground floor and the level three bedroom suite.”
In turn, the cabinetry is also used to conceal storage and functions, making more space in the floor. One of the cabinets stretches the floor length of the ground floor to form the base of a built-in fireplace and kitchen counter. Both the chimney and the oven are built out in white volumes on top.
The decor of the space, including wood flooring and furniture, and mirrored walls, complements the simple aesthetic. A white couch is placed at the front beneath a large window covered with translucent, white curtains.
Matching wooden cabinetry continues in the top floor main bedroom, extending around the bed and forming short storage cabinets, and closets.
StudioAC designs Toronto house “disguised as a gallery”
“The third floor bedroom suite also has incredible ceiling height,” said the studio. “So the language of the contemporary wainscotting is taken up to the bedroom to carry the thesis from private to public.”
The woodwork leads towards the en-suite bathroom at the front of the house, whose walls and pitched ceiling is is covered in grey concrete.
“The wood wrapper cradles the bed and weaves around the closet to direct the eye toward the bathing suite: an intimate room clad in concrete tile with a soaring pitched roof,” it added.
StudioAC was founded in 2015 by architects Jennifer Kudlats and designer Andrew Hill, who met while working at KPMB Architects in Toronto.
Other Toronto house renovations by the studio include Candy Loft, Hilton House and Pape Loft that was once a church. In one of its more recent projects it took cues from the work of late American designer Donald Judd to create a home “disguised as a gallery”.
Photography is by Jeremie Warshafsky.
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Canadian architectural practice StudioAC has taken cues from the work of late American designer Donald Judd for fittings inside this Toronto home. Called Shallmar Residence, the two-storey home was renovated by the local studio for a family of five with an impressive collection of Canadian art. It dates back to the 1950s and is located […] More
Canadian firm Ancerl Studio has teamed stark white-painted brickwork walls, weathered wooden beams and black steel windows in this renovated house in Toronto. The Euclid Residence renovation was designed to modernise the early 20th-century property while keeping elements that allude to its history, and also provide ample space for entertaining guests. “The client’s brief was […] More
