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Project Team: Drew Mandel, Rachel Tameirao, Jowenne Poon, Caroline Howes

Structural: Blackwell Engineering

City: Toronto

Country: Canada

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Text description provided by the architects. The design of this renovation aims to update the house to better reflect the clients and how they live. The clients wanted the house to reinforce the existing fabric of the street by respectfully reinventing the exterior and the interior.

Looking closely at the brick lines relative to the right angle of the new box window in the image of the front façade, the house leans to (or years for) the lake. It is that sense of an ideosychrotic personality that defines this custom home renovation, as opposed to merely emulating a stylish boutique space.

Small moments strive to accommodate and celebrate the personality of the owners, the history of the house, and the process of its re-making: the open shelving for rotating personal objects of affection, the mobile kitchen island on wheels, the exposed steel support brackets at the junction of new and old structure, shop notes on the raw steel custom fireplace surround, old brick piers incorporated into the new entry assembly.

The scope of the project involves a new entry and re-invented façade to open the ground floor plan for light and space, finishing the basement as useable space and to occasionally act as a suite, refinishing the second and third floor bedroom and bathroom, a rear addition on the ground floor allowing for a new space with natural light, and a new connection to the rear yard.