A Toronto home true to an architectural ideal
Toronto home near Bathurst and Eglinton designed by Nelson Kwong and Neal Prabhu, nkArchitect. The geometry of the building’s streetside façade is forthrightly modernist, with large flat-topped, rectangular volumes that boldly express the two levels within. The arrangement is polite to the less adventuresome family homes up and down the block.James J. Burry
Crafted for a suburban couple intent on moving closer to downtown Toronto – an interior decorator and her husband – the 4,600-square-foot house sits on a spacious lot in a comfortable old neighbourhood not far from the intersection of Bathurst Street and Eglinton Avenue West.James J. Burry
The centrally sited front door of this house is certainly not shy about itself. It stands in a deep gap strongly defined by large volumes on either side, and it is further emphasized by the presence, alongside it, of an abstract sculpture cobbled from metal and wood.James J. Burry
One volume is clad in warm wood, another in Ontario limestone, another in dark stucco. These surface treatments soften the visual impact of the otherwise stolid stacking of the abstract three-dimensional forms.James J. Burry
The handsome glass-framed staircase that descends through a large void to the wide lower level and ascends, past a wall of glass rising above the street, to the upper storey, where the bedrooms are.James J. Burry
James J. Burry
From the doorway, engaging views open up in several directions. To the right, there is a limestone-faced, glassed-in light well plunging down to the basement.James J. Burry
The designers have pre-empted any sense of emptiness or “glass-house” vacuity by quietly modifying the ceiling-heights from place to place. In the dining area, for example, the ceiling soars up to high windows in the treetops. It drops down over the adjacent lounge area, creating an atmosphere of relaxed intimacy.<240>James J. Burry
James J. Burry