Reflect Architecture balances "contemporary art with family life" in Toronto house
Canadian studio Reflect Architecture has renovated a home in Toronto for a new generation of the same family, while incorporating an extensive art collection.
North Drive House was the childhood home of one of the owners. After stints living abroad and in Downtown Toronto, the couple were lured back to the two-acre property for the space to raise their young family.
However, the residence's traditional interiors were not to their taste, so Reflect Architecture principal Trevor Wallace was called in to undertake an extensive renovation.
His approach was to create a deliberate "tension" between the need to display an extensive contemporary art collection – which includes pieces by Robert Mapplethorpe and Erik Madigan Heck – and fulfilling the needs of a family home.
"The idea of living in a gallery was always important to the owners, but the critical distinction is that they didn't want to live in a museum," said Wallace.
"This is a family home above all. The owners have always imagined that their kids would one day look back on living here and think it was pretty cool that they were playing soccer or running around inside what felt like an art gallery."
The team retained the existing layout and circulation while updating the spaces with fresh materials, colours and forms.
Most in line with the gallery-like aesthetic, the living spaces, hallways and corridors feature stark white walls and minimalist detailing such as flush doors and entryways.
At the centre of the home is a staircase designed as if a piece of sculpture itself, comprising layered bannisters, stepped profiles and curvaceous forms.
A similarly playful tactic was applied in the living room, which features a rippling, ribbon-like fireplace designed by Brooklyn-based designer Leyden Lewis.
"We had a lot of fun exploring and playing with the staircase's shapes and orientations," Wallace said. "We wanted it to feel organic and fluid, and that required being playful. That was true for the entire house from start to finish, it was important that we didn't take the whole thing too seriously."
The spareness of these spaces is swapped in the cooking and eating areas, which feature darker, richer colours like the teal dining room.
A knotted light fixture by Lindsey Adelman hangs over the large stone dining table, accompanied by chairs with ochre velvet upholstery.
In the kitchen, tone-on-tone travertine cabinetry and surfaces include a new 15-foot-long (4.5-metre) kitchen island.
An existing gabled skylight overhead was maintained, but its beams were updated with a copper hue to "complement the travertine".
The room is oriented towards a glass wall facing a Japanese maple tree in the garden, under which sits a large dining table by local furniture designer Mary Ratcliffe.
Wallace founded Reflect Architecture in 2016, and the studio's previous work includes a Toronto home renovation with a blue slide as its centrepiece.
Other recently completed residential overhauls in the city include a residence connected by asymmetric brass-lined portals and a house where built-in storage volumes were added.
The photography is by Doublespace Photography.
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