Architecture: Making a Statement
Originally published in the Globe and Mail. Read the full text here.
Ryan Schott, a marketing executive for a real estate firm, has 10 types of marble in his Summerhill house. In the foyer, there's a dusky serpentine. The stand-alone fireplace is soot-black but with fissure-like streaks of white. And the cladding in the ensuite bathroom is as intricately veined as leaves on a sapling. The house is a stone collector's dream.
Here's what you won't find in it: spindly chairs, tanned leather or rustic finishes. The place evokes a time before Scandinavia conquered the design world. It's opulent, like an uptown hotel. "A lot of people don't know how to apply black to a space," says Mr. Schott, who isn't afraid of sharp contrasts and dark accents.
The original home was a classic Toronto semi-detached: two bay windows topped with a gable. The interiors had cave-like rooms, dull wallpaper and egregious shag carpeting. Mr. Schott hired Toronto's blackLAB architects for a renovation so extensive it's more like an original build. Despite the limited space – the property is less than 17 feet wide – Mr. Schott wanted loft-like ambience. Andrea Kordos, the project lead, welcomed this challenge. "We like it when clients come to us with a specific brief," she says. "It's why we got into custom architecture in the first place."
She preserved the front façade and building envelope, thereby avoiding a run-in with the committee of adjustment. There are worse Toronto bureaucracies: The committee is often receptive to good ideas well justified. But the process is time consuming and expensive, and if you go through it, you might as well invite your NIMBY neighbours to phone in and have their say. They'll do it anyway.
This is an excerpt. Read the full text here.