This semi-detached Victorian house in midtown Toronto was reconfigured for a creative couple and their children. The transformation of the 130-year-old home included adding additional living space on the back and top of the home, improving connections to the outdoors, and updating the interior and rear yard for contemporary living. The traditional front façade remains, while the interior is now a meaningful reflection of the family’s unique personalities, vocations, and shared experiences.

Though less than five meters wide and only 230-square-meters, the home now seems much larger through a strategy of compression and expansion. Narrowed interstitial spaces enclose, creating a feeling of compression, then open to larger spaces with lofty ceilings. Tactility and a sense of craft were foundational in every element of the design, evident in details such as the curved smoothing of right angles and the choice of materials and fixtures. As a professional ceramicist, the client’s connection to sculpture and pottery influenced the flow of the home and was a source of inspiration for the design, resulting in a playful sculpting of elements that establish an organic quality to the home. Underpinned by an aesthetic of fluid lines, the house’s interior elements appear as if they have been sculpted rather than built, the result of combining traditional construction methods with more innovative solutions.

The helical staircase in the centre of the home connecting all four floors is a focal point that expresses the home’s sense of flow. Awash in natural light from the skylight above, the winding balustrade and natural oak treads cast shifting shadows throughout the day. Curvilinear forms are employed throughout – arched openings between rooms incite anticipation as they frame views of what lies beyond, resonating with curved walls, display nooks, the kitchen island and banquette – further enhancing the house’s sculptural sensibility.

In addition to utilizing the latest sustainable systems and materials to promote well-being, large windows and skylights provide abundant light, natural ventilation, and connections to the outdoors while an infloor radiant heating system and high velocity air conditioning provide an efficient way to heat and cool the home.