gh3

gh3 Wins Design Within Reach Gallery Contest

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See Part I here.

Fabrication of the pad is complete; the sequence below shows the final process of attaching the tubular legs. Installation will take place at the end of May.

A semi-detached heritage home in Toronto’s downtown core, abandoned and dilapidated, was purchased by a young family in the spring of 2008.

This Second Empire home is just one in a series of row houses known as the Barton Cottages. Dating back to the 1900s, they are listed properties under the Heritage Act. After determining that very little of the original building was salvageable, and with specific guidelines surrounding the restoration and preservation of the façade, we decided to take down the three remaining walls.

The main objective is to maintain the exterior façade while rebuilding the rest to reflect a modern, open-concept aesthetic with an acute awareness of sustainability and practicality. The effect is a restoration of traditional value from the outside juxtaposed by a large, modern interior on a modest footprint.

Insulated Concrete Forms offer superior performance when it comes to air infiltration and thermal bridging. It is also an effective sound barrier for such a dense, downtown location. Easy assembly and pouring allowed for this to take place in 2 days.

The roof is covered in EPDM (ethylene propylene diene Monomer), a synthetic white rubber that will reduce the heat island effect. This highly versatile ‘cool roof’ will also provide weather resistance.

The south wall was rebuilt in brick that closely matched the original colour, along with the corbel detail.

Original

Restored

In a sincere attempt to comply with Heritage Preservation, and a dedicated interest in the integrity of the neighborhood, the details on the front façade of the house have been recreated. Much of the work has been done by hand.

From the top of the stairs, three large openings are visible. A 20-foot operable glass wall leads outside from the kitchen, providing a sense of openness and allowing for a seamless transition between indoors and out.

Opposed to the traditional side staircase structure of many homes in this area, the main floor stairs, centrally located in the house and clad in Corian, lead into a light-filled kitchen. The intention is to create a monolithic aesthetic between the first and second floors. Here are some design options we considered.

The wood will run about 1,500 square feet on the first and second floors. We selected samples in the hopes of contrasting the clean, crisp architectural lines of the interior and decided on an engineered, oiled oak with a slightly greyish hue.

gh3’s first built example of a vertical planted form will be completed in the fall of 2011. Installed at the entry level of the Thompson Residences, the aim of the design is to produce a unique, independent structure that distinguishes itself from the architecture of the building.

CNC-milled foam slabs are secured to two columns . The sculptural structure is equipped with a rainwater irrigation system to sustain the sedum and moss plantings.

Set on a black-polished concrete slab with retractable blinds, the pavilion at 550 Wellington is a modern interpretation of a traditional lattice garden structure.

An adjacent south-facing reflecting pool will act as a skating rink in the winter.

The aluminum, tubular, welded frame will be powder-coated black with a flat finish, while an LED lighting system will ensure a bright setting for outdoor dining and various organized events. The pavilion is scheduled for completion in May 2010.

The Photographer’s Studio pad is an outdoor extension of this live/work space set in the Canadian Shield. The platform is constructed from plate aluminum, principle members are 25mm in thickness and 400mm in depth, filled in with a 2-way tubular floor grid, and founded on a tubular column structure. The pad will function as a large-scale outdoor tripod and a social congregating area.

Guarded by low-iron glass with concealed supports, the curvilinear pad, which will be powder blasted and clear coated, is bridged at level with the studio.

Here’s an excerpt from Alex Bozikovik’s story on House 60:

When Granovsky first bought the house with her husband in 2007, it was a red-brick ’50s dwelling with low ceilings and a cut-up floor plan. Charging GH3’s Pat Hanson with a fresh start led to a quick and decisive process (two months of design and nine months of construction) that would transform the building beyond all recognition.

Finn O’Hara, who photographed the cover image, also produced a time-lapse of the photoshoot:

Read the full article here.

House 60, Russell Hill and Trinity College Quadrangle each garnered a 2009 Design Exchange Award: www.designexchange.org/dxa.

gh3 exhibited its work on the Super-Real Forest at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. Here is part of the exhibition text:

Amid the growing interest in ‘greening’ the city, it is important the we not overlook the simplest, most fundamental tools at our disposal. The constituent elements of our environment—soil, water, trees—are among the most basic yet powerful green utilities we can deploy, and their capacity to improve the structure and function of our public spaces is extraordinary. Revitalizing the urban forest should consequently be a primary sustainability strategy for cities.

As a speculative precedent, gh3 designed the Super-Real Forest for the Toronto waterfront. The project introduces bigger, healthier, longer living trees; harnesses rainwater as a valuable resource; and controls storm water runoff to mitigate pollution, flooding and erosion.

The Super-Real Forest also transforms public space from ‘open’ to ‘filled.’ In the City of Toronto, two models for the design of public space prevail: the planned and planted garden, and the unprogrammed open space that is nominally intended for year-round use, but which is in fact abandoned for the coldest two-thirds of the year. The Super-Real Forest accepts that city public spaces are interstitial, occupying voids between office towers, condominiums and public buildings. We propose that these spaces should be filled with varied and interesting programmatic elements that can be used throughout the year, existing in sheltered and hospitable micro-climates created by a newly dense urban forest.