Designed for a designer

Designers often take inspiration from eccentric and personal curios. Their studios are regularly cluttered with found objects and captured images –random muses that trigger inspiration. When we first met to discuss creating a new city home for a thoughtful young designer, we expected a vast collection of beautiful, but disconnected materials and memories. Instead we were handed a carefully curated scrapbook of wonderful images.

The site was remarkably ordinary, a modest rectangular lot supporting one of many identical pre-war bungalows. But the scrapbook promised much more. We set about planning to double the bungalow, adding an understated side entry, open to a centre hall stair leading up to a new second floor.

We worked together. Little decisions mattered. Transparency and volume were essential. We shared a passion for black industrial sash that suited multiple door and window arrangements. We debated the benefits of using soft curved corners at the walls. We chose door and baseboard trim that was better scaled to the generous ceiling heights. We made mock-ups. We painted, and observed the surfaces at different times of the day. Then we re-painted, and (at least once) re-painted again.

There’s a William Morris-like appreciation for modesty, design simplicity and craft revealed throughout this romantic little house.