By now, we’re used to the idea of pop stars having eras — reinventing themselves by tweaking their style and introducing elements of different genres as years go by. Adaptive reuse projects are evidence that the same approach can also apply to architecture. Perhaps a structure that was originally designed as a Christian mission hall can be reborn as a synagogue. Later on, someone else might adapt that same building into a school, before a subsequent owner converts it into offices. At least, that’s the particular path taken by the red brick building at 225 Brunswick Ave in Toronto. And now, the property has entered its residential era — divided into seven condo units (four two-storey garden suites and three two-storey penthouses) by Suulin Architects for Kopas Developments (working alongside Oben Build). Impressively, the development and design team have completed this latest transformation while still staying true to the original architectural character.
Sure enough, this latest incarnation of the 115-year-old Harbord Village landmark maintains and refurbishes the four existing exterior walls while supporting new interior construction with fresh underpinning and a reinforced foundation. “We basically built an entirely new building within the same shell,” says Jeff Kopas, who leads Kopas Developments. Architectural acrobatics aside, the even bigger challenge came in the form of red tape. As Kopas explains, an exemption had previously granted a commercial occupancy permit to a specific non-profit, “but the second they were gone, the building became legally unusable.” Kopas spotted an opportunity to adapt it into the type of medium-density “missing middle” housing that would appeal to buyers looking for something half-way between a single-family home and a condo mid-rise. “We came to the City and said, ‘We have this building, it’s a difficult project, but you have to work with us because it’s unusable right now.’”
From there, the next hurdle was shaping renovation plans into something that Toronto’s Heritage Preservation department would sign off on. “We tried about 20 different design iterations and officially, we submitted eight,” says Kopas. Eventually, he says, the heritage team was won over by a design for an addition that honours the building’s original roof by inserting two modest prism-shaped wings on either side of the main pitch. “Once we came up with this simple move to retain the shape of the ridge, they bought it immediately,” says Amy Lin, a principal and co-founder of Suulin. “It still has the same line as the original roof — the primary ridge beam that you see from behind the gable end is still where the ridge beam was before — we just pulled up the two corners,” elaborates Suulin’s Valerie Arthur, who served as the project architect.
“At City Hall, they actually said, ‘We’re really impressed that you figured this out. We thought it was an unusable building,” Kopas remembers. A small group of neighbourhood residents were even more skeptical — going so far as starting a crowdfunding campaign to fight the project at one point — but Kopas says that several have since reached out to express their appreciation for the end result. “Out of maybe 14 who were really opposed to it, I’ve had seven walk up to me and say, ‘I want you to know, I was wrong,’” he says.
It helps that the end result is far from a radical departure from the original starting point — and many of Suulin’s tweaks actually work to better integrate the building into the residential scale of its setting. Apart from the roof-level additions, the designers also set out to better connect the southern elevation to the street. The two rows of windows that had historically defined this side of the building (previously obscured behind overgrown greenery) remain in place, but the lower row has now been adapted into below-grade doorways, accessed via small, sunken patios that were dug out as part of the project’s landscaping. “They give every unit its own access and relationship to the outdoors,” says Arthur. “It’s something that we always prioritize — the extension of interior space to the landscape.” Lin notes that, thanks to the terraced planter boxes that step down to these individual entrances, Suulin was also able to avoid the need for gates or guardrails. “There is still that privacy and separation, but the gradation of the landscaping means there’s not just a solid barrier running between the building and the street,” she says.
Technically, when you step into one of these garden suites, you’re at basement level — but the living room that follows hardly feels subterranean. It helps that there is natural light entering from both directions; two windows opposite the kitchen hood at the other end of the room pull in sun from light wells on the building’s north side. A palette of natural stone and white oak continue the airy ambiance. Upstairs, large windows in the spacious primary bedroom showcase both the towering trees across the street and the hefty breadth of the building’s original structure. “You get the depth of the heritage wall — three layers of brick,” says Lin. “You start to appreciate why retaining a building like this can reduce the carbon footprint of the construction by 50 to 70 per cent.”
When it comes to the three penthouses, two are accessed via separate doorways on the west side of the building that adapt the gendered entrances introduced back when the building was a synagogue; the third is reached by a staircase inside the westernmost of the subterranean southern doorways. Inside, the pitched shape of the building’s new additions gives each of these three units an appropriately cathedral-like feeling. “One of the questions when we were shaping the roof was, ‘How do we keep that sense of double-height space and the light that the building in its original form would have had, but make that more appropriate to a residential scale?’” says Arthur. Tall windows define the southern elevation, while smaller openings are strategically placed throughout the kitchen, bedroom and primary bath to showcase surrounding foliage while protecting the privacy of neighbours. Skylights over the shower and bed add to the overall glow.
While Toronto is home to many other church-to-condo conversions, most of these tend to be much larger in scale. Brunswick Lofts comprises just seven units (ranging from 92 to 145 square metres), and the design team says they were realistic about how much they could reasonably fit: Four of the homes are two-bedroom, while the others are all single bedroom. “Normally, as a developer, you would try to squish in that second unit,” says Kopas. “But we made a conscious choice to focus on making the units more functional. We talked about it like a submarine — if you want to put a bathtub in one unit, it affects all the other components,” Kopas continues. Nevertheless, he and his team managed to fit bathtubs into all the units. “Suulin did a phenomenal job of utilizing the space that we have — and finding that balance of what is actually good for living.”
Ultimately, Kopas feels the development demonstrates the possibilities of missing middle housing — at the luxury end of the market, at least (two of the development’s units are currently on the market, priced at $1.68 and $2.25 million). “I think it’s an interesting look at an underused property and how we can get significantly more housing on this site,” he says. “There wasn’t any housing before, and now there are seven units here, in a form that’s consistent with the adjacent properties and maintains the geometry of the heritage structure — all on the same footprint.” But the difficulty of executing the project also demonstrates why this type of undertaking isn’t more commonplace. “The city has no box for this,” he says. “We’re somewhere between a major house renovation and a commercial funding project, so we had to explain to every single city department what we were doing and why. If I do a post-project lobby, it would be to say, ‘If you guys actually want more ‘missing middle,’ you need to work on this.’” 225 Brunswick Ave has entered its residential era — now it’s time to start planning an encore.
Good Architecture Has Nine Lives. This Toronto Building Proves It
An adaptive reuse project by Suulin Architects reimagines a onetime church as “missing middle” housing.