There was once a coffee shop. A stone’s throw — and a five-lane road — from the northern shore of Lake Ontario, the Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB) was designed with a public-facing presence. Perpendicular to the main entrance, an extruded cubic volume reaches towards the sidewalk, conveying an inviting civic presence. After the cafeteria’s closure, the room was transformed into an extension of the main gallery via an annual rotation of temporary exhibitions and installations. For 2025, Toronto-based studio SHEEEP Studio has delivered a delightfully hybridized solution, where the rarefied realm of art channels the everyday pleasures of a neighbourhood café.

A fundamentally architectural intervention, SHEEEP’s installation, dubbed Living Room, is combined with a lobby, performance venue and meeting space. There’s also more than a hint of coffee shop. Befitting the room’s multi-hyphenate identity, the modular design comprises a series of mobile — and often stackable — bespoke furnishings, decorated by bright pops of colour and an eclectic collection of books.

Shaped in close collaboration with curators Suzanne Carte, Jasmine Mander and Hannah deJonge, the 50-square-metre Living Room is an exercise in exuberant restraint. While the playfully modular space is colourful and inviting, it also makes creative use of a decidedly spartan kit of parts. “We started with about a $2,000 material budget, which we ended up exceeding, but not by that much,” says SHEEEP founder Reza Nik, who designed the space with Jerry Chen and Nam Hoang. “OSB is basically a low-cost alternative to plywood,” adds Nik. The multi-disciplinary designer credits AGB’s Rollin King, who fabricated the custom wood furnishings with economy and precision.

At the heart of the room, a modular wooden table creates a central gathering space, inviting focused conversations and intimate meetings. To accomodate a wider range of uses, the table comprises four individual modules, which can easily be wheeled apart to create a more open central space. The same applies to the simple furnishings, which can move and stack to create new spatial arrangements. Iterated over several years, SHEEEP’s evolving “Haaaystack” series make a prominent appearance.

SHEEEP’s “Haaaystack” benches are a prominent feature.

The simple industrial-inspired seating utilizes inexpensively sourced corrugated cardboard, OSB and brightly coloured lashing straps to create lightweight yet durable (and easily stackable) benches.

The wall decor subtly spells out the word “sheep” in Persian.

To accomodate a broader range of uses, SHEEEP also introduced a simple but versatile curtain, suspended from a track on the ceiling. “Depending on how you position it, it can frame a quiet reading room, or it can create a small stage for performances or readings,” says Nik, describing how the placement of the track allows the room to be divided to create a small back of house space. Much of the furniture — including a coffee cart topped with a canopy — can also be moved outdoors, animating the plaza that fronts the gallery.

The same Persian spelling of “sheep” makes another appearance atop the cart.

“The AGB wanted to have an opportunity to serve coffee, to honour that history and to relate to the community in a more tangible way,” says Nik. “So we introduced a mobile cart where you can actually serve coffee or lemonade — or even host puppet shows — outdoors. It extends the museum program into the surrounding neighbourhood.”

Living Room remains on display at the AGB’s Incite Gallery until January 25, 2026. The installation is the third in the AGB’s “Living” series, following 2023’s Living Library and last year’s Living Lab. Additional information is available via the AGB website.