Craven Road Cottage / Anya Moryoussef Architect (AMA)

The complete transformation of this unassuming single-story worker’s cottage in Toronto’s historic "Tiny Town" turned a run-down house into a luminous and ethereal pandemic refuge. The client, Laurel Hutchison, is a retired schoolteacher living on a fixed income, with a budget earmarked for basic renovations to rescue her 112-year-old home from disrepair. The result is a 720 sqft, delicately proportioned, light-filled home, built on its original foundations while re-envisioning every other aspect of the worker’s cottage vernacular – a turn-of-the-century housing typology that has almost completely disappeared from the city.