Tightening the Budget Turned Their Renovation Into One of the Most Unusual Homes on the Block

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Project Details:

Location: Toronto, Canada

Architect: Atelier RZLBD / @rzlbd_

Footprint: 1,320 square feet

Builder: Maxamin Homes

Photographer: Riley Snelling / @riley_s_photo

From the Architect: "Located in East York, Toronto, Periscope House is a one-story bungalow renovation with a second story added. It was commissioned by a young professional couple with two children who wanted to create a more personalized and sustainable setting for their lives. Coinciding with the pandemic, however, which doubled or even tripled the material costs, the project went through a drastic revision that resulted in removing half of the second floor and relocating childrens’ bedrooms to the ground floor. Yet, by utilizing the removed area as a void, the project has gained a series of double-height spaces on the ground floor, which has bestowed a distinctive exterior form that resembles a periscope or an antique camera with an accordion bellow.

"The location of the existing staircase, which is at the north-central part of the existing house, has remained, arranging the programs. To the front are all the public areas: the foyer, the mudroom, and the kitchen to the north; and a sequence of the sitting room, the living room, and the dining room to the south. To the rear, past the staircase, are all the private zones, such as the bedrooms and the bathrooms, both on the ground floor and the second floor. 

"The new second floor accommodates two major restrictions. First, new zoning bylaws have enforced a greater side setback, so we had to reduce the building width from the south. But we were allowed a greater building length, so we created a cantilevered structure towards the rear yard. To accentuate the building length even further, two bay windows were added, one on the front at the ground-floor level and another on the rear at the second-floor level. Second, the strict construction budget led to the partial construction of the second floor. Rather than not building it at all, however, half of the second floor has been utilized as an extra ceiling height for the ground floor, introducing spaces of three different scales under the stepped ceiling. 

"The extent of the stepped ceiling has been defined to correspond to the programs underneath, which are the kitchen and the dining room (with the highest ceiling), the mud room and the living room, and the foyer and the sitting room (with the lowest ceiling). In contrast to the stepped ceiling, the open-concept floor plan can curate one grand space when needed, dissolving the programmatic divisions. The discrepancy between the width of the existing house and that of the new second floor has been resolved by a linear built-in bench niche, which serves and connects the dining room, the living room, and the sitting room as one continuous, organic space."