BATAY-CSORBA ARCHITECTS

Our Designer of the Year scores full points for its density-minded, context-driven designs, taking deeply familiar architectures and reinventing them in new ways

Amid the Victorian mansions of Parkdale – remnants of the neighbourhood’s 19th-century past as an upscale suburb – two modern homes beg pause from passersby. A brise-soleil creates an eye-catching screen and a secret art installation for the public: the shapes of crocodiles, camels and raccoons embedded in the graphic arrangement, visible only at certain times of day.

Scaled to neighbouring houses and matching their red brick exteriors, the four-storey double duplex paradoxically seems to both blend in and stand out. It’s as though someone’s tossed into a twister the visual elements of the street – the

bay-and-gable typology and the muted wood of the elderly elm trees – and combined them into something entirely new.

Those someones are Andrew and Jodi Batay-csorba, founders of an eponymous firm making its mark on Toronto by remixing the city’s most iconic architectures. In 2010, the couple returned from Los Angeles, where they worked under legends Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne; originally, they hail from Thunder Bay and Leamington.

“We wanted to contribute to Canadian architecture – there was a connection for us here,” Andrew says. “But we didn’t grow up with the normative conditions of Toronto, so we started by understanding the unique qualities of its built environment.”

The proof of that investigation is in the pudding. At a new build in the High Park area, the couple created another graphic facade that celebrates the local tradition of ornate masonry often seen in the exterior detailing of Victorian rowhouses. Spare of windows, this monolithic brickwork frontage cuts to an unexpected curved carport. Skylights illuminate the modern interior, where barrel-vaulted ceilings add romance and unify indoor spaces with the exterior.

Drawn to Toronto’s oft-cited “missing middle,” Batay-csorba has continued to dream up exciting models built on the same principles as its Parkdale duplexes. Leaside’s CORE townhouse complex boasts three-bedroom units, master baths, private patios, elegant built-in storage and modern fireplaces, showing just how far 230 square metres can go. And, in place of one Clinton Street home, the firm created a proposal for three innovative duplexes in which six apartments of varying sizes are built around all-season interior courtyards.

With a rich background in collective space, Batay-csorba has undertaken everything from Milky’s caffeinated 28-square-metre interior (born of engineered wood flooring from Relative Space) to a six-storey boutique office building in Liberty Village that reignites a relationship with precast concrete. This year, they’ll contribute to Westbank’s Mirvish Village development at the landmark Honest Ed’s site, undertaking the design of two public markets and invoking the bygone discount centre’s invitation to get lost among curiosities.

Principals Jodi and Andrew Batay-csorba strike a pose at their recently completed High Park House. The vaulted ceiling on the ground floor is illuminated by a 6.7-metre-high skylight. Engineered white oak flooring from Stone Tile.

TOP Batay-csorba’s duplexes face the street with two-storey-tall slat screens made of thermally treated Eastern Canadian pine, a highly durable, rot-resistant and sustainable material. BOTTOM Inside, the play of light and shadow is incredible, and seemingly imitates the forms of the exposed floor joists above. Windows by Tiltco.

TOP A series of sectional plywood profiles or “ribs”form High Park House’s vault, resulting in a curved carport and first-floor interior. The brick technique is an adaptation of the traditional Flemish bond pattern. BOTTOM The rounded kitchen and dining area reaps the benefits of a 6.7-metre-tall skylight. Scavolini kitchen; flooring from Stone Tile.

TOP Designed with families in mind, each townhouse unit has a spacious kitchen and living room with sunlight pouring in from either end and acres of hidden storage. BOTTOM The chiselled-from-stone appearance of CORE Modern Homes’ windows garners the Eglinton East development a lot of looks. But not only does the placement of the inverted bay windows animate the otherwise monolithic structure, it optimizes natural light and ventilation inside the seven townhouses as well.

TOP LEFT The addition was placed atop and beside the original house, filling in space previously occupied by a deck. The back of the addition was treated to a glass facade, and shingles were added to tie the design in with the original structure. MIDDLE Central millwork radiates from a single sizable bulkhead where the original house and addition meet. RIGHT At this Baby Point home, an angular ceiling-height window follows the roof’s pitch.

RIGHT At Milky’s café on Dundas West, Batay-csorba wrapped the floor, walls and ceiling with 1,300 wooden flooring panels (from Relative Space) and interlocking marble segments, making for an immersive experience.