Chocolate Loft / PLANT Architect

Chocolate Loft, PLANT Architect

Project: Chocolate Loft
Architects: PLANT Architect
Team: Lisa Rapoport, Jason van der Burg, Danielle Rosen
General Contractor: Webb & Lashbrook
Cabinetry: Edwards & Wilson
Location: Ontario, Canada
Area: 900 sf
Year 2016
Photos: Steven Evans

Two professors of mathematics who reside an hour’s drive from Toronto wanted to have a flexible pied-à-terre in the city. They purchased a 900 sf loft within a former chocolate factory and asked PLANT to renovate it in a way that would enable them to use the space as either a two-bedroom condominium or a one-bedroom unit with an expanded living area.

Chocolate Loft, PLANT Architect 1

Our solution was to insert a wall that passes through the high-ceilinged unit on a gentle dogleg stretching from the hallway entry to the front of the building. Transitioning from mostly glazed at the street edge to entirely wood veneered closer to the entry, a series of sliding doors in this wall makes it possible to close off the northeast corner of the loft’s cube-like volume when a second bedroom is required, or append this space to the living room when the owners need only one bedroom. Near the entry, the wall also conceals a new bathroom and laundry room.

Loft, interiors, PLANT Architect

In keeping with the owners’ passion for numbers, many aspects of the Chocolate Loft are visual manifestations of mathematical formulas. The pattern CNC-routed into the cherry wood-veneered Baltic Birch plywood panels of the entry niche’ s feature wall depicts nested parabolas; the shifting ratio of translucent glazing to wood veneer on the sliding doors embodies the Fibonacci sequence; and even the tile pattern in the bathroom expresses a mathematical sequence in two dimensions.

PLANT Architect, apartment, Toronto

For tonal and textural consistency, all of the slip-matched veneer of the wall and entry niche was sliced from a single flitch of cherry wood. This project also includes new lighting throughout the loft, a refinished kitchen with new cabinetry and a colourful backsplash, and a new rift-sawn white oak floor.

dining room, Chocolate Loft, PLANT Architect

Chocolate Loft, PLANT Architect 5

Chocolate Loft, PLANT Architect 7

bathroom, PLANT Architect

plan

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