Duncairn House

145 Duncairn Road, Don Mills, Toronto

This four-bedroom, 2700 square foot house in Canada’s first suburb Don Mills, backs onto one of its lush, Greenway parks. This new two storey residence replaces a 1960’s bungalow. It was built on an extremely modest budget but has a sense of spatial and material luxury from its strategic use of quality materials, daylight, landscaping and view. The young owners were moving from a high-rise condo into the suburbs and wanted an urban loft feeling and to take advantage of the view to this mature landscape surrounding them.

The plan is U-shaped creating a discrete entry from the street through a Japanese inspired landscaped courtyard. This entry is interconnects to an interior double-height atrium crossed by a glass bridge bringing drama and daylight into the house interior and providing all living spaces with daylight and alternate views from four orientations.

Every room benefits from windows fronting at least two orientations and views to either the distant park or the three landscaped spaces framed by the house. Stretching the house across the wide lot allowed for a loft like living/dining and cooking space with an at grade connection to the yard to the south east.