Project Name: Roxborough House

Location: Toronto, Canada

Design Team: gh3*

Total Floor Area: 2,690 ft²

Completion: 2022

Photography: Raymond Chow

Feature:

Project - Situated in Toronto's South Rosedale heritage conservation district, gh3* architects have masterfully transformed an Edwardian home from the 1920s into a contemporary dwelling that bridges historical preservation with minimalist design sensibilities. The Roxborough House renovation navigates the complex challenge of respecting stringent heritage restrictions while fulfilling the client's desire for modernization.

The project's most distinctive feature is its thoughtful rear intervention, where two new brick-clad structures—a two-story addition and a multipurpose garage—create an intimate courtyard garden. The architects employed hand-molded brick for these elements, maintaining visual harmony with the neighborhood's original masonry facades. In a sustainable gesture, reclaimed joists from the existing house were repurposed for the garage construction, establishing a material dialogue between old and new.

Inside, gh3* has reimagined the spatial flow without altering the original program. The ground floor's reorganization revolves around a continuous hallway along the western wall, which incorporates original leaded windows now liberated from their previous contexts to create an abstract composition. These varied openings produce a rhythmic play of daylight throughout the day, animating the interior spaces.

The renovation elevates the minimalist aesthetic through elemental forms—a soapstone kitchen island, an arched ante-room pantry, and a deeply vaulted hallway leading to the principal bedroom. These simple yet powerful geometric interventions unify space and function while creating visual intrigue.

Particularly noteworthy is the rear addition's new family entrance, sheltered by a vaulted structure with strategically placed skylights and windows that blur the boundary between interior and exterior spaces. This thoughtful connection to the courtyard garden reinforces the project's holistic approach to architecture and landscape.

The Roxborough House exemplifies gh3*'s signature design philosophy of abstraction and distillation, creating spaces of material continuity, precise proportions, and carefully calibrated light—all while maintaining a profound respect for Toronto's architectural heritage.

Design Team - Founded in 2006, gh3* has established itself as one of Canada's most innovative architectural design practices, earning peer recognition and numerous prestigious awards for its distinctive approach to the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and landscape. Led by Founding Principal and Creative Director Pat Hanson (BFA, MArch, OAA, AAA, FRAIC), the firm has cultivated a reputation for design integrity across diverse typologies and scales.

The practice's interdisciplinary team, including key leaders Raymond Chow, Elise Shelley, and Joel Di Giacomo, approaches each project with a modernist sensibility toward order and social possibility, while maintaining a strong environmental consciousness. This methodology has resulted in an impressive portfolio spanning intimate residential projects to complex civic infrastructure.

gh3*'s work has garnered international acclaim, including multiple Governor General's Medals for projects such as the Stormwater Facility, Borden Park Natural Swimming Pool, and the Photographers Studio over a Boathouse. The firm's pioneering work in urban water infrastructure earned it recognition as one of the World's Twenty Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company in 2020.

The studio's design philosophy emphasizes the creation of meaningful connections between architecture and landscape within urban contexts. Their projects demonstrate a commitment to transcending purely functional requirements, instead integrating pragmatic needs with poetic expression to create aesthetically impactful environments that enhance everyday experiences.

Through their client-centered approach and environmental responsibility, gh3* continues to produce spatially engaging places that inspire civic pride while advancing the discourse on sustainable design practices in contemporary architecture.