Adaptive Reuse & Renovations
Our cities have an abundance of buildings with unrealized potential. Paul Raff Studio Architects combine creativity with strategy to unlock that potential. We make buildings more useful and more desirable. In doing so, the buildings become significantly more valuable to users and owners while enhancing their communities.
Adaptive reuse projects—ones which take existing buildings and adapt them to new uses—are a natural extension of Paul Raff Studio’s focus on sustainability. They minimize carbon emissions, avoid waste, and can be cost-effective. Skillfully handled, they can also benefit from preserving aspects of existing buildings’ character, enhancing their street presence and the users’ experience. By creatively upcycling tired, underperforming buildings, our architectural expertise offers forward-looking, credible and sustainable strategies for property owners, developers, and tenants.
Paul Raff Studio took advantage of these environmental, economic, and aesthetic benefits when we created our firm’s own office space on Toronto’s Bloor Street. In 2012 we acquired and renovated a run-down, environmentally contaminated 12,000ft2 (1,100m2) former industrial building. We now share this high functioning building with a diverse range of commercial tenants including a media company, a research clinic, and a children’s daycare. The project was successful by all accounts and has given all of us a wonderful working environment—bright, lofty, comfortable, and convenient. It has the added value of flexibility to accommodate changing needs going forward.
Our recent transformation of an underperforming building in Toronto into a vibrant children’s daycare centre is another adaptive reuse development success story (see below Case Study: 402 Roncesvalles). The two-storey building had suffered ad hoc additions and low-quality renovations over many previous decades. We rejuvenated its run-down façade, improved its function, flow, and quality of space, increased its leasable area with minimal changes to the existing building volume, and reduced the building’s maintenance needs. Its new configuration supports a range of potential uses including daycare, healthcare, restaurant, retail, and other small businesses.
To help the owners capitalize on the project’s commercial potential, prior to construction we produced marketing plans and renderings to illustrate the possible leasing opportunities. Among others, this attracted a single long-term tenant: a children’s daycare. Working directly with the new tenant, we customized the interiors and fit outs to address the complex regulatory requirements and practical realities of daycare operation.
The daycare quickly reached full capacity. It now provides 140 children and staff with a bright, airy, and safe environment. The daycare operators enjoy a welcoming and functional facility, and the property owners a successful development and sound real estate investment.
For a larger a former industrial waterfront site in Gananoque, Ontario, Paul Raff Studio was commissioned to create a masterplan and design vision which repurposes a cluster of underused buildings totalling 124,000ft2 (11,500m2). We designed it to be a net-zero high value destination with exhibition and conference facilities, artisan studios, retail, and mixed-use office space. Its features include green roofs with walk-out gardens, a green “bio-wall” that enhances indoor air quality, and a solar canopy that collects sunlight from solar panels, provides shade, and channels rainwater collection. The transformative vision exemplifies how embracing environmental responsibility can also create social and economic value.
In addition to these “adaptive reuse” projects, Paul Raff Studio has also found imaginative new ways to integrate new-build developments within the existing urban fabric. For a new midrise luxury condominium development, the municipal Heritage Department mandated preservation of the typical century-old storefront, though previous renovations had damaged it irreparably. Our creative design solution replicated the three-dimensional brick pattern of the old façade. The result is a beautiful diaphanous new facade that merges the traditional building form with a contemporary visual language, and provides abundant daylight and views.
Every property’s unique characteristics require a strategically creative design solution to make the most of their potential. For a non-profit organization that sought to repurpose and expand a beautiful Beaux-Arts style former Post Office into a new media arts centre, Paul Raff Studio proposed a radical design that captures the imagination. The addition is an upside-down version of the Beaux-Arts building: an exact formal replica but made of glass bricks instead of clay, seemingly levitating overhead like a mirage. This new iconic landmark design respects the heritage building design, and supports cultural and commercial vitality by creating an exciting, innovative, and memorable destination.
Case Study
402 Roncesvalles
The adaptive reuse of 402 Roncesvalles Avenue in Toronto demonstrates the various phases of work undertaken to realize new economic vitality for an underperforming property:
Building & Context Assessment
Paul Raff Studio was engaged for a pre-purchase review of the property as part of the client’s due diligence. Once purchased, we thoroughly studied the property from qualitative, functional, and technical perspectives. This included coordinating the environmental testing and report filing legally required for many potential uses. We also studied its urban context: infrastructure, usage patterns, cultural and physical character.
Low Lease Rates
Inefficient Configuration
Poor Aesthetics
Poor Natural Light
Moisture Damage
Poor Thermal Performance
Frequent Maintenance
Optimal Lease Rates
25% Increase in Rentable Area
Flexible Configuration for Tenants
Wheelchair Accessible Storefront
Abundant Natural Light
Energy Efficient
Low Maintenance
Architectural Strategy
In the initial design phase, we explored a full range of potential reconfigurations for the property. We compared options to determine how well they would:
- improve the quality of space for potential users
- maximize usable area
- accommodate a variety of uses (including daycare)
Our optimized Schematic Design centralized the stairs and circulation to improve function and flow, deepened the basement to improve ceiling height, activated the rooftop to be usable, created a new lightwell and windows to massively increase natural light, and made a wheelchair accessible entrance as part of a rejuvenated façade.
By working carefully with the existing building, the design minimized demolition and costly construction resources required to make this property desirable and sustainable.
Marketing Materials
Based on the Architectural Strategy, we prepared written and graphical illustrations to best convey the vision for the property, which successfully attracted numerous potential tenants. During the marketing phase, we prepared customized space layouts for potential tenants to support lease negotiations.
Tenant Plans
A single tenant, Tiny Explorers Academy Daycare & Nursery School, leased the entire building. We worked directly with them to design an optimal interior fit-out, and made minor adjustments to the base building to suit their tenancy.
Approvals
A number of approvals from authorities having jurisdiction were required. We undertook zoning analysis that informed the overall architectural strategy, and successfully obtained several zoning variances. We liaised with various municipal departments as required to obtain Building Permits. We integrated extensive Ministry of Education requirements into the design and prepared drawings for Ministry approval as a day-nursery facility.
Design Development & Construction Documents
Guided by construction efficiency and cost-effectiveness criteria, we advanced the project through the Design Development and Construction Document phase, creating a budgeted, buildable, and sustainable technical resolution to all constructed work.
Our comprehensive construction package included:
- determination of construction assemblies
- selection of all finishes, fixtures and materials
- extensive structural modifications
- mechanical & life-safety upgrades
- relocated building utilities for efficient operations
- dimensional tolerances and alignments
- provision for the installation of an elevator
In addition to performance upgrades throughout, we transformed the façade by restoring the original brickwork and integrating a welcoming modern storefront and entrance canopy that features contemporary-style integrated building signage.
Construction & Project Completion
Carefully planned construction phasing allowed existing tenants to maintain their occupancy terms while base-building renovation work commenced.
We guided the engagement of a suitable contractor and worked with the construction team on budget review and value engineering. During construction we helped provide quality control and ensured a smooth process by performing regular site visits, reviewing shop drawings and samples, and providing instructions to deal with site conditions. We assisted with project close-out procedures, and then clinked champagne glasses on opening day!
The rejuvenated building is bright, airy, energy efficient, safe, and welcoming. It handsomely mixes old and new, creating value for its owners, users, and community.