Reservoir Dogs Townhouse Lofts
Hamilton, Ontario
This unusual project is an adaptive reuse of a heritage industrial building into housing in Hamilton's hip and ultra-desirable North End waterfront neighborhood, and part of the legacy of Hamilton's storied industrial and waterfront history. This project has obsessed us as both the architect and developer. We renovated the vacant industrial building into 3 large residential loft-style townhouses.
For us a clear goal has been to inject high calibre architecture and interior design in order to help elevate discussion and expectations about design quality, and help raise the bar aesthetically in a town and neighbourhood belaboured with much banal, non-descript recent housing and infill projects. Hopefully people will see what is possible and then to expect and demand it with their pocketbooks.
The design inspiration was the similarity to the warehouse setting of the Reservoir Dogs movie, and this led us to craft each dwelling loosely around a character, Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink and Mr. White and their personas.
Design Features
Each unit has its own colour scheme, wood species and stone type.
Daylighting features include roof ‘periscopes’ with skylights, and a two storey Den roof clerestory with skylight, as well as a two storey loft / lightwell on No. 11 to grab early morning and late afternoon light in this mid-block urban building.
Long, wide, skylit gallery spaces with much wall space for art, and lit with adjustable LED track lights.
Open ramped gallery to basement in No. 11 with two skylights, custom raw steel and baltic birch plywood railings, with Interface carpet tile floor.
Kitchens have huge floating style custom millwork island and wall cabinets with integral storage pantry, oversized full-extension drawers for storage, under counter microwave shelf, frosted glass doors, natural stone countertops, gooseneck faucets and underhung sinks, recessed soap dispensers, and built-in stacking laundry equipment (Nos. 7 and 9), unique slotted door pull cut-outs as a design motif.
Outdoor shower with fenced enclosure in No. 11 usable all year, accessed by door from the bathroom shower.
Materials And Finishes
Custom colour and finishes schemes for each unit developed by the Architects: the wood species, stone countertops, glass mosaic tiles, paint colours and accent colour walls, kitchen faucet hose colour and all the light fixtures vary to suit the individual character that was the inspiration for the dwelling.
Cork tile floors in Bathrooms for warmth and non-slip surface
French limestone tile floors in Foyers.
Unique light fixtures made by artists in Vancouver, Toronto, Philadelphia, Copenhagen and Spain. Classic industrial pendants designed by famed French architect Le Corbusier in 1954 in all bedrooms.
Unique custom entrance door handles designed by New York architect George Ranalli, inspired by the famed Italian architect Carlos Scarpa.
Unique plumbing fixtures and trim throughout. Gooseneck kitchen faucets with custom coloured hoses by Grohe to match the character colour, bathroom faucets by Philippe Starck for Axor Hansgrohe, toilets by Philippe Starck for Duravit.
Custom exterior signage made by artists in the UK, Poland and the US, and unique door bell buttons.