FA2 House

Located in Toronto and designed by Urbanscape Architects, the FA2 house, is a renovation of a 1960’s side split home, completed in 2017. Designed for a creative, middle-aged couple with adult children, the house is an exercise in accommodating opposite, yet complementary personalities.

Without art on the walls, the art of the FA2 house is in the way it is lived in. Each focal element, the car, rooftop hot tub, the DJ booth doubling as a home office offers interaction, purpose, and personality. Their specific day-to-day use may be prescribed, but they open the space up to an infinite possibility of uses. The activities unfolding here ask for the full mind body and soul, be it in the shop, kitchen, or office. In combination, any number of people can be orchestrated in a dance of movements, sounds, textures, and intellects. The specificity of each activity is what makes the whole composition of both the space and the couple so unique.

The mélange of activities is organized around the central structure, a bright light well connecting the basement to the top floors. The couple remains connected and visible to each other even when participating in varied activities: one could be tuning a car and the other cooking a meal, each master of their respective domains. The husband and wife can bring entirely different aspects of their personalities to a unified whole, facilitated by the house and the way it carefully bridges the gap between dichotomic characters and spaces. The unity extends beyond the couple themselves and into the community. The house and its inhabitants are equally inviting: first time guests are given a tour of the home, friends, neighbours and passerbys voice their admiration. The open structure of the house, both internal and external, extends into how it is used, interpreted, and lived-in by occupant and neighbour.