Quadrangle Architects’ new studio demonstrates the combined practical and creative design that the architecture and interior design firm provides to its clients. Quadrangle is known for breathing new life into former industrial buildings, creating innovative office environments, and for helping clients to live in healthier, easily accessible spaces. Their new location transforms the seventh floor of a former Postmodern data centre in Toronto’s King West neighbourhood. While this area is predominantly residential, and the building presents a dated, corporate image, the new studio is downtown and close to the highway, and is fully accessible, highly transparent, sustainable, creative and attractive. The project doesn’t stop with Quadrangle’s own space, “We are transforming the area – working with the building owner to attract other creative industries to a building that most people would overlook, giving the building new purpose while also establishing a new, artistic hub,” explains Quadrangle Principal Brian Curtner.
As has been the case at Quadrangle since its formation in 1986, the entire studio is open concept and everyone works from open workstations. Meeting rooms are glazed with views in, out and through the studio, ensuring continuous access to natural light. Windows surround the perimeter of the studio, providing sweeping views of Toronto’s skyline. Natural light is supplemented by a lighting system that uses motion and daylight sensing to adjust light levels. The system can be controlled remotely by smart phones and by each staff member’s VOIP phone and computer, conserving energy and improving lighting quality, particularly for those with low-vision. The design is highly sustainable, including reconstituted elements from the old studio. For example, millwork was refurbished into bright, colourful display cubbies to showcase a changing gallery of models and inspiring objects. Collaborating with Castor Design, Quadrangle created pendant light fixtures in the lunchroom that are finished with old drawings, and a pin-up wall in one of the meeting rooms that is made from bricks of shredded waste paper and fabric samples.
The new studio goes well beyond the accessibility code, while demonstrating that accessibility does not have to look utilitarian. Generous circulation corridors, meeting rooms, furnishings and a fully accessible toilet room blend seamlessly with the overall interior. One navigates the studio by a “runway” that loops around the building’s core, providing easy access to all work and meeting areas. This runway is also a natural tour route, choreographed to demonstrate what Quadrangle does and how they do it. A streetscape of Quadrangle-designed buildings on fully glazed walls does double duty as both a vision strip for code compliance and a branding tool. The design also includes shifts in culture to make the staff more collaborative and sustainable: Individual garbage containers were eliminated, and everyone was asked to eat in the lunchroom rather than at their desks. These changes have transformed how the staff make decisions about waste generation, and how they now interact with each other, fostering a new sense of collaboration.
