The 107 Loft is a renovation inside a live/work loft in the Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood of Vancouver. When the area’s dense forests were cleared in the 1800s, the streets built in their place quickly became a new commercial hub near downtown Vancouver and adjacent to False Creek’s working waterfront. The neighbourhood declined in the 1970s, becoming sparse with auto repair shops, empty lots, and dilapidated housing. Since the mid-1990s, Mt. Pleasant has seen a revival, attracting new housing, technology companies, breweries, and restaurants. This project is inside one of the first buildings that initiated this regrowth.

Both clients are artists. They paint exclusively with palette knives instead of brushes, creating angular art focusing on urban realism. Their artwork, matter-of-fact personalities, and limited budget inspired the design. The awkward angular mezzanine could have been replaced with something more modern and with better proportions, but leaving it in place was more practical. This choice to pragmatically recycle as much of the existing fit-out as possible inspired other detailing decisions, where the angles and textures of the space became its features. A modernized and abstracted crown moulding continuously flows as a datum through every space, separating commonplace insulation, ducts, and pipes from smooth new art walls. 

The project’s private domestic spaces are concealed from the public front-facing studio space so that patrons, collectors, and visitors are unaware the workspace is also the artists’ home. On the main level, a separate flex room and bathroom are hidden behind plentiful cabinets for art supplies. An angled, cost-effective gypsum board pony wall discourages clutter while hiding the mezzanine sleeping area from the studio below. Cost-effective drywall, ordinary fir plywood, plastic laminate millwork, and round plastic column sleeves were combined to make a cohesive whole with an elegance that belies its material modesty.