Groundbreaking, All-Women Led Development
Reina offers a ground-breaking value proposition by being the first residential development in Canada — possibly globally — entirely led, designed and engineered by women. This fact alone reorients how we conceive of leadership, authorship and collaboration in the built environment.
Reina proves that when women lead, the design process changes, and so does the outcome. BDP Quadrangle’s architecture and interior design teams evolved the project beyond the typical investor‑driven condo model in favour of a more human one. These are homes shaped by the people who will live in them, not by assumptions about what should sell.
Innovative Process
Reina’s design process began with listening to residents. Early in the project, the team hosted a large-scale community design workshop that brought together more than 175 participants, an unusually robust level of engagement for a private-sector condominium. Future residents, families and youth were invited to identify common frustrations with condo living and to propose ideas for how design could better support everyday life.
Feedback ranged from how to engage multiple generations through amenity spaces to addressing security and vulnerability in areas such as elevators, zig-zagging corridors or late-night walks through parking garages. Accommodating the needs of parents with children by thinking about how families will interact within a unit was another big topic.
Integrated Architecture and Interior Design
Reina’s exterior architecture is defined by gentle curves, layered balconies and a calm, restrained material palette. Warm white brick, champagne-toned detailing and horizontally expressed façades give the building a composed, domestic scale that sits comfortably within its neighbourhood context.
Rather than pursuing visual bravado, the architecture prioritizes approachability and livability. Curved forms soften the building’s massing, while deep balconies extend living spaces outward, reinforcing the relationship between home and city. Ground-level transparency and carefully considered setbacks create moments of connection between residents and the street, contributing positively to the public realm along The Queensway.
At Reina, interiors were not treated as an afterthought or decorative layer. From the earliest stages, interior design was understood as central to the building’s purpose, shaping how residents move through space, interact with one another and experience daily life.
The interior design team translated the soft, curved language of the exterior into warm, inviting spaces rooted in livability. A tactile material palette, gentle forms, and intuitive layouts create an atmosphere that feels more like home than hospitality. Interiors are programmatically designed to build community and reduce domestic friction: sound-buffered music rooms, hobby spaces, bookable party rooms, lending library (full of common tools and bulky items that residents may not wish to store in their units) and stroller parking on each floor anticipate a wide range of resident needs, especially families. The adjacency of a glass-walled gym and playroom directly responds to the caregiving realities of modern families — a configuration rarely, if ever, seen in condominium design.
The design’s innovation lies in its responsiveness with amenities serving multiple age groups simultaneously. This adaptive thinking challenges the “hotel-like” condo paradigm by promoting real, long-term livability. Through its process and product, Reina models how interior design can advocate for equity, reshape community engagement and influence broader industry practices.
Lasting Impact
By giving voice to underrepresented users and professionals, Reina pushes the boundaries of design thinking, demonstrating that inclusive, responsive interiors are not just desirable, but necessary for the future of urban living.
This project is not just novel in its outputs — it is radical in its methodology. By centering underrepresented voices in both the process and profession, Reina challenges industry norms and redefines what makes a space livable, lovable and truly community-first. It is an imaginative and scalable blueprint for inclusive, future-facing interior design.
