Garden House / LGA Architectural Partners

Architects: LGA Architectural Partners
Area: 2,800 ft²
Year: 2013
Photography: Ben Rahn / A-Frame
Lead Architects: Dean Goodman, Partner-in-Charge
Architects Team: Danny Bartman, Yvonne Popovska, Megan Cassidy
Project Cost: Withheld
Client: Alexandra Palmer
City: Toronto, Ontario
Country: Canada

Garden House is a 2,800-square-foot residence in Toronto designed by LGA Architectural Partners for museum curator Alexandra Palmer, who sought a smaller home after years of living in an Edwardian house in the city’s west end. Wanting to remain in the same neighborhood while simplifying her domestic life, Palmer acquired a compact lot one block from her previous residence and engaged the architects to develop a contemporary house on a modest budget. LGA organized the project as a stacked trapezoidal volume shaped by the dimensions of the narrow site and its relationship to an adjacent laneway. Cedar cladding gives warmth to the front and rear façades, while dark cement board reduces the visual presence of the side elevations. Inside, open-plan spaces are differentiated through changes in level, low partitions, built-in elements, and carefully positioned glazing rather than conventional enclosure. A sunken living room, street-facing breakfast area, integrated storage, rear sliding doors, and an upper-level library and office contribute to a sense of openness. Natural light enters through large windows and a skylight above the open-riser staircase, while color, collected furniture, books, artwork, and programmable LED lighting add character to the predominantly white interior.

Community-based design. For us, that means creating places that cultivate a strong sense of community within, while also connecting it to the broader community beyond. We believe architecture can do more than accommodate people and programs; it can help enable communities to thrive.
Interview with Janna Levitt and Danny Bartman of LGA Architectural Partners

Garden house / lga architectural partners

Garden House begins with Alexandra Palmer’s decision to exchange the scale and accumulated possessions of her longtime Edwardian residence for a more compact way of living. Rather than leaving Toronto’s west end, the museum curator found a small lot only a block from her existing home, allowing the project to become a change in domestic circumstances without requiring a departure from the neighborhood she already knew. Her interest in participating in the creative process of designing a house also positioned the project as an opportunity to reconsider how much space she needed and how that space should function.

Simplicity and practicality formed the basis of LGA Architectural Partners’ response. On the narrow site, the architects developed a neatly stacked trapezoidal volume that uses the available footprint efficiently while benefiting from the openness of the neighboring laneway. The exterior treatment distinguishes between elevations according to their relationship with the surroundings. Cedar clads the front and rear façades, introducing warmth toward the street and backyard, while dark cement board covers the side elevations in an effort to visually “remove” the private residence from the shared laneway.

Inside, the architects relied on spatial definition rather than extensive enclosure to make the house feel larger than its footprint might suggest. The open-concept ground floor is divided through subtle architectural moves that preserve continuity between adjoining areas. A low counter separates the kitchen from the entrance vestibule without creating a full barrier, maintaining visual connections across the interior. Three steps descend from the kitchen level into the sunken living room, and the stairs also function as informal seating. This sectional change establishes the living area as a distinct room while allowing it to remain part of the larger open space. Built-in storage around the living room provides additional seating and reduces the need for freestanding elements, helping to maintain an uncluttered interior.

At the front of the house, the breakfast room is positioned beside a large window facing the street. Its placement gives it the character of an indoor porch, offering Palmer and her family a place to observe neighborhood activity from within the house. A curtain can be drawn when greater privacy is required, allowing the room to alternate between openness to the street and separation from it. The relationship with the exterior continues at the rear of the ground floor, where sliding glass doors open the living room directly to the backyard. The glazing extends views beyond the interior and allows the outdoor space to function as a visual continuation of the room. Together with the open plan and changes in floor level, this connection helps counter the constraints of the narrow lot.

On the second floor, Palmer’s combined library and office occupies a central position within the house. The workspace takes advantage of daylight and views toward mature trees in the backyard, with the desk placed directly in front of a floor-to-ceiling window. The arrangement gives prominence to a room associated with Palmer’s professional and intellectual life while also connecting it closely to the landscape outside. A small stairway leads upward from this level to the bedroom and compact three-piece bathroom. Although these spaces are modest in size, large windows bring substantial natural light into the rooms. The strategy continues the project’s emphasis on using daylight and exterior views to keep comparatively small interiors from feeling constrained.

Natural light is also directed vertically through the center of the house. A skylight positioned above the open-riser staircase introduces daylight from above and allows it to travel downward through the stairwell. This helps illuminate the interior more deeply and reduces the need for artificial lighting in the basement. The interior palette balances Palmer’s interest in color, texture, and pattern with her desire for neutral surfaces that could support concentration and provide a backdrop for books, art, and artifacts. Bright white walls form the dominant setting, while selected areas introduce stronger color. A green accent wall marks the entrance vestibule, and turquoise appears on the inside surfaces of the kitchen cabinets. Lighting provides another expressive layer. Palmer’s partner, a lighting designer, programmed a bank of LED lights along the large white wall beside the staircase. The changing illumination allows the wall, and by extension the house itself, to operate as a surface for shifting displays of colored light.

Palmer also brought furniture from her former residence into Garden House rather than replacing it entirely for the contemporary setting. Vintage pieces therefore sit within the new architecture alongside the more restrained finishes and modern spatial organization. Through this combination, the house brings together old and new, restrained and vivid, practical and playful elements while using careful planning, daylight, storage, and visual connections to create a home that feels more spacious than its compact organization suggests.