| St
George United Church was built in the early 1920s
for a large active group of parishioners. By 2000
the now small congregation decided to relocate to
shared facilities and sell the building. The purchasers
made an unusual commitment to retain the existing
church and to create a development in sympathy with
it. They approached us with this idea in mind.
We designed a 37 residential condominium project
that met this goal. In our work we were committed
to creating a development that would relate both
to the existing building in form and mass, and to
the surrounding neighbourhood. We were also interested
in preserving the significant architectural features
of the existing building and to complement them
in our design of the new structures.
This project was also extremely technically demanding.
Due to by-law restrictions we were compelled to
work entirely within the footprint of the demolished
gymnasium and church school. Parking had to be located
below the existing and proposed structures requiring
substantial underpinning and sectional investigation.
Inserting new steel structure into the existing
building was logistically challenging, as was improving
the performance of the building envelope while preserving
significant architectural features. |
