WARMING HUTS COMPETITION
WINNIPEG, MB
OMAS:WORKS
2018

See enlarged competition entry HERE.

BUNKIE
MULMUR, ON
WORKS OFFICE
ON THE BOARDS

This Work will replace a 550sf cottage. Limited to the existing footprint, the objective is to utilize the rather banal outline of the old building, while lightening the new work such that it dissipates as it recedes from the existing clearing, and opens itself to the ravine and woods behind.

More to come as this Work develops.

Structural Engineer: Kieffer Structural Engineering
General Contractor: JDC Custom Homes

EAST END ADDITION
TORONTO, ON
OMAS:WORKS & WORKS OFFICE
IN CONSTRUCTION

This Work involves opening the second floor of the existing house and adding two small bedrooms to its back. The addition is conceived of as a pair of rectangular volumes that overlap in order to at once appear singular, while providing the reading of the two rooms within. The central space of the second floor is expanded, allowing for the family to pass and gather, with a seating nook nestled over the existing stair. A skylight over the hall, and a small balcony overlooking the floor below provide this relatively modest house vertical spaces not typically associated with this type.

More to come as this Work develops.

Structural Engineer: Kieffer Structural Engineering
General Contractor: Tarazhi’s Restoration Ltd.

SCHOOL, HOUSE USS No. 9
MEAFORD, ON
OMAS:WORKS & WORKS OFFICE
IN CONSTRUCTION

This 1873 Schoolhouse in Meaford, Ontario, is being both restored and renewed.
Its new life will be a cottage that inhabits its heavy stone walls, and also reaches out beyond its shell to a lighter addition to the East.
The interior volume of the existing building reaches from its floor to its ridge nearly 24 feet above. A two-storey volume is being inserted into the West side of this space, which will house the private quarters of the house. The balance of the first floor is raised 24” in order to slightly raise the occupants’ view of the surrounding area, as well as to distinguish the public area of the building. Two existing window openings at the North wall have been joined with a single, fourteen foot wide sliding door.
Two penetrations have been created in the East stone wall to allow passage to the addition, which is clad in charred cedar siding on its exterior, and finished with white oak flooring at its walls and ceiling on the interior. The addition stands on two slender steel columns threaded through the floor and made integral to the room within.

Structural Engineer: Kieffer Structural Engineering
General Contractor: McLean Contracting

QUOGUE BEACH HOUSE
QUOGUE, NY
OMAS:WORKS & WORKS OFFICE
ON THE BOARDS

On the southern fork of Long Island, the Atlantic Ocean laps at the coastal line of dunes.  This Work is the reimagining and reinvention of an existing house shielded by those dunes.  With an interior that is largely intended to remain with its existing organization, the house is at once closed to the road, while simultaneously making its relationship with the sea its primary purpose.

WATER MILL SITE WORKS
WATER MILL, NY
OMAS:WORKS
2018, PHOTOGRAPHS PENDING

The objective with this property, a 60,000sf area of land next to a bay in Long Island, is to provide for a new Garage, a new Pergola at the existing Tennis Court, and to unify the property with a singular effort using the landscape.  Designed in conjunction with Landscape Designer, Joel Loblaw, Inc., the approach to the house is shifted to its western edge, allowing one to travel a portion of its perimeter prior to making the slight descent to the Garage.  The space between the House and the Tennis Court is treated as a Lawn bound by field stone and steel.

The materials and form of the Garage draw from the materials and form of the original house, while making for a clean and crisp contrast.  The interior is exposed, milled Cypress framing while the east wall and clerestory are a cellular polycarbonate.

The Pergola then draws from the white trim of the house, and subsequent white frame of the Garage posts, and creates a white steel frame adjacent to the Tennis Court.

Landscape Designer: Joel Loblaw Inc.
Structural Engineer: Hage Engineering
General Contractor: Frank M. Debono Construction Corp. 

SUMMERHILL
TORONTO, ON
OMAS:WORKS
2017

In the neighbourhood of Summerhill in Toronto is a series of similar houses built in the late 80s.  The intent of this Work is to reconfigure the interior of the house such that its inherent horizontality and verticality are emphasized.  The stair between the first and second floors is reconstructed to slip into the existing three story space.  The stair between the second and third floors is rotated to run perpendicular to the first, creating an independent means of circulation in the house, and offering a greater sense of place at both the second and third floors.  This stair is set partially within the mass of the second floor such that a quarter of the stair is cantilevered over the living room of the first floor.

Arriving on the third floor is a moment of pause, with a lounge created as a loft between the front and back bedrooms and overlooking the spaces below.

The rear of the house is reconstructed in a way that reveals the stark whiteness of the massing of the house within the existing brick shell.

This Work was featured in Designlines.

Interior Designer: Croma Design
Structural Engineer: Blackwell
General Contractor: Derek Nicholson Construction Inc.
General Contractor’s Foreman: Eliot Callahan
Photographer: Scott Norsworthy

AMAGANSETT HOUSE
AMAGANSETT, NY
OMAS:WORKS & WORKS OFFICE
ON THE BOARDS

This house in Amagansett affords the Owner an expanse of East to West space beneath its heavy, singular gable roof.  The intent with this Work is to expand the space of the first floor to reach towards the yard at the rear of the house in a way that brings the Owner to the sunlight at the South.  The Kitchen opens the corner of the volume to the Northeast and breaks the formality of the roof above.  Both moves play on the formality of the gabled roof.

At the Southeast corner of the property is a pergola, at once dug into the ground while simultaneously reaching up to provide a sun shelter.

SAN DIEGO HOUSE
SAN DIEGO, CA
OMAS:WORKS
2017

Located in the Bankers Hill neighborhood of San Diego, this house positions itself as a clean volume of white, reflecting the intensity of the Southern California sun.  At just 1600 sf, the efficiency of the organization is critical.  The house is conceived as an L in plan with a 12 foot tall Living Room occupying the implied void of the L on the first floor - a sort of pavilion within the house.  The result on the second floor is a series of spaces in constant engagement with light.

A large cedar trellis cantilevers to the South providing a place of shade from the high Summer sun, but with cedar blades set an the angle of the Winter solstice, allowing lines of light and shadow to give definition to the surface of the house.

A detached 500 sf companion unit occupies the rear of the property, mimicking the language of the house, and providing a separate dwelling for guests.

Structural Engineer: Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger
General Contractor: Precision Homes Inc.
Photography: Scott Norsworthy

FOLLIES ON THE BAY OF QUINTE
BAY OF QUINTE, ON
OMAS:WORKS & WORKS OFFICE
ON THE BOARDS

The landscape of this property on the Bay of Quinte in Prince Edward County is rife with potential experiences. The charge with this Work was to discover both the potential in procession as well as in arrival.

A Site Plan was developed that looks to the continuity amongst the parts, while the two locations that have received the most attention, the Living Pavilion, and the Dock, are intended to provide places of rest.

Two schemes for the Living Pavilions, and one for the Dock, are shown here.

STATION SIX
CAMBRIDGE, ON
OMAS:WORKS for Thomas Brown Architects
2018

Station Six is the first fire station to be constructed in 45 years in Cambridge, Ontario.  Working with Chris Kubbinga at Thomas Brown Architects, who has years of experience in the design and construction administration of fire stations across Ontario, this Work has been approached with the intent of creating a civic marker in what is an otherwise industrial area on the north edge of the city.  The building is conceived as a brick mass, with a tall glass dayroom disengaging towards the North.

Two brick fin walls create private terraces for the crew, while an aluminum louvre across the glass of the dayroom gives privacy and texture to the facade.  A 12 metre tall steel and precast concrete tower acts as a marker in the neighbourhood, a "6" cut from its face.

Architect: Thomas Brown Architects
General Contractor: Garritano Brothers Ltd

BAT MITZVAH BIMAH
NEW YORK, NY
OMAS:WORKS
2014

A previous client requested we design a Bimah for their daughter’s Bat Mitzvah.

The Bimah holds the Torah in its vertical cabinet, while the table in front is available for speakers. The top surface of the table is made of 612 triangles. When the Bat Mitzvah was complete, each attendee was able to remove a triangle, each inscribed with the date and the daughter’s name. The centre triangles are fixed to the table, revealing the Star of David in the process of removal.

UTAH SUMMIT
EDEN, UT
OMAS:WORKS
2014, UNBUILT

Approached by a previous client, who had purchased the end unit in a yet-to-be-constructed row of ten town houses on Powder Mountain, OMAS:WORKS was asked to create a home away from home where their growing family could spend winters skiing.

As not all the units in the row had yet been bought, we premised our idea on the development of the full row of houses. Conceived as a building with a fractured roof, mimicking a sheet of ice, we looked to metaphors of the snow covered terrain to inform the work. The cracked roofline opens a skylight above. The slatted front facade reflects the density of the Aspen grove behind the site. Contrasting with the continuous fabric of the front facade, the rear glass facade allows internal views to expand outward into the western mountains beyond. 

When the new owners of the adjacent properties turned to the developers, rather than to individual architects, to create their units, we withdrew from the process in order to aid in our client's engagement with the organizers.

EAST END SEMI
TORONTO, ON
OMAS:WORKS
2017

The Semi-detached home is ubiquitous in Toronto.  The renovation and addition to this house is intended to look at the extent to which the house could be transformed into a Semi, Detached.  Formally, the house is at once part of its mirror image, while simultaneously pulling away, creating its own identity.  The overlap of the two is what is interesting to us.

Light is critical in a house such as this.  The stair from the first to second floors is along the party wall, as is common in this typology.  The deviation comes when the stair turns to cross the house as it rises from the second to third floor.  That crossing provides for an opportunity to experience the verticality of the house, with a skylight above, and an opening below, inviting light into the core of the narrow building.

Structural Engineer: Blackwell
General Contractor: Derek Nicholson Construction Inc.
Photographer: Scott Norsworthy

CAMBRIDGE FIRE BOARDROOM
CAMBRIDGE, ON
OMAS:WORKS for Thomas Brown Architects
2014

This room is the Boardroom for the Cambridge Fire Headquarters as well as the backup Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) for the Town of Cambridge.  A single room in the core of an existing building, our strategy turned to one of distinction and resonance with the intent of the Department.  The room is wrapped in soft maple boards, roasted by fire to bring out its rich inner tones.  A roasted maple box projects from the joint between the maple and the angled white ceiling planes. OMAS:WORKS was contracted by, and worked with, good friend and near Fire Chief himself, Chris Kubbinga, at Thomas Brown Architects.

Architect: Thomas Brown Architects
General Contractor: PM Contracting
Photography: Bob Gundu

COSTA RICA HOUSE
MALPAIS, COSTA RICA
OMAS:WORKS & WORKS OFFICE
ON THE BOARDS

Three plantelles, or levelled clearings, step upward towards the Northeast edge of this property near Santa Teresa, Costa Rica. With an unparalleled view towards the Pacific Ocean to the Southwest, and a drop of 36 metres over the depth of the site, the Idea with this house is to create a light layering of vertical and slightly pitched horizontal surfaces that enclose singular spaces of use - Living, Dining, Kitchen - at the top of the property, while a long singular path emerges from the house en route past each isolated sleeping room, and to the pool below. Broken from the house by this same line is the Master Suite, which rises at the Northeast corner, engaging with an existing tree that’s survived the clearing efforts, and making for an intimate room in which to write.

The initial stages of this Work are to construct independent casitas, or cabins, nestled into the jungle of the surrounding area of the property.

LAND HOUSE
MEAFORD, ONTARIO
OMAS:WORKS
2014

A year round cottage minutes from Georgian Bay in Meaford, Ontario, this house derives its form and space from the simplicity of a traditional gabled dogtrot, a typology familiar in the southern US, but less so in northern climates.  With the sleeping areas to one side of the breezeway, and the living to the other, the 16foot square opening in the centre of the house provides the Owner with an outdoor living room that keeps them intimately engaged in their environment.

The house sits on the brow of a clearing adjacent to wetlands and a winding ravine.  With an interior entirely of plywood and white oak flooring, it is a spare wooden container in the Ontario woods.

The exterior of the house is horizontal untreated tongue and groove cedar boards left to weather to a silver grey.  The roof is corrugated steel.  Connecting the house to the landscape, the earth slopes upwards, passing through the breezeway at its centre.

This Work was featured in Dwell, Mountain Life, and in the book, Off the Grid, by Dominic Bradbury.

Landscape Designer: Joel Loblaw, Inc.
Structural Engineer: Blackwell
General Contractor: Clancy Builders Ltd.
Photography: Studio Shai Gil

DARK HOUSE
THUNDER BAY, ON
OMAS:WORKS
2013

Built on a modest infill lot in downtown Thunder Bay, this house makes a simple comment on its context.  The iconic gabled form mimics its neighbours in silhouette.  Its dark palette is a counterpart to the inevitable snow.  Within the small footprint of the house, the stair is used as a device by which to vary the space, providing perspectives through the house, and a grandeur of verticality unexpected in a building of this size.  Limited space, here, is an asset.

This Work was featured in The WallEye.

General Contractor: Wagenaar Carpentry Ltd.
Photography: Scott Norsworthy

POP TOP HOUSE ADDITION
TORONTO, ON
OMAS:WORKS
2012, UNBUILT

In Toronto’s East End is a house shared by two families. One family occupies the first floor and the front half of the second, while another family inhabits the back half of the second floor and all of the third. With the need to expand their space, a stair is to be constructed between the third floor and this singular room popping up from the attic. A gable roof is rotated to span the ridge from corner to corner and give the popup a sense of space that pushes up and out at its street side corner. A polycarbonate band brings a continuous sense of light and openness into the small room.

FIFTH AVENUE APARTMENT
NEW YORK, NY
OMAS:WORKS
2011, UNBUILT

The intentions behind the renovation of this apartment were to bring a distinct sense of luxury in finishes, while accommodating the need to balance the openness of the Kitchen.

Marble, rich woods, felt, and plaster are brought together in a means that deliberately harkens back to the days of Adolf Loos and Mies van der Rohe.

Renderings: Monte Antrim

THROUGH PENTHOUSE
NEW YORK, NY
OMAS:WORKS
2013

The top two floors and a portion of the roof of this 18 story building in Manhattan’s Upper East Side were joined to form a single unit.  In exploring the vertical connection between the two, perpendicular planes made of wood, plaster and glass slip through openings in the floor, giving visual vertical connection to what is typically only a horizontal relationship.  Volumes of space straddle the two levels, creating both interior skylights and vitrines, connecting the inhabitants to their entire home.

This Work was featured in International Architecture & Design, and received a 2017 Special Mention in the Architizer Awards.

Lighting Designer: Richard J. Shaver Architectural Lighting
Structural Engineer (Building): DeSimone Consulting Engineers
Structural Engineer (Glass Stair Enclosure): Eckersley O'Callaghan & Partners
General Contractor: J. Balaz & Associates, Ltd.
Photography: Ty Cole

CHELSEA LOFT
NEW YORK, NY
OMAS:WORKS
2012

An art collector purchased this apartment in an old Life Saver factory and asked that we rid it of its staid interior renovation and reinvigorate the space with a materiality that points to the age of its former life.  Our work begins by opening the primary space as a gallery for the owner’s art collection.  The Family Room is surrounded in vertical roasted poplar boards and an identical ceiling that bends up and fans out into the Gallery.  A new Kitchen of concrete, white lacquer, back-painted glass and roasted poplar greets visitors across from the entrance to the apartment.

Interiors: Jarlath Mellett
Construction Manager: SMI Construction Management, Inc.
Photography: Richard Powers

SCOOTER HOUSE I
TORONTO, ON
OMAS:WORKS
2011

This little shed was built to provide the Owner with storage for his seemingly constant turnover of Vespa scooters.  A DIY repair shop, the drop down door doubles as a work surface.  The materiality and shape of the shed is a mirror of the existing Kitchen extension of the house.  With no electricity brought to the shed, the roof is held off the perimeter walls by a clerestory of polycarbonate, an inexpensive but beautiful material offering an invitation to the light.

This Work was featured in Canadian Architect.

General Contractor: Owner

GRAMERCY LOFT
NEW YORK, NY
OMAS:WORKS
2011

Once a brewery, this building underwent a conversion years ago.  What remained was the skeleton of a building which we used as a point of departure for this Work.
Employing a simple palette of steel, white oak, plaster and stone, the insertion into this loft is intended to move lightly in and around the existing context.

Construction Manager: SMI Construction Management, Inc.
Photography: Andrew French

CITY CARRIAGE HOUSE
NEW YORK, NY
OMAS:WORKS
2009

Using materials to compliment the turn-of-the-century structure, this project renovates and restores this 6600 square foot 1903 Carriage House.

We reinvented the existing spaces with a language speaking to our time and the family’s lifestyle. The Owners, avid wine collectors, helped shape and inspire this selection. White Oak reclaimed from sherry casks was used to create the Kitchen doors and Family Room desk. Blackened steel was used at the entry doors and suspended stair, evoking the history of the original hay lofts and industrial mechanics. The existing opening in the rear wall was expanded and framed with steel and glass to allow more daylight into the family’s everyday space. The existing wood floors throughout were sanded, rubbed with white lye and sealed with what is typically a stone sealer. In the Kitchen and Family room, new radiant heated concrete floors were poured and polished.  The walls are a rough, white plaster while the ceilings are smooth and reflective Venetian plaster.

The upper floors carry this aesthetic through but with a softer hand. Bathrooms are tiled in white statuary marble while the bedrooms received muted tones. The top floor holds a glass box gym at its center, allowing daylight from the skylight to traverse the floor, diffusing the light within the upper landing gallery and library foyer.

Interiors: Nathan Egan Interiors
Construction Manager: SMI Construction Management, Inc.
Photography: Kathryn Kalajian

PLACE FOR TRACE
OMAS:WORKS
2005

Rolls of trace remain ubiquitous on Architects’ desks. They rarely have a place to live. Place for Trace was created for that purpose.

Place for Trace was fabricated and sold from 2005 through 2009 through Merchant 4 and Ghostly International, and was featured on numerous blogs and design posts, as well as in Monocle and Residential Architect magazines.

Fabrication: Anthracite Mobilier, Montreal QC
Photography: Merchant4