Description
The Stone Lofts is a small multi unit residential building of 19 luxury units located along Ancaster’s Historic Wilson Street, located just outside edge of the “Village Core”. The site is constrained both by its wedge shape and grade condition of the Eastern portion which falls off dramatically to the rear of the property. Designed to work with the shape of the site, the building maximizes the available workable area of the site through its jogged design along the rear. Basement parking is designed to maximize the available footprint by configuring it along the cross slope of the access ramp.
The design of the building sensitively responds to the residential neighbourhood context massing and materiality. The building is configured to break up the mass into a series of smaller volumes, giving the appearance of three smaller buildings on Wilson Street. Each of the volumes has a pitched roof inspired by the contextual historic typology of buildings in Ancaster’s village core.
CLIENT
Sonoma Homes
LOCATION
Ancaster, ON
SIZE
30,883 sf
STATUS
In Construction
The facades are animated with windows and balconies in all directions. The longer western stretch of the building is broken up to relate to the scale of the adjacent single-family home. The highly visible eastern façade is animated to address approaching pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The pitched roof design and stone materiality are reminiscent of the stone mill and the typology of historical structures within Ancaster village. Historic elements such as stone sills and lintels along with dormer windows are also incorporated into the facades to create a more sensitive connection to the old structures of Ancaster Village.
The Stone Lofts are designed to enhance the pedestrian realm by reinforcing the street edge and supporting multimodal forms of transportation. The proposed building is setback 3 metres from the property line and 7.3 metres from the street. The building’s entrance is on Wilson Street reinforcing a pedestrian, cycling and public transit connection to the street. The project also preserves the wooded open space along the northern portion of the site. The careful design of the building will ensure that it enhances the heritage character of the Village while allowing the introduction of a contemporary language to enrich the built environment.
