Project Category: Commercial

The 23,000-sf office space for Dart Real Estate, a company that manages over 800,000 sf of office, retail, and food and beverage space in Grand Cayman, required a vital and flexible design that meets the company’s functional needs and expresses their energetic ethos.

The new two-storey headquarters is located in one of Dart’s mixed-use buildings, which is part of a larger development built by their parent company, Dart Investment. The program, which responds to their evolving needs as a growing business, called for flexible workstations, offices, breakout and meeting rooms, as well as a 2,000-sf welcome centre and event space to showcase real-estate opportunities through visual and digital displays. 

Inspired by Caribbean vernaculars, the welcome centre features an open staircase, an aquarium, and a thin-sheet waterfall rushing over a coral stone wall. The light-coloured floors and wood finishing consist of finely detailed textures. Using rooftop cameras, the tenant shows real-time projections of Dart Investment projects, including the development of a new town called Camana Bay.

Located at the base of a new high-rise condominium at Yonge and Eglinton, Central Dental deploys deliberate curves to evoke what dentists see when they peer into a patient’s mouth.

We designed a curvaceous desk for the reception area and overlapping curved walls to shape the small waiting room and create a sense of greater openness. Walnut finishes foster a warm and comfortable atmosphere. We used clear and sandblasted glass extensively throughout the office and for the consult room and operatory doors to bring light into the plan and forge both visual connections and privacy. The treatment rooms feature chair-side monitors, which function as digital displays for radiographs, intra-oral cameras, and televisions. 

Functionality, efficiency, and patient comfort are key considerations when designing a dental office and need to be balanced with an adherence to regulatory and technical standards. The key programmatic zones include reception and waiting areas, consultation rooms, operatories, sterilization areas, and staff support spaces. We designed the operatories with ergonomics in mind to accommodate dental chairs, cabinetry, and equipment, ensuring sufficient clearance for staff to work comfortably. The overall layout optimizes workflow, ensuring seamless circulation for both staff and patients as well as sufficient room for moving equipment.

The top floor of an old industrial building on College Street in Toronto’s Little Italy housed Bortolotto’s design studio from 2007 to 2018. Designed as both a workplace and a showcase of our practice, the space was created to foster collaboration and innovation. Natural light streamed in through large perimeter windows, illuminating a bright open studio where custom-designed L-shaped workstations supported teamwork and interaction. The rough, textured shell of the existing building provided a dramatic backdrop for the refined, minimalist interventions, balancing old and new in a way that expressed the firm’s design ethos.
 
Within the open environment, translucent floating partitions, sandblasted glass and film were used to subtly separate zones while maintaining visual connectivity A sequence of tall partitions, each integrated with vertical lighting fixtures and capped by custom black steel shelving fabricated by Prototype Design Lab, defines a narrow alleyway within the studio. Along this corridor, a continuous work surface provides space for a design library of architecture books and magazines, a technical resource area, and a casual lunch space. A restrained palette of white and charcoal, paired with simple detailing and a strong emphasis on ergonomics, underscored the firm’s identity while creating an efficient and comfortable workplace. The inviting entrance offered clients a striking first impression, setting the tone for a flexible, collaborative studio that exemplified our commitment to design excellence.

Located in the corner suite of an existing office building, Berco & DeLuca Orthodontics serves 10 patients at a time in a new layout that enhances flow, efficiency, and natural light. 

The reception, waiting room, and treatment bay are all positioned along the perimeter, adjacent to exterior windows, with two enclosed consultation offices strategically placed between these spaces. This layout ensures a visual and acoustic barrier between the spaces, enhancing privacy and comfort for patients and staff alike.

We located the sterilization equipment, X-ray area, and a semi-private examination room apart from the treatment bay, with a glazed partition serving as a partial enclosure. This feature clearly distinguishes the areas where patients and parents can move freely from those requiring a staff escort, enhancing efficiency and organization within the office layout. The sterilization area, while strictly for staff use, is also treated in this way to make patients and parents aware of the importance of cleanliness and sterilization.

The lighting scheme in the treatment bay incorporates task lighting above each chair that is supplemented by ambient lighting, complementing the abundant natural light in the space.

For Lakeshore Dental, our first collaboration with the dental outfit, the goal was to design a “non-clinical aesthetic” and change people’s perceptions of what a dentist’s office can look like. Using warm materials and colours, and capitalizing on the expansive glazing, Lakeshore I strives to turn a trip to the dentist into a warm and positive experience.

To tackle challenges related to spatial constraints, including prescribed distances from X-ray machines, health and safety requirements related to lead and sterilization, and circulation pathways for both patients and staff, we devised a strategic layout and used playful forms to achieve a functional clinical setting that reads as a cohesive and harmonious whole.

Innovative Orthodontics is a 2,100-sf orthodontics practice run by internationally recognized orthodontist Dr. John Voudouris, who actively pursues research and development projects and holds multiple patents for new orthodontic technologies. He tasked us with designing a space that would reflect his experimental spirit and passion for art.

Upon entering the reception area, visitors are greeted warmly by a custom light fixture that spills down from the ceiling like a topographical sculpture. The curvature of the light is mirrored by the curvilinearity of the reception desk — a custom millwork design that swoops away from the wall to create a flat desk surface. The reception area also offers an initial encounter with Dr. Voudouris’s art collection: a large oil painting by Viviane Case-Fox, characterized by energetic brushstrokes, offers a colourful contrast to the otherwise soothing palette of white, glass, and brushed-metal that characterizes the clinic’s finishes. 

In addition to the artworks and photography hung throughout the space, the glass partitions between the clinic’s dental chairs feature hand-drawn diagrams of Voudouris’s orthodontic patents. These orthodontic art pieces demonstrate his creative contributions to the profession while also providing a privacy barrier between one dental chair and the next. Taken as a series, they imbue the clinical setting with context-appropriate whimsy and prompt curiosity and conversation. 

The fit-out includes seven orthodontic chairs, an orthodontic X-ray machine, lab space, areas for research and development, the reception area, as well as ancillary spaces for staff and patients. Design details, such as coloured LED lights and the sculptural ceiling fixture in the reception area, inspired motifs related to light and curvilinearity that repeat throughout the space and amplify the office’s visibility from the street through the glazing. The ceiling plan incorporates custom lighting and perforated aluminum panels throughout the central clinic space; the lights can be changed to fit the season or celebrate a holiday.

Univeris is a cutting-edge wealth management company that provides services to the Canadian financial and banking sectors. For their new and expanded headquarters in downtown Toronto, we renovated a 12,000-sf timber loft space by exposing the existing structure, wood roof decking, and original windows. The objective was to reveal and accentuate the building’s historical features while bringing a minimalist approach to new design elements like furniture, lighting, colour, and office and communal space layouts. 

The design of the anteroom was inspired by the company’s logo, a nebula — a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. We manifested this with a custom design for curvilinear bands of long, horizontal steel bars that enclose the anteroom like a “swirl.” The nebula fulfills a security mandate while remaining semi-open to the rest of the office via the spaces between the steel bands. 

This notion of semi-openness and layering is a recurring theme throughout the larger design. The enclosed office spaces feature glass divider walls with translucent films that let in light and maintain a sense of visual openness and communication with the rest of the plan while also providing privacy. We designed for spatial efficiency while providing enough room between workstations so that staff members have a sufficient personal radius around their desks. By minimizing the number of closed private offices and placing the workstations around the perimeter adjacent to large exterior windows, we prioritized access to natural light and its penetration deeper into the plan.

Located in east-end Toronto, Magenta Health is an innovative family medicine clinic that prioritizes the delivery of high-quality care. An online booking system, digital check-ins, and the digital recording and sharing of information help staff reduce wait times and optimize efficient and effective services that centre patients and their needs. 

Our team was retained to execute a program that includes a waiting room, reception desk, workstations, and 10 exam rooms. Our design prioritizes functional space planning, with the exam rooms strategically placed along the perimeter, creating a clear and direct circulation path. Workstations are integrated within the corridors to make use of space that is adjacent to the exam rooms. 

Wayfinding is an integral component of the design and the activation of Magenta Health’s brand. 
True to its eponymous name, the branding is characterized by a saturated pink. We used oversized magenta numbers on the floor and walls to identify exam rooms and help direct staff and patient traffic. Pink and black bands extend from the large floral logo in the reception area, creating a soothing datum throughout the clinic. The magenta logo — an eye-catching contrast to the bright white surfaces — is visible through the window from the street.

Situated on the ground floor of a condominium tower along the vibrant urban shores of Lake Ontario, this light-filled dental clinic spans two stories and represents the second collaboration between Bortolotto and Lakeshore Dental. We prioritized the use of natural materials to cultivate a warm and inviting environment for both new and returning patients and capitalized on colourful accents and natural light to infuse the space with energy and brightness. 

Spanning over 2,100 sf across two floors, the clinic includes a reception area, a consult room, a sterilization room, and four operatories on the first level, and an office, staff room, and two additional rooms for medical procedures on the second level. Accommodating the necessary plumbing requirements for the installation of operatories, sinks, and equipment required careful consideration and meticulous planning to navigate the underground parking garage during construction. 

The clinic’s central design feature is a new staircase that consists of wood, steel stringers, glass handrails, and stainless-steel detailing — materials that are woven throughout the rest of the space. Linking the first and second floors, the staircase is a vehicle for literal and metaphorical connection — a way to circulate in the space, an opportunity for human interactions, and a way to maintain sightlines and openness between the two levels. Double-height glazing brings in abundant natural light, casting illumination across the airy space and natural finishes. The workspaces are clean and bright, with touches of colour and wood to add vitality and tactility. 

Our design prioritized the wellness of the Lakeshore Dental team and their patients by maintaining a balance between programmatic and functional requirements and aesthetics, staff and visitor comfort, and views to the outdoors.