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Design Showcase: Custom Homes in Toronto

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Out of all of the areas where we’ve designed homes over the years, the six boroughs of Toronto offer some of the more challenging properties. But with great challenge, comes incredible opportunity, resulting in some truly noteworthy custom homes.

A common quality of properties in and around Toronto is smaller, narrower lot sizes. Being in such close proximity with neighbours, maximizing living space and privacy therefore become top design priorities. This modern home near Bloor West Village utilizes an open concept floor plan to achieve nearly 3,500 square feet of living space on its narrow city property. Windows are strategically placed at the front and rear of the home, and kept minimal at the sides to appease both the desire for privacy and certain building code requirements.

A key exception, however, to the more compact nature of Toronto properties are corner lots. While these lots typically enjoy more space than their neighbours, they can have more restrictive setback requirements and often share a property line with major streets. Home designs therefore need to adapt to the unique requirements of these properties. In the case of this traditional home in Etobicoke, the lot was tucked into the intersection of a busy major road and a winding side street. The positioning of the home was therefore oriented to block out the negative noise and views and direct focus to the best attribute of the property: a curved side yard lined with beautifully matured trees.

Regardless of shape and size, a common factor of many Toronto properties is their belonging to older, established neighbourhoods that are keen to preserve their heritage and character. Proposed infill designs must therefore be very respectful of nearby homes. This custom home in Etobicoke embraces the design conventions of a traditional family home, aligning it with the mature character of its neighbours, while also touting a timeless appeal through a unique blend of materials and more contemporary windows.

Visit our portfolio for more custom home designs in Toronto.

Coming to America: Our U.S. Home Designs

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When we say we work anywhere in the world, we mean it. On top of countless projects across Canada, our boundless geographical reach has afforded us several opportunities to work with clients across the United States, resulting in custom home designs in Castle Rock, Boulder, Chagrin Falls, Ann Arbor, Long Island, Austin, and San Jose.

A project in the U.S. starts the same way as one five minutes from our office: with a thorough understanding of both the client’s wishes and the unique attributes of their property and neighbourhood. Before picking up a pencil, our design team meets the client, often in person, and travels to the property to gain a full appreciation of its environment. This sets us up to design a home that will ultimately be respectful of not only the client’s wants and needs, but also of the property and surrounding area.

Our U.S. clients also enjoy the benefit of a different, original perspective on their home design. While an architectural designer in California or Texas may have extensive knowledge and experience in their localities, our 20+ years of experience designing custom homes for clients all over Canada and the U.S. have equipped us with a unique style and sensibility that result in homes that not only fit in with their properties and neighbourhoods, but also maintain a nuance and character unlike anything else in the area.

Visit our portfolio for custom home designs in New York, Michigan, and Colorado.

San Jose, California home design by David Small Designs
This proposed home design in San Jose, CA is just 10 minutes away from Apple headquarters.

Austin, Texas home design by David Small Designs
Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the views from this proposed hillside home design in Austin.

The Power of Custom: Purchasing Floor Plans vs. Custom Home Design

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Every now and again, we’re asked if the floor plans of our existing homes are for sale. At David Small Designs, all of our home designs are completely custom. While we love when someone is inspired by one of our designs, we’re happy to work that inspiration into their own custom design. Here are a few key reasons why we always recommend custom home design over buying floor plans:

All properties have particular zoning and setbacks. In other words, there can sometimes be substantial restrictions to a home design’s height or ground floor area, which an existing floor plan simply may not be compatible with. A custom home design constantly keeps these boundaries front of mind, resulting in a home that works harmoniously with its zoning rather than clashing with it.

Every property also has its own unique aesthetic, which is the culmination of everything from its natural elements (views, topography, sun orientation) to the look and feel of the surrounding neighbourhood. Our custom home designs are highly influenced by this aesthetic, the objective being to design a home that feels like it has always belonged on the property. We call it “organic architecture”: letting the characteristics of the land naturally guide the home design. Purchasing a floor plan, however, flips this idea on its head, resulting in a home that often needs to retrofit the property and can be at odds with its neighbours.

Most importantly, a custom home design is a reflection of the unique needs, lifestyle, and design style of the future homeowner. Floor plans intended for sale, on the other hand, are often generic and won’t satisfy all of your wants and needs like custom design would. If your goal is to design your dream home, our goal is to weave your passions and personality into the architecture, resulting in a home that is truly and uniquely you.

Click here to learn more about our custom home design process.

A custom home in Mississauga, designed to meet the unique setbacks of the property. By David Small Designs.

A nearby creek greatly restricted the building area of this Mineola property, dictating the size and shape of the custom home design.

A custom home in Mississauga, shaped greatly by the nature of the property. By David Small Designs.

The natural beauty of the property influenced everything in this custom home design from its height to its style to its colour + materials.

What is Universal Design?

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With an aging North American population, we’ve noticed an upward trend of clients looking to design homes that will accommodate their needs as they grow older. We’ve seen this referred to as “accessible design,” or an element of “aging-in-place,” but it’s most commonly known as universal design.

In a broad sense, universal design is just as it sounds: designing something — be it a consumer product, public service, or an environment — so it can be accessed and used by anyone, regardless of their age or abilities. It has its roots in the “7 Principles of Universal Design,” which were first coined in 1997 by a team of architects, product designers, and engineers at North Carolina State University. You can read more about each principle in detail here, but in sum, these principles aim to make any design as accommodating and easy-to-use to as many people as possible.

In custom home design, the principles of universal design can manifest themselves in countless ways, but some common ones include:

  • A bungalow structure to minimize the need to frequently go up and down stairs. Many older families have embraced a “bungaloft” design (bungalow + loft), keeping their living space on the ground floor, and reserving the upstairs loft exclusively for guests or caretakers.
  • Incorporating elevators in home designs that have more than one storey, allowing for easy movement between floors. For younger or middle-aged families who want their home to grow and age with them, we often allocate space in the floor plan for an elevator to be installed in the future, with the designated area on each floor acting as a closet in the meantime.
  • Accessibility ramps for wheelchairs, walkers, etc.
  • Flush entries: entryways in the home that have no height difference on either side, eliminating the need to step up or down when doing everyday activities, like moving from room to room, or using the shower.
  • Beach-entry swimming pools, which replace stairs and ladders with a gradual ramp into the water, as if you were at the beach!

Click here to learn more about our custom home design process and how it aims to meet the unique needs of any homeowner!

In the master bathroom of this Mineola West custom home, a flush entry makes entering and exiting the shower safe and step-free.

An elevator in this Mississauga custom home carries passengers between three floors.

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