Studio Condos

Description

Studio Condominiums in general was always about art meets life, and with Studio 2 Condos, the story continues. Studio 2 Condos is the proverbial older sister to Studio, a little darker, a bit hotter, and a bit more subtle, but as sophisticated as Studio, perhaps a tad more.

The Studio Condominiums includes two towers: one 31 storeys, the other 41. Studio 1 Condos, the smaller tower, which will be built first, will have 337 units and a nine-storey podium that will incorporate the OCAD gallery. Studio 2 Condos, the taller tower Studio 2 of the project — will likely include 400 condos and around 25 townhomes.

Studio 2 Condos features dynamic retail spaces at the corner of Duncan Street and the soon-to-be revitalized Nelson Street – imagine a restaurant, café or high-end furniture showroom. Along Nelson Street is a row of stunning contemporary and very flexible townhomes, urbane in style and able to dress as city residences or funky work spaces. Units range from 419 to 1,294 square feet, not including the penthouses. A 2,500-square-foot penthouse will occupy the building’s entire top floor, with four sub-penthouses on the level below.

Studio on Richmond is the quintessential urban condominium development, anchored firmly within its context at ground level, and soaring to the skies in its two towers. The lower floors engage and add to the vibrancy of city life, and architecturally help to “heal the streetscape,” as vacant parking lots are transformed into vibrant streets. The robust bulk of the building façade on Duncan Street harkens back to an industrial aesthetic but with a contemporary vocabulary, helping to frame the OCAD building occupying the corner of Duncan and Richmond. Studio 2 features dynamic retail spaces at the corner of Duncan Street and the soon-to-be revitalized Nelson Street – imagine a restaurant, café or high-end furniture showroom. Along Nelson Street is a row of stunning contemporary and very flexible townhomes, urbane in style and able to dress as city residences or funky work spaces.

Above the podium, however, a remarkable metamorphosis occurs – the building peels off its muscular solidity, revealing first a generous glazed amenity space opening to the huge sixth floor roof terrace, and then the glazed tower, expressed as a series of four boxes stacked delicately one on top of the next, floating on two storeys of transition floors. And even as the boxes stack higher and higher, the angled mullions at the corners suggest subtle movements sideways in all directions, and the balconies undulate in and out on all faces of the boxes. Studio 2 reaches a full ten storeys higher than Phase I, adding to the creative tension between the two soaring structures, and suggesting both stability and movement. Add to that the bold slashes of colour at the top and bottom of the buildings, and the composition reads like a well-crafted story, full of plot, character and emotion. This is not a one-liner that can be read at a glance, but a design that yields new delights with each viewing. It is city living at its most current – looking back to the past and aspiring to the future.