Project Name: Rathnelly House

Location: Toronto, Canada

Design Team: Studio VAARO

Total Floor Area: 340 m²

Completion: 2024

Photography: Félix Michaud

Feature: Studio VAARO has created a comprehensive and formally expressive renovation of an Edwardian-era semi-detached house in midtown Toronto, adding 140 square meters of new space through strategic structural interventions without extending the original footprint. Winner of Canadian Interiors' Best of Canada Design Awards 2025, this project demonstrates how intelligent spatial reorganization can dramatically enhance functionality while maintaining architectural elegance, creating nearly 60% additional usable floor area for contemporary family living.

The project's most striking design feature lies in its sculptural language of built-in elements that serve multiple functions while shaping spatial experience. A curved partition wall simultaneously divides the living and kitchen areas, conceals ductwork, backs a cast-in-place concrete dining booth, and integrates with cabinetry as a serving surface, perfectly embodying the design principle of form serving function. The signature monolithic feature stairwell evolves as it ascends, emerging from a concrete base on the ground floor before transforming into a light, curvaceous form that draws daylight from an east-facing third-floor window, creating a dynamic vertical circulation experience.

Studio VAARO has ingeniously employed spatial optimization strategies in this 340-square-meter residence. By lowering the basement slab by 1.2 meters, dropping the ground floor to just one step above grade, and converting a cramped attic into a generous second bedroom suite with ceiling heights approaching three meters, the project creates practical spaces for accommodating extensive sports equipment for a professional couple with a young child and active lifestyle. The open ground floor unfolds as a series of fluid yet discrete zones, where sight lines, angles, and curves carve volumes, reflect light, and shape movement, while the cast-in-place concrete floor forms a base from which sculptural elements rise.

The project's material application is equally impressive, with naturally derived materials like polished concrete, wood, stone, and Tadelakt plaster chosen for their tactile richness and graceful aging. Custom L-shaped closet doors hug rounded concrete steps, marble countertops with curved corners reveal supporting millwork beneath, and an oversized blackened-brass kitchen sink designed to develop a patina over time enriches the monolithic wood island's materiality. Most notably, hand-turned oak knobs and pulls are stained to merge seamlessly with surrounding millwork, creating the impression that they are one with the surface, and the building's attention to detail is so refined that it is not merely a living space but a poetic expression of function flowing through expressive architectural form.

Design Team: Founded by partners Aleris Rodgers and Francesco Valente-Gorjup, Studio VAARO is a Toronto-based architectural practice that synthesizes formalist rigor with experimental, research-driven methodologies. Both principals bring over a decade of international experience from acclaimed firms including Herzog & de Meuron, Johnston Marklee, and Renzo Piano Building Workshop, having contributed to large-scale cultural institutions, museums, and residential towers across Los Angeles, Switzerland, and Hong Kong before establishing their practice in Canada.

The firm's design philosophy centers on uncommon solutions that engage and endure, pursuing clear formal ideas that foster continuity from large-scale massing to intricate detailing. Their approach is rooted in exhaustive contextual analysis, studying local vernaculars and site-specific conditions to develop cogent architectural visions that respond intelligently to their surroundings. The firm sculpts space through deliberate manipulation of light and shadow, volume and void, creating moments of beauty that elevate both functional performance and experiential quality.

The firm's experienced professional team: led by Partner and Co-Founder Aleris Rodgers (Architect NY, NCARB) and Partner and Co-Founder Francesco Valente-Gorjup (Architect, OAA), with project team including Shengjie Qiu and Liam Hall. Aleris holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Harvard University and a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and serves as Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, at the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. Francesco holds a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and English Literature from the University of Toronto and a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and serves as Sessional Lecturer at the University of Toronto John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design.

Materiality plays a central role in their work, with natural materials and tactile finishes reinforcing broader spatial objectives. Their iterative, investigative process applies equally across typologies, from single-family residences to multi-unit buildings, commercial spaces, and custom furniture. Registered in Ontario and New York State, Studio VAARO maintains unwavering commitment to strategic problem-solving, clear communication, and skillful project management, delivering projects that fulfill programmatic, timeline, and budgetary requirements while challenging conventional typologies.

Through thoughtful understanding of formalist research and contextual innovation, and values of environmental responsiveness, buildability, and contextual sensitivity, Studio VAARO has established itself as a significant contributor to contemporary architecture, creating architectural works that are both rooted in place and embrace global design standards. The practice has gained recognition for its commitment to design excellence, ensuring every project is completed to the highest standard of spatial and experiential integration.