Terroni Price

Terroni Price

Hospitality in ‘the Old Apartment’

From the street lev­el store­front up to the third-storey roof ter­race, this addi­tion to the fam­i­ly of Ter­roni restau­rants forges a new typol­o­gy on Toronto’s infa­mous Yonge Street. The design’s inven­tion lies in turn­ing the dis­ad­van­tage of being hid­den from street lev­el, out of pub­lic sight and away from passers-by, into a unique asset.

The grand, 220-seat space is ren­dered as a series of priv­i­leged nich­es, pock­ets, and cor­ners, defined by the remain­ing scars and ghosts of pre­vi­ous domes­tic occu­pa­tion of the typ­i­cal Toron­to ‘apart­ment above the store.’ The expe­ri­ence is defined by the char­ac­ter­is­tics of a num­ber of dis­tinct spaces such as the large eat­ing bar, the din­ing-rooms, the open piz­za oven, the Bal­la­tio out­door log­gia, the Rifu­gio event space, and the now infa­mous roof-top patio.

The entrance at Price Street with its cranked recep­tion desk replaces the typ­i­cal Gen­er­al Store at grade with prod­uct shelv­ing and even a check­out counter that func­tions as a reser­va­tions and host counter. The biased geom­e­try of the sec­ond level’s inlaid wood floor reg­is­ters here as ceil­ing baf­fles made from reclaimed Dou­glas Fir and aligned with the angle of the near­by North Toron­to train tracks.

This grain, which defines the field of unfin­ished red oak floor­ing on the sec­ond floor, is occa­sion­al­ly inter­rupt­ed by dra­mat­ic ‘scars ‘and gaps of mosa­ic tile and met­al inlay that have a sto­ry to tell. They are meant to vir­tu­al­ly reg­is­ter the spaces left by pre­vi­ous demis­ing walls. Objec­ti­fied instal­la­tions of ban­quettes, cus­tom tables and Geor­gian-wire glass screens respect the order, rather, of Toronto’s street grid.

Cipollino marble bar top
Cipolli­no mar­ble bar top rotat­ed for min­i­mal waste and max­i­mum reg­u­lar­i­ty of nat­ur­al vein­ing.

Etched met­al pan­els, over­lap­ping imper­fect­ly cre­ate a kind of prosce­ni­um above the age-old, nat­u­ral­ly stained, Cipolli­no bar, seem­ing­ly recy­cled from the site. The exposed scaf­fold, left over from the process of selec­tive demo­li­tion, sup­ports a new stair that clings to the remains of a mason­ry wall and wood-burn­ing fire­place and leads patrons to an unex­pect­ed large roof ter­race.

Il Rifu­gio

Deep with­in the war­ren of a series of enfilade Vic­to­ri­an-scale rooms, a door­way gives way to a tall, dou­ble-height space named Rifu­gio like the nes­tled lodges found in the Ital­ian alps. Designed as an escape from the escape, this event space expos­es an exist­ing cathe­dral ceil­ing now embell­ished with reclaimed Hem­lock boards and beams. The tall space is flanked on the north side with a ver­ti­cal win­dow cen­tered on the Yonge Street vista and framed by deep wood crates and raw, expand­ed met­al wine shelv­ing that open up to a full-height glass refrig­er­a­tor at glimpses to the kitchen on the east side.

Imo­la Light Fix­ture

Like all GPA hos­pi­tal­i­ty projects, a series of cus­tom lights punc­tu­ate the var­i­ous spaces. Most notably, the race­track light that com­pletes the Rifu­gio is designed to both desta­bi­lize the rigid order of the space, and to expand its height. This 20 foot light con­tin­ues the race-track series begun in Ter­roni Ade­laide with an inter­pre­ta­tion of the Fio­ra­no track in red. Here, the pow­der coat­ed met­al light traces the Auto­dro­mo at Imo­la in white.

View from Ter­roni Price Street rooftop patio with cus­tom lights & fur­ni­ture.

Rooftop Patio

The 175-seat roof ter­race sits on new gran­ite pavers and cus­tom wood ban­quettes, per­go­las, and loungers much like a sea­side ‘lido’ that over­looks the awe­some Toron­to sky­line to the north and south. A back­drop of white bil­low­ing drapes set against the ad-hoc pat­tern of white glazed tile along the bar of white­washed boards set oppo­site the exposed white mar­ble fire­place, extends the out­door sea­son of the unsus­pect­ing Cana­di­an city.

Project Facts

  • Client

    Ter­roni Restau­rants

  • Location

    Toron­to, Ontario

  • Size

    13,938 sq.ft.

  • Status

    Com­plete

  • Sub-Consultant Team

    Struc­tur­al — Atkins + Van Groll

    Mechan­i­cal & Elec­tri­cal — BK Con­sult­ing

    Code — Lar­den Muni­ak Con­sult­ing

  • General Contractor

    D’An­drea Con­sult­ing

  • Photography

    A‑Frame
    Ter­roni Restau­rants

  • Artist / Graphics

    Graph­ic Design and Light­ing – Small Project Stu­dio

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