Twenty + Change: COMN Architects
The founders of Toronto-based COMN aimed to make a splash when they set up their firm, choosing as their inaugural project a multiplex they developed for themselves. The so-called “Semi-Semi” occupies a tight 16-by-78-foot corner lot in Toronto’s east end. Instead of a detached home, Clarissa Nam and Peter McNeil designed two back-to-back units of 1,000-squarefeet each, one of which was to become their own home. Both of the split-level units are massed vertically, allowing each to have its own street-facing entrance. The exterior is a geometrical composition of white stucco over vertical black wood siding, with a middle section in grey concrete panels. Generous windows and perforated aluminum screens allow in natural light. The mirror-image living spaces are situated at opposite ends to allow for acoustic separation.
“We used Semi-Semi as a jumping off point, to get the house published and get our name out there,” says McNeil. He had worked previously for Toronto architect and multi-family developer George Popper, and the couple had an interest in pursuing infill residential projects— a fast-growing market, given Toronto City Council’s move to allow multiplexes and small apartment buildings in many areas previously reserved for detached residential.
One such project is an infill site across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario, currently a large vacant lot behind an existing nineunit walk-up apartment. Instead of shoe-horning a stand-alone midrise onto the site, Nam and McNeil designed an extension to the walk-up that will include 12 rental units, varying in size from one to three bedrooms. “We thrive under constraints,” McNeil says of the tight lot. Adds Nam: “It focuses us to try to maximize what we have, but at the same time, obviously, to make it as aesthetically pleasing as it can be.”
That approach characterized the conditions on the lot they had purchased for their own home. “You’re forced to really engage with the context,” Nam adds. In general, that outlook also describes their practice, which is defined more by pragmatism than by a consistent aesthetic. And like other smaller, newer, firms, they’ve learned quickly to be mindful of their clients’ resources: “Every project is going to be different,” she observes. “We work under any budget and focus on the experience of each space.”
This profile is part of our October 2024 feature story, Twenty + Change: New Perspectives.
As appeared in the October 2024 issue of Canadian Architect magazine
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