Durham Design & Architecture

In Mississauga, Ontario

Built for a Moroccan entrepreneur in suburban Toronto, this sumptuous 12,000 sq. ft. 13-million-dollar home allowed me to put my lifelong fascination with Islamic architecture to good use.

The generous budget and luxurious materials required an attention to detail that I had never before encountered, including clay roof tiles from Portugal, terrazzo flooring and limestone from Georgian Bay.

I had the opportunity to work with first class consultants like the landscape architect, Scott Torrance, and the interior designer Robynne Moncur. Over the course of two years, I prepared over 40 sheets of working drawings and reviewed hundreds of pages of shop drawings.

On the corner of Parliament & Queen Street in Toronto

Standing on the site of a former two-car garage, I developed this 4-storey house for a jewellery maker and her web-designer husband. I designed the original scheme for the elevations and completed the working drawings for the entire project.

I redesigned the house after a two-year construction delay forced us to change the cladding materials from the original stone and copper to brick, in order to make the project more economical.

In spite of its modest scale, this heavy timber summer residence for a retired mining and forestry executive and his wife can easily accommodate an extended family of 12 adults and 9 children over the Victoria Day long weekend.

Use the arrows on either side of the images to view more!

I designed this 750 sq.ft. addition to provide space for a three-generation family with four children. This expanded semi-detached home was accomplished on a modest budget without a trip to the committee of adjustment.

In Uxbridge, Ontario

This small weekend retreat for a writer and radio journalist uses the traditional vocabulary and building technologies of rural Ontario to make a number of gentle gestures towards modernity.

In Port Perry, Ontario

This project is emblematic of the work I have been doing since I left Stanford Downey Architects. While the actual size of the new construction is modest, a new 150 sq.ft. vestibule (with a green roof) links the former garage (now a home office) to a century farmhouse.

The addition of 2 dormers and a dramatic picture window transforms the attic into two additional bedrooms and a media room with a dramatic view of downtown Port Perry and Lake Scugog.

In Ghana, West Africa

This compound was designed for Mama Aku Dunyo and her husband in Dagbamete, Ghana. It is designed to accommodate both a retirement home for a Ghanaian-Canadian family and Mama Dunyo’s public role as Queen mother. The program is carefully zoned to provide an open and welcoming meeting place for the community as well as private spaces for the family.