Parkdale Laneway House

Parkdale Laneway House is nestled behind a beautiful Toronto brick house in the city’s west end. Where a dilapidated garage once stood is a new, 1,080 square-foot, all-electric, high-performance home and a 330 square-foot workshop.

Originally, the owners wanted to build a new workshop to replace the old shed, but when laneway homes became a possibility in Toronto, they decided to build one with a garage/workshop integrated into it. In addition to rental income in the near term, the laneway home offers flexibility for the coming decades: a green home ready for aging parents, grown children, or for downsizing from the main house.

The building, which treads lightly around a 100-year-old walnut tree, contains a tidy woodworking studio and a modern two-bedroom modern home with great views and its own secluded green spaces.

The size and shape of Parkdale Laneway House was designed with outdoor space and relationship to the main house in mind. The building form is not a simple cube, but rather it is two sifted boxes stacked atop one another, creating a sheltered ground level outdoor space on the laneway side.

The home is pushed as far east on the property as possible and its overall width is narrower than the full width allowed, thus creating a private side yard dedicated to the laneway house. The remaining original backyard is for the main house, where the visual impact of the laneway house is minimized by the terracing of the second floor “box” being shifted away.

On the main floor, past the half-open-tread staircase, is the open-concept kitchen and dining space, and a midnight blue powder room with brass fixtures. The galley kitchen is sleek and minimal. Sliding glass doors open out to a laneway-fronting terrace enclosed with lush planters.

Upstairs is a light-drenched living room, two generous bedrooms, and a spa-like bathroom. A long horizontal window in the side wall frames views of the neighbourhood trees, while the massive windows in front of you bring in oceans of sunlight.

Throughout the house, smart design choices have allowed maximum use of space and a sense of openness and light. Clever under-stair cupboards bring storage to an otherwise un-used space. The glass handrail and the open treads of the upper portion of the staircase give extended lines of sight and increase light penetration.

Interior design for this project was by Kyla Boyle of AB+ZU. The dominant colour is crisp, clean white. Black window frames, light fixtures and bathroom tiles offer sharp contrast. Touches of brass in the plumbing and light fixtures, and the caramel wood of the custom cabinetry, shelves, staircase, and upper-level flooring bring warmth.

This Laneway house project had a few challenging site conditions, and was expertly built by Laneway Custom Build.

Save the Tree. The property’s majestic 100-year-old walnut is under the protection of Toronto Urban Forestry. This meant carefully protecting the massive root system throughout construction. Laneway Custom Build handled this with great care and detail. They kept the concrete slab of the dilapidated wooden garage in place as long as possible to protect the soil, and were meticulously careful when running services (sewer, water, electricity) through the backyard to the basement of the main house. In addition, we chose to use a Legalett slab (described below) to minimize excavation.

Choose a Site-Smart Foundation System: Legalett Slab. Tree roots, proximity to neighbouring buildings, and questionable soil made excavation at this site unattractive. Consequently, we used a foundation system with minimal excavation: a Legalett slab. Instead of digging down four feet and pouring concrete foundations, we dug just twelve inches below grade. Then an expansive tray of six-inch-thick expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam (pre-made to specifications) was placed into that excavated area, followed by poured-in concrete. The resulting slab sits six inches above grade and acts as an excellent thermal barrier.

Minimize Carbon-Intensive Materials. To reduce the amount of carbon-intensive steel required for the structure, we used eco-friendly wood and engineered wood to frame as much as possible. While the wall along the property line had to be built from concrete blocks (which have a higher carbon footprint), the other three walls were framed in 2”x 6” studs. An all-wood moment frame boxes out the second-floor cantilever using laminated veneer lumber.

Quality Insulation, Inside and Out.  Insulation on the interior is batt insulation, and exterior is EPS rigid insulation. In addition, the second floor is clad with a 3.5-inch exterior insulated finishing system (EIFS)—a form of insulating modern stucco that permits drainage. The windows and doors are all triple-glazed fiberglass, apart from the custom-made wood carriage doors by Madawaska Doors, and the overhead insulated steel garage door.

Airtight Building Envelope. This project uses ZipWall sheathing, which provides a barrier that is vapour-open and air-tight. This means that it allows moisture to leave the wall cavity (preventing mold over the long-term) without allowing air to leak through. As always, builder Joël Campbell’s meticulous construction work gave this home a very tight seal between the zip sheathing of the roof and walls. Pre-drywall blower door testing revealed an air leakage rate of 0.65 ACH@50pa, which is very close to Passive House levels.

All-Electric Systems. The house has all-electric systems, with a lower carbon footprint compared to natural gas. An air source heat pump provides both heating and cooling, and an energy recovery ventilator (ERV) provides fresh air while maximizing energy efficiency. The garage has been roughed-in for an electric vehicle and the roof for solar panels.