The lobby area of the Beaver Barracks building on Metcalfe features a large common room and kitchen to cater to events, parties, and cooking lessons:
The sloped wood ceiling is made of reclaimed wood. Several large trees were cut down on the site last year. That wood was augmented by some wood reclaimed from the Ottawa River. They were milled into rough-cut boards to make ceiling panels like above. The main lobby also has these ceiling panels. They look great from a distance, but personally I felt they were a bit too rough and crude, too “packing-crate” for my liking.
Here is the interior of a bachelor or studio unit. It is one large room. Delightfully, there was tons of closet space (there are no “common” storage locker areas for maintenance and security reasons).
The wood floor is linoleum with a printed plank pattern. CCOC operates their buildings for the long run, and rentals can be tough on the units. Carpet floors have to be replaced every five to ten years; they hope the linoleum will last ten to fifteen. In subsequent phases, the linoleum will not be “sheets” but individual “planks” which means damaged spots (eg a worn spot under a bed or chair leg) can be replaced without redoing the whole room.
And now a shot of the inside of the turret that runs up the building:
Did you think there would be a round room? There isn’t. The eye only thinks it sees a complete cylinder on the building. In fact, it is more like a semi-circular bay. None the less, the interior of this large apartment is breathtaking. The unit entrance is to the right, and the bedroom wing is off the picture hard right. The dining/living area is in the foreground and off to the left of the generous family-sized kitchen. Here is another shot, showing more of the curved wall:
There will be a later post on the rents in these buildings, but here’s a hint. A three-bedroom unit is between $996 and $1423, rent depends on your family income. While this room is dramatic and large, all the bedrooms are … compact. Minto builds much larger walk-in closets.
The next interior shot is of a two-bedroom unit on the ground floor, facing Argyle. When the resident enters through the door from the front porch, there is a large living/dining room. The kitchen is in the centre of the unit. Beyond it are two bedrooms, looking out to the back yard. The unit has front and back exposure:
There are also a number of wheel-chair accessible units. Here is the kitchen of one:
Will you look at that? The oven is – horror of horrors – NOT on the floor and, more horrific still, it uses a side-hinged door rather than a bottom-hinged door. An oven where one doesn’t have to lean over a hot door to put things in and out – preposterous! That said, it looks to be a bit too high if the intent is accessibility – only the bottom rack(s) is going to be readily accessible (they’ve placed it at the height that it should be for a standard kitchen). Naturally, they got a model with the hinge on the wrong side compared to where the nearest flat surface is located. Of course they made the same mistake with the fridge – there’s no flat surface beside the fridge either.
The sink’s water controls should be near the edge, not at the back of the sink, if it’s to be designed for someone in a wheelchair. They did get the size of the levers right. The tap itself should be on one of those flexible hoses, probably using one of the suspended cantilever arm designs. They’ve gone for a single-bowl sink design rather than getting one with an integrated draining tray to one side, a feature that offers a ready place to put things down to fill them up with water rather than having to put them in the bottom of a sink, as well as a place to put dishes to dry (I note a lack of a dishwasher).
North American kitchen design… slowly entering the mid 20th century and decades to go to catch up with everyone else. Even “accessible” kitchen designs languish decades behind everyone else’s standard designs.
“Naturally, they got a model with the hinge on the wrong side compared to where the nearest flat surface is located. Of course they made the same mistake with the fridge – there’s no flat surface beside the fridge either.”
There’s a tray-drawer that pulls out from just under the oven.
I am not a fan of “fake” anything. Linoleum is a great long lasting material. But when it is made to look like wood it just ends up looking fake. If the quality is good then what is wrong with it looking obviously like linoleum? In my younger days I installed specialty floors and you could find fewer materials more expensive than top quality linoleum. In fact, some of the stuff I installed 25 years ago is still around today with little sign of wear…the aptly named Battleship Linoleum. Probably too expensive for this project but it does last a long long time. Otherwise, these units look pretty good and I am sure they will be well received.