STUDIO

At MLA, we seek opportunities for design within constraints.  Our work often begins with a challenging, less than perfect, location:  An urban infill site, a backyard, a dilapidated but beautiful heritage house worthy of rehabilitation.  Within these existing conditions we look to integrate new designs which leverage the constraints and find the underlying potential.  Our goal is to create wonderful living spaces with particular attention to how these spaces fit into the neighbourhood context, the larger urban fabric, and the global need for limiting our use of resources. 

Our goal with every project is to create an exceptionally well-designed space that responds to location, to natural light, and to the specific needs of the occupants.  We create wonderful spaces with subtle but profound design moves.  We emphasize well considered design over expensive or fashionable materials.  We create buildings which are beautiful, functional and are designed to stand the test of time. 

PROCESS

We place great importance on working closely with our clients.  We feel the best designs come from a collaborative approach that patiently works through the conceptual and schematic design phases.  Allowing these early stages of design to fully form before moving on, we employ an iterative process that refines the conceptual idea until we are certain the design is right.  We won’t proceed until all stakeholders are 100% satisfied with the design.

 We have enormous respect for both the craft of building and the people responsible for bringing our designs to reality.  The best projects involve our collaborators (builders, engineers, consultants) early in the process, utilizing their knowledge and experience to help formulate the final design.  Our goal is to create inspiring architecture and simultaneously meet pragmatic objectives by leading the project to completion in an efficient manner.

 We love what we do. Architecture and design is a creative procedure that results in a functional and long lasting product. We love taking an initial conceptual idea and working through the process that ultimately culminates in creating a new home or building. We hope you’ll love the process (and the results) too!

HERITAGE CONSERVATION

MLA has extensive experience working with existing buildings: character and heritage homes.  We’re changing the way we rehabilitate older buildings to include deep energy retrofits.  Using this strategy, we can reduce our impact on the environment by:

•  Reducing the embodied energy required to build by re-use of existing materials,

•  Introducing new energy efficient components into existing buildings. 

 To understand when it’s better re-use or to build new we use Life Cycle Assessment tools (LCA).   This approach calculates the total energy required; both to build a project but also to operate it over the course of its lifetime.  The ultimate objective of energy efficiency is to reduce our impact on the environment.  Retaining existing buildings and making them more energy efficient is one of the solutions.