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Deep thoughts on apartment layouts

Brandon Donnelly avatar Brandon Donnelly
Cover image for Deep thoughts on apartment layouts

This morning while I was having a bowl of cereal and fruit, I came across this floor plan from 75 Portland Street, Toronto by CORE Architects :

It’s a 2-storey unit with a den and double height living room on the main floor and 1 bedroom and 1 media lounge (that could act like a 2nd bedroom, but doesn’t have a window so it can’t be called that) on the second floor.

This floor plan is a perfect example of what I was getting at with my post: The long and narrow of property affordability

Rough rough, the overall dimensions look to be about 4.3m wide x 12m deep. It’s a fairly deep plan, which means you have to be careful how much “frontage” you give it. If the apartment gets too wide, then it could quickly become too big and potentially unaffordable.

With the above dimensions, and if you didn’t go 2 storeys, you’d be forced to do an inset/recessed bedroom. The living room would get all of the windows. And if you made the apartment wider to accommodate that main floor bedroom, then you’d likely end up doing an inset/recessed 2nd bedroom, anyways, because of how big the unit had become. So there are trade-offs to consider.

I’ve seen this layout first hand and I like it a lot. I think it’s an elegant solution to the challenge of deep floor plates. 

But what do you think? It may not suit everyone’s needs, so I would be really curious to hear your thoughts in the comment section below or on Twitter .

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Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.