This true hard loft is housed inside the Canada Foundry Company Factory, a warehouse structure built in 1903 to manufacture railway tracks, bridges, locomotives and even fire hydrants before Canadian General Electric took possession to produce transformers. Ultimately, the building closed in 1981, following an era of transition during which most of the neighbourhood's sprawling railyard factories were demolished. A century after its construction, the surviving structure was repurposed into residential hard lofts — a conversion primarily focused on functional reuse, with the insertion of over 100 new residential units. This renovation, by contrast, seeks to celebrate the historic structure with a more deliberate and dramatic insertion of new architectural forms.

While combining what were originally two units across three levels with the addition of a fourth, a set of sculptural elements is carefully crafted and placed within the industrial shell, not to overwhelm but to emphasize the heritage architecture and provide anchor features connecting the two distinct volumes of the upper and lower units. The lower unit, originally featuring a single bedroom overlooking the compact living and dining spaces, remains defined by two brick-arched windows spanning a double-height space. A new spiral stair wrapping a glass elevator centred on one of these two grand windows extends across all three original levels. As practical as it is expressive, the stair and elevator provide direct access from the lowest level, where a reinvented kitchen is tucked below the floor above, to the former bedroom, now a media lounge overlooking the second arched window and a dedicated dinette area.

Arriving at the upper third-floor living spaces, a great room composed of formal seating and a secondary dining room or lounge is directed towards a new fireplace. Centred on the gabled clerestory that formed the original warehouse's highest point and central spine, the fireplace extends the full height of this soaring 30' (9m) space. Similar to the service and built-in elements of the lower levels, the laundry, bathroom, and en-suite are neatly packaged into a form that separates the living area from the bedrooms, careful not to disrupt the open loft feel of the existing steel trusses and skylight above. Offset to one side of the living area, a new fourth-floor mezzanine sits perched within the space, overlooking the fireplace and open structure.

In a city with a utilitarian nature and where the industrial past produced some of the most considerable architecture, this design intervention elevates an enduring industrial aesthetic.