Ryan Starr – Yourhome​.ca

Tarek Sobhi and Tyler Her­sh­berg stroll down Bev­er­ley St., just north of Queen, com­ing to a stop at the site that will soon be home to their firm’s debut res­i­den­tial project: 12 Degrees.

As the late-afternoon sun bathes the area in a pleas­ant glow, the prin­ci­pals of BSäR Group of Com­pa­nies explain the con­cept behind the 11-storey condo’s eye-catching design.

The build­ing, a series of stacked glass cubes, will fea­ture a can­tilevered mid­dle sec­tion that’s jogged 12 degrees off cen­tre, pro­vid­ing the basis for the project’s name.

“We’ve taken the cor­ner of the build­ing and swung it open as if you’re open­ing a door to walk through the neig­bour­hood,” Sobhi says.

“This is the south­ern gate­way to the Grange neigh­bour­hood, and we wanted to sig­nal to some­one com­ing up Bev­er­ley that they’re enter­ing a part of the city that has some very inter­est­ing buildings.”

Among those inter­est­ing build­ings is the Ontario Col­lege of Art and Design’s Sharp Cen­tre for Design, a four-storey box sup­ported by 12 multi-coloured pil­lars that resem­bles a super-sized tabletop.

Then there’s the Art Gallery of Ontario’s 2004 over­haul, which was spear­headed by renowned Cana­dian archi­tect Frank Gehry.

“Those build­ings put ours in con­text,” says Hershberg.

The neigh­bour­hood is char­ac­ter­ized pre­dom­i­nantly by tra­di­tional homes, and 12 Degrees, in spite of its off-kilter design, will aim to echo that her­itage archi­tec­ture at its base, which will include six town­homes.

“We addressed the Vic­to­rian town­houses to our north with our podium design,” says Charles Gane, a prin­ci­pal with CORE Architects.

“Our first four floors cap­ture the Vic­to­rian rhythm of peaks and bay win­dows by using stone piers that dupli­cate the peaks and square bay win­dows that pop in and out.”

Instead of red brick, 12 Degrees’ podium will match the stone found in the foun­da­tions of the area’s Vic­to­rian homes.

But the throw­backs end there.

BSäR – whose name comes from the Norse word for growth – intends for the rest of 12 Degrees to tap the edgier spirit of what’s hap­pen­ing to the north of the site, as well as the artsy vibe of Queen West.

“It is an eclec­tic street, with trend­set­ting shops and a funk­i­ness that we wanted to con­nect to the site,” Sobhi says. “So (12 Degrees) will rep­re­sent a bal­ance between the two areas.”

Three pent­houses

In addi­tion to the six, two-storey town­homes along Bev­er­ley, 12 Degrees will include 85 units, rang­ing from 450-square-foot stu­dios to 1,700-square-foot suites – thirty-one of them will be two bed­room units and nine con­dos will have three bedrooms.

The top floor of 12 Degrees will include three pent­houses, which have yet to be fully designed; buy­ers will be able to cus­tomize cer­tain ele­ments of these suites. One of the pent­houses will have a “ridicu­lously large” 1,800-square-foot ter­race, Sobhi says.

12 Degrees’ prices range from the mid-$300,000s for the smaller units to over $1 mil­lion for the penthouses.

All units will have nine-foot ceil­ings through­out, with engi­neered hard­wood floor­ing and floor-to-ceiling glass. Some suites will also have large terraces.

In keep­ing with the project’s funky vibe, 12 Degrees’ kitchens have been designed by Munge Leung Design Asso­ciates, with nat­ural stone coun­ter­tops, glass tile back­splashes and appli­ances that will be hid­den behind paneling.

“We’ve taken pains to inte­grate the appli­ances so you don’t see the kitchen,” Her­sh­berg says.

“In spaces that are more con­strained, you need to make sure that all of your spaces look attrac­tive. Every­one wants open con­cept, so your kitchen has to fit in as seam­lessly as possible.”

The building’s rooftop, which offers prime down­town views, will have a BBQ area, cabana lounge and out­door pool.

“The idea for the pool was taken from a trend we saw with hotels in the city,” Sobhi says.

“A lot of them have started to open up their pools to the pub­lic and they’re jam packed in sum­mer on the week­ends. So clearly there’s a yearn­ing in the city for a lit­tle sum­mer­time rooftop pool action.”

He admits the deci­sion to have a pool was made “against the advice of many of the engi­neers and prop­erty man­agers” who were shocked that such prime real estate would be given up for this purpose.

Still, Sobhi thinks it was the right move.

“If I’m on the sec­ond floor and I’m over­look­ing Bev­er­ley, it’s a shame to think that just up on the roof some­one has an amaz­ing view and I don’t get a piece of it.”

“Part of it had to do with a con­sid­er­a­tion of the demo­graphic we’re tar­get­ing,” Her­sh­berg adds. “We’re look­ing at peo­ple who have choices: they can move out to the sub­urbs or they can choose not to drive for two hours.

“And one of the things they might be think­ing they have to sac­ri­fice for this lifestyle is out­door space. So we want to offer them a bit of the expe­ri­ence they would have in the sub­urbs, to the extent that we can.”

12 Degrees will have a com­mu­nal kitchen that res­i­dents can use for enter­tain­ing, along with a pri­vate din­ing room and lounge.

There will be three lev­els of under­ground park­ing, com­pris­ing 70 res­i­dent park­ing spots and six vis­i­tor spots.

Sales are under­way and con­struc­tion is slated to begin in May 2011.

Push­ing the limits

It’s been sug­gested that CORE Archi­tects’ stepped-back, stacked cube design for 12 Degrees pushes the lim­its of what’s accept­able in such a traditional-looking neighbourhood.

Indeed, the project ini­tially met with a fair share of chal­lenges from those who want to pre­serve the area’s heritage-architecture flavour.

That the building’s design is seen as dar­ing “indi­cates a real prob­lem with respect to the cityscape we’re deal­ing with today in Toronto,” Sobhi says.

“Have a look at the city, and it’s no secret most of the archi­tec­ture is mediocre and safe. When (12 Degrees) is said to be push­ing the lim­its, per­haps it is in the con­text of the rest of the city, but by no means is it push­ing the lim­its from a global perspective.”

Archi­tect Gane agrees.

“You see what’s going on in Europe and Asia, and it’s like at every cor­ner they’re try­ing to spin and twist,” he says. “Most of the build­ings we’ve been doing in Toronto have been rec­tan­gu­lar or orthogonal…

“But with this one we had the abil­ity to play with it a lit­tle bit and that kind of freed us up. If we were going to do some­thing a lit­tle off kil­ter and wacko, this was the place to do it.”

And while 12 Degrees will have ele­ments in its podium that give a nod to the area’s her­itage archi­tec­ture, Gane stresses that the rest of the build­ing sig­nals where the neigh­bour­hood is headed.

“We’re mov­ing toward mod­ernism,” he says, “not away from it.”

Project details

Address: 15 Bev­er­ley St.

Archi­tect: CORE Archi­tects Inc.

Devel­oper: BSäR Group of Cos.

Inte­ri­ors: Munge Leung Design Associates

Size: 11 storeys; 85 units (rang­ing from 450 sq. ft. to 1,600 sq. ft.); three pent­houses; six townhomes.

Price: From $350,000 to over $1 million

Ameni­ties: Rooftop ter­race with pool and cabana lounge; party room with kitchen. Three lev­els of under­ground park­ing; 70 res­i­dent park­ing spots and six vis­i­tor spots.

Neigh­bour­hood: Queen West, The Grange.

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