The demands of the real estate market can often chafe against the creative goals of architects, especially when it comes to smaller firms. In Toronto, this is keenly felt, where the marketability of designing homes for the nuclear family dominates residential projects, generating more of the same high-rises and single-family homes.

“We’re starved for variation in typology of housing in the city,” said Anya Moryoussef, founder of Canadian firm Anya Moryoussef Architect. So when Laurel Hutchison approached her with a desire for something different, it was a rare, opportune moment. Hutchison, a retired schoolteacher living on a fixed income, plans to independently age in place in her small 112-year-old dwelling, and her redesigned home, Craven Road Cottage, needed to accommodate this physically as well as psychologically. Adding to this challenge, the house needed repairs as its bones were rotten—but Hutchison had a tight budget, limited to basic renovations.

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