Kitchener Apartments Address Missing Middle Vernacular

A historic house is remade into a series of apartments and community spaces—offering a case study in preservation, missing middle housing and design verve

The house that stands at 27 Roy Street traces Kitchener’s urban history. Built in 1912 in a simplified Queen Anne style now known as the Berlin Vernacular, it reflects the aesthetic of the area’s German settlers who favoured brick over cut stone and minimal ornamentation—cornices and stained glass are used sparingly. Over time, the city centre grew up around it, forming a civic precinct of churches, the county courthouse, the central library, and later, local government offices. Many of the original homes gradually ceded the stage to larger developments or were carved up into apartments or commercial uses, their spacious yards hardscaped to supply the parking. By the time Ron Brohman and Erin Weevers of RFB Development stepped foot inside the house eight years ago, it had been converted to the offices of their lawyer and suffered years of neglect (a search on Google Maps reveals the before).

But beyond the sagging front porch and the leaking roof, past the tangle of trees crowding the windows, the structure was remarkably solid, says Brohman, a trained architect and the founder of the firm. The pair saw an opportunity to not only revive a piece of local history, but to create a new, mixed-used design that could serve as a model for the future of the neighbourhood. The main floor would house Holly’s Neighbourhood Café along with an arts-focused commercial space dubbed Studio27, while rental apartments would occupy the upper and lower floors. RFB had completed two other heritage projects, converting single-family dwellings into needed multi-unit rental stock; this would be their first commercial endeavour. Says Brohman: “We always saw it as an approachable, informal gallery type space, where people could come together for events or workshops, and build a sense of community.”

Though the building was not heritage-designated, the approvals process was complicated, the interior space planning extensive. To maximize the main floor, the building was reengineered to eliminate load-bearing walls to allow both community hubs to function in one continuous footprint. A small addition, devised by a second firm, Neo Architecture, was added to the back of the building to house the stairway to the second and third floor apartments, and keeping the residential and commercial areas separated. Straight-forward though it may sound, permission for only one staircase required a special exemption to the Ontario Building Code, which generally calls for two points of egress.

Working closely with a large team of skilled trades, including multiple millworkers, RFB shored up the facade, re-trussed the roof, and restored the front porch, using archival images. “The railing style is a modern take on the original,” says Weevers, who led the heritage development and interior design. “Although we were restoring the porch as an important feature of the front facade, we did also want to make it clear that it was now a new element of the building.”

While the exteriors were confined to history, the interiors of the café and arts studio offered a chance for experimentation and a lighter, decidedly contemporary touch. Here, Weevers took the lead, using a mix of reeded white oak millwork, ceramic tile, and colours and shapes drawn from the exuberant Memphis Milano style. And why not? The pinks and oranges found in the original stained-glass windows play off the palette in perfect harmony. In a nook seating area within Holly’s bay window, a section of ceiling is wallpapered in a spherical pattern akin to tossed confetti. Weevers replicated the motif in a mobile divider, collaborating with Hessen Woodcraft Inc. to create CNC-cut panels that were painted by Samantha Hildbusine (S.H. Painting) and finished by the RFB construction team.

Next month, the space plays host to workshops hosted by FB Ceramics. The long communal table will serve as a pottery table, balls of clay fashioned into something new, wholly original, possibly messy, the art in the making.