Ace Hotel Toronto brings the iconic hotel brand’s community spirit to Canada with a design by local architecture studio Shim-Sutcliffe
For over two decades, the Ace Hotel has stood for fostering community, whether it’s in providing guests with an insider’s view into each of its locations, or welcoming locals to use its lobbies, restaurants and public spaces for work, play or however they may seem fit. In its latest opening in Toronto, the Ace’s commitment to this cause has been multiplied, not least in the commissioning of a new building, designed by the Toronto firm Shim-Sutcliffe Architects.
The distinctive brick, which became a hallmark of Toronto’s architectural identity due to rich clay deposits found in nearby Don Valley that resulted in up to 43 million bricks being pressed in the 1890s, has been adapted into the hotel’s red clay façade to remind passers-by of an era before green glassy highrises were a thing.
Suspended below these arches is the Lobby Bar, a floating tray-like platform that hangs from steel rods dropping down from the central concrete structure. The lobby is an inviting refuge for guests and locals alike, featuring a wooden butcher-block floor made from end grain Douglas fir, furniture created by designer Garth Roberts in collaboration with Atelier Ace, a white glazed-brick bar and floor-to-ceiling windows with views onto the park.
On the level below, two different staircases lead visitors to Alder, the hotel’s restaurant helmed by local chef Patrick Kriss, with a woodfired grill. Half buried in the earth but benefiting from floods of natural light, the cavernous space features in-laid brick flooring, bush-hammered concrete walls and banquettes tucked within the steel structural frames from above, creating a seamless continuity between both spaces.
Soon to come is Evangeline, the rooftop bar, wrapped on two sides by an outdoor terrace. ‘The fact that it’s a simple building that has a richness to it, I think that’s interesting and resonates with a lot of people,’ Sutcliffe concludes. ‘Ace has done some amazing things in a fairly crowded and competitive market. They’ve continued to do authentic work. §Photography: William Jess Laird
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