Hinge magazine about "Century Room"

Toronto’s King Street West is now home to an eclectic and chic collection of restaurants, galleries and boutique shops. Once an industrial enclave with old shop houses and factories, the district has now undergone a mass conversion into a community of bright and open loft-like spaces. Much like the city’s distillery district, which was also treated to an artsy makeover, this neighborhood serves tourists by day and the hippest crowds by night. Such are the roots of Century Room, originally a printing warehouse. In its early days, the space was recycled into a college pub. However, now with surrounding buildings receiving much need primping, the student party spot has joined the design revolution, emerging as a classy hangout for socialites. Local firm Prototype Design Lab (PD Lab) was responsible for its latest reincarnation in November 2006. Founded by Interior and Product Designer Antonio Tadrissi, PD Lab covers a breadth of disciplines including architecture, interiors, furniture and product design, branding and advertising. In fact, its broad talent base led an offshoot company, Caprice Living, which specializes in designer furniture.

In its interpretation of the site, PD Lab capitalized on the natural beauty of the 1904 structure. The entire venue showcases the original yellow brick walls and 16ft-high ceilings as a part of the interiors. Other features alluding to its history include exposed air chutes running along the ceiling and naturally-aged hardwood flooring. As expected, the venue itself is boxy and uniformed. Therefore, in order to avoid any banal layout the rectangular footprint is divided into front and back lounges separated by a central bar. Guests enter through the front lounge, a square room with large bay windows. The seating area is defined with raised platforms around the perimeter, furnished with low-level, cream toned sofas and wood-block tables. Hot pink walls decorate the focal bar, no doubt designed to catch the eyes of those migrating from room to room. The rear section is a cosier den with modular couches in microfibre materials and maple tables. Bohemian partitions of silk strands are hung to create private booths. Slim pillars skirted with cocktail tables course through the middle of the room for standing patrons. In keeping with the clean and minimalist palette of pale yellow bricks, timber and white, lighting is kept gentle with tracked spotlights and candles strategically placed on every surface. Even the traditionally neglected areas of the bathrooms are given appropriate attention with Italian Bisazza tiles, brushed steel fixtures and LCD screens. Here, it seems, the firm took the most liberties in design. Outside, a patio area makes use of the adjoining space between two buildings. Its sheltered section features a few outdoor booths along the exterior wall. The booths are designed to withstand extreme weather conditions, using cedar for their base and vinyl for the banquettes. The unsheltered area also adopts cedar for its temporary bar counter with accompanying wood-block seating for the summer months.

Although Century Room has potential as a kinetic dance joint, it projects itself as a meditative zone instead. In part this can be attributed to the brick walls, which naturally emanate domestic warmth. Likewise, it’s a large antiqued windows are more typical of roadside cafes than of a throbbing late-night joint. For some firms, working with old walls is more of an impediment, barring them from full creative reign.

PD Lab seems to strike the perfect balance, drawing out the structure’s inherent character while enhancing its interiors for a modernized venue. In fact, it does this so well that it blurs the boundaries between a place of business and a chic urban residence. The overall result is a mystical haunt with an ethereal atmosphere produced by soft bluish spotlights, cushioned seating and sheer thread curtains.