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Double Duplex is a completed residential infill project on Melbourne Avenue in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood. Batay-Csorba Architects divided a double-wide urban lot into two properties, then placed a four-storey duplex on each one. The result is four homes: every building contains a two-storey lower unit and a two-storey upper unit. Its architectural identity comes from an abstracted Bay-and-Gable form, a two-storey timber brise soleil, and a carefully planned sequence of courtyards and tall interior spaces that brings daylight into a narrow, deep site.
Double Duplex at a glance
| Item | Documented information |
|---|---|
| Project | Double Duplex |
| Location | Melbourne Avenue, Parkdale, Toronto, Ontario |
| Architect | Batay-Csorba Architects |
| Client and contractor | The Mada Group Inc. |
| Configuration | Two four-storey duplex buildings on two properties; four units overall |
| Unit arrangement | Each building has one two-storey lower unit and one two-storey upper unit |
| Completion | 2016, according to the Ontario Association of Architects awards record |
| Recognition | 2015 Canadian Architect Award of Merit |
| Area records | 6,800 square feet for the overall project on the architect’s project page; 3,500 square feet (325 square metres) per house in the OAA awards book; approximately 3,500 square feet per building in Architectural Record |
The area figures should not be silently combined. The architect reports a 6,800-square-foot total, while the OAA and Architectural Record describe each house separately. Architectural Record’s figure is rounded, so multiplying it by two does not establish a more precise combined area.
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Double Duplex addresses a familiar Toronto condition: an established residential neighbourhood where a deep, narrow lot has to accommodate more homes without abandoning the scale of the street. The architects describe rising urban real-estate costs and the need for densification as the project’s rationale. Their response was not a single larger apartment block, but two compact buildings that preserve the visual rhythm of detached houses while increasing the number of dwellings.
The approach also offers flexibility at the household level. The architect presents each duplex as a property that an owner could occupy in one unit and rent the other to subsidize income, or use the second unit for live-work purposes. That is an intended use described by the design team, not evidence of a measured affordability outcome or a record of how every unit is occupied.
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Andrew Batay-Csorba, architect and principal, summarized the contextual strategy this way: “We always find ways of integrating a project with its context—from massing to datum lines to material transitions— if not necessarily with overt symbols,” The sentence explains why the buildings reference Parkdale without copying its older houses literally.
How two duplexes fit on one double-wide site
Two properties instead of one oversized building
The original double-wide condition is split into two properties. Each receives a four-storey building, and each building is divided vertically into two stacked residences. In total, the site produces four units while retaining the legibility of two narrow urban houses. This arrangement is central to the project: the density comes from stacking and repetition, not from an anonymous slab that erases the lot pattern.
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The lower residence occupies the first two levels and connects to sunken front and rear courtyards. The upper residence occupies the two levels above and is organized around a double-height atrium, exterior courtyards and a balcony facing the street. The distinction gives each unit a different relationship to grade, sky and the public realm while keeping both homes within the same compact envelope.
A vertical reading from the street
Four storeys can make an infill building feel out of scale when its elevations are treated as a single flat wall. Double Duplex breaks that impression through layered massing and the deep timber screen. The result reads as a group of connected vertical elements rather than a blank, full-height facade.
Reinterpreting Toronto’s Bay-and-Gable houses
Parkdale and other Toronto neighbourhoods are known for Bay-and-Gable houses: narrow brick homes with projecting bay windows and steep, strongly vertical proportions. Double Duplex borrows that typological memory, but it does not reproduce a historic facade with decorative trim. The architects abstract the familiar cues into massing, vertical emphasis and material transitions.
The most visible reinterpretation is the two-storey brise soleil. Made from bio-enhanced, rot-resistant softwood, the screen wraps the upper balconies at the front and rear. Its repeated members create depth and shadow, allowing the facade to change as the sun moves. From the street, the screen acts as a veil rather than a conventional railing or a decorative appliqué.
At night, the architects describe the screened upper levels as taking on a lantern-like appearance. During the day, the same timber layer filters light and limits direct views into the homes. That dual role—environmental moderation and privacy—lets the project evoke the layered fronts of older houses without relying on literal historical symbols.
Daylight and outdoor space on a deep lot
Sunken courtyards for the lower units
Lower-level homes are not treated as dark basement apartments. Sunken courtyards at the front and rear open the lower units to the sky and create exterior rooms below the surrounding grade. These spaces supply daylight and a direct connection to outdoors while maintaining the stacked arrangement needed for density.
Double-height atrium for the upper units
The upper units use a double-height atrium as an internal source of volume and light. A tall void links levels visually and helps the upper home feel more like a house than a compressed series of floors. Exterior courtyards and a street-facing balcony extend that openness beyond the envelope.
Roof glazing and deep floor plates
Architectural Record’s specification lists Velux skylights, which support the project’s strategy of drawing light from above as well as from the street and courtyards. The combination matters because a narrow, deep plan can leave its middle zones far from a conventional side window. Skylights, the atrium and the exterior voids work as a sequence rather than as isolated features.
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These measures also shape ventilation and privacy decisions. Courtyards provide openings without requiring every room to face the public street, while the brise soleil tempers views toward the upper balconies. The available project records describe the design intent and spatial devices; they do not provide post-occupancy measurements of daylight levels, air-change rates or energy performance.
Facade, structure and interior materials
Architectural Record identifies a structural system of wood and structural steel. The exterior specification includes red brick bases, thermally treated wood screening and built-up roofing. PVC window frames, white-oak flooring and black quartz countertops are listed for the interiors. These records describe the project as published and should not be read as a guarantee that the same products or assemblies are currently available for a new build.
The brick bases anchor the buildings to the material language of Toronto’s older residential streets. Above them, the timber screen introduces a lighter, more changeable layer. Thermal treatment and bio-enhancement are presented as durability measures for the softwood, particularly important for a screen exposed to weather. The design therefore uses material performance to support the visual idea of a facade that changes with light.
Inside, the white-oak flooring and black quartz countertops provide a restrained palette against the more dramatic sectional moves: sunken courts below, a double-height space above and skylit areas at the roof. The records do not identify current retail model numbers for windows, rooflights or finishes.
Who designed and delivered Double Duplex?
Project records credit Andrew and Jodi Batay-Csorba as principals, with Lola Abraham and additional team members. Secant Engineers and Franzese Mechanical are identified among the engineers. The Mada Group is credited as client and contractor, and Jimmy Chiale is credited as collaborating artist. The OAA awards book specifically identifies Chiale’s graffiti-art murals.
The murals add another layer to the project’s contextual position. Rather than treating art as a detachable object, the scheme incorporates painted surfaces into a contemporary interpretation of the neighbourhood. The available records do not assign a separate title, date or conservation status to each mural.
Area, dates and recognition
| Record | Figure or date | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Batay-Csorba Architects project page | 6,800 square feet | Architect’s reported area for the overall project; the page is undated and was accessed in 2026 |
| Ontario Association of Architects, OAA Awards Book | 3,500 square feet (325 square metres) per house | Professional-association record; the book dates completion to 2016 |
| Architectural Record, 2017 | Approximately 3,500 square feet per building | Rounded publication description, not a precise combined total |
| Canadian Architect project page | 2015 Award of Merit | Recognition associated with the project before the OAA record of completion |
The differing area descriptions are modest but meaningful. They may reflect rounding, differing measurement conventions or the distinction between a building and the complete two-property project. Reporting the source and unit of measurement is more accurate than choosing one number and presenting it as definitive.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What to study if you compare this infill precedent
Double Duplex is not a product review or a competition between buildings. If you are studying it alongside other urban infill examples, five comparison axes are useful:
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- Neighbourhood response: examine whether the project continues local height, width, datum lines and material cues without copying historic decoration.
- Daylight strategy: identify courtyards, atriums, skylights and other ways the plan reaches rooms deep inside the lot.
- Privacy and outdoor space: compare how balconies, screens, sunken courts and setbacks separate private life from the street.
- Facade performance: look for systems that provide shade, weather protection and visual texture as well as an architectural image.
These are analytical lenses suggested by the documented design, not a published scoring system. They help distinguish a project that merely adds floor area from one that reorganizes the experience of a dense residential site.
What Double Duplex demonstrates—and what it does not prove
The project demonstrates one way to add four homes to a double-wide Parkdale lot while retaining a house-scale reading. Its strongest lesson is sectional: density, daylight and privacy are solved together through stacked units, courtyards, an atrium and a layered screen. The Bay-and-Gable reference is equally important because it shows how context can be carried through proportion and depth instead of historic imitation.
It does not, by itself, establish that this arrangement is affordable across Toronto, that every owner can reproduce the same financing model, or that the listed materials will perform identically on another site. Nor do the project records provide city-wide housing statistics, measured operating costs or post-occupancy evaluations. Those limits matter when the project is used as a precedent rather than simply appreciated as a completed work.
Why the timber screen is the project’s defining device
The brise soleil is more than a balcony guard. Its two-storey height ties two levels of each upper unit into one visual element, while its spacing produces changing bands of light and shadow. Because it wraps both the front and rear balconies, the screen gives the project a consistent identity on opposite sides of the buildings.
It also mediates several competing requirements. Residents receive outdoor space, but the screen reduces direct exposure to neighbours and passersby. Sunlight reaches the balconies and glazing, but the timber filters glare. The facade remains recognizably contemporary, yet its vertical rhythm recalls the narrow proportions that make Bay-and-Gable houses legible in Toronto.
That combination explains the project’s lasting interest: the contextual reference is not an applied motif. It is embedded in how the building is proportioned, opened, shaded and inhabited.
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