The practice

During design for the new house, the project team began to explore opportunities to integrate art throughout the building and the gardens.  The resulting art program, managed and curated by Carlyle Design, includes over 300 works of original art and photography - commissioned, purchased, donated and some from existing inventory. Each was selected and located to provide moments of contemplation and delight for kids and families.

 

Highlights include a lyrical wrought-iron entry gate, expressive outdoor sculptures, paintings by children living at the house as well as adults living with disabilities, prints by Innuit artists, a collection of paired aerial and detail photographs hanging in all the suites, and a family of sculptural whimsies – funny, fantastical creatures that inhabit the corridors. A mural completed in collaboration with Arts for Children and Youth of Toronto is installed in an outdoor courtyard.

 

See Ronald McDonald House Toronto project page.

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The paired photographs in family suites, remarkable for their visual play on scale, form, pattern and colour, are documented in a published book “Near and Far”.

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Photographs by Tom Arban, Virginia Macdonald and Anne Carlyle