This fun home in Toronto comes with a fire pole and slide
With fun features like a fire pole and an indoor slide, a new Toronto home keeps a family of six busy and occupied during the city's second lockdown.
Designed by Atelier RZLBD, the 4,200 square foot East York home is full of unique additions, architect Reza Aliabadi told blogTO.
The fire pole and slide were on a wish list from the family who commissioned the build, said Aliabadi.
"That was my first time putting a fire pole in a single-family home — it is not that common," said Aliabadi.
Indoor slides are also not that common, but at least one other Toronto family has one.
"They are a very active family — a family of six," he said.
The four children are into sports. The slide offers a quick way to get downstairs and is big enough for kids and adults.
"You can slide all the way down into the entertainment area in the basement."
At the corner of the study room on the second floor, a firepole offers a secretive shortcut to the mud/locker room and the adjacent side entrance on the first floor. Each family member has a cubby on the main floor for their sporting equipment.
Aliabadi said an amphitheatre for the centre of the house was his idea.
"It is a get-together place in the home," he said.
The family can sit and watch movies on a screen or roll it up and look at the view of the Don River Ravine through the double-storey glass wall.
No need for the kids to fight over bedrooms — each of the four bedrooms is exactly the same size.
A space underneath the garage was designed as a kind of hockey pit where the family can practice without disturbing the neighbours.
"They can hit the puck into the walls, the ceiling, everywhere with no noise bothering anyone else," he said.
For the warmer months, there is an outdoor swimming pool.
The home took about five years to design and build, Aliabadi said.
"It was a long build process – both design and approval," he said.
A firepole is not a normal part of an average home design so it took a while to get approvals, he said.
"Because of these unique features the build took longer in comparison to a cut-and-paste cookie-cutter family home," he said.
The home was completed and the family moved in during the fall of 2019 but it was just shared this week because the homeowners wanted to complete some landscaping details, he said.
Aliabadi dubs this build "the fun house" and feels people need a bit of escape in their home base.
Borzu Talaie
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