To re-establish themselves on Toronto’s premiere shopping street, Holt Renfrew sought to design a facade that would give their store a unified presence and represent their iconic brand.
With a flagship store located in of the most expensive shopping streets in downtown Toronto, Holt Renfrew engaged Gensler to upgrade their window displays and disjointed facade to create a strong, unified visual presence.
Photo courtesy of Gensler
The first step in the renovation process was to rationalize the store?s entire envelope and devise a strategy to unify the five separate buildings into one presence so that customers could see how large the store is from the street level. With over 270 feet in street-facing storefront, or almost the length of an entire city block, the exterior design needed to be seamless and reflective of Holt Renfrew?s brand. “One of the greatest challenges of the project was tying the existing 5 buildings together across 260ft of street frontage in a way that made them look like a single structure,” said Gensler.
Photo courtesy of Gensler
To achieve this, the team reviewed thousands of archived drawings from the original construction of the buildings, from the 50?s to the 70?s. They then turned all of those drawings into a full 3D digital model which gave the basis of their design.
The team also faced a challenge of designing a facade that was both light and intricate. The existing building was clad in marble that was uninsulated and the constr...