Reviving the Past: The Edition Richmond Presentation Centre

Cecconi Simone's Innovative Design Transforms Auto Repair Shop into Urban Townhomes Showroom

The 255 m² presentation centre was once the home of the “Toronto Transmission & Gear Company.” The raw authenticity of the garage has been preserved, but whitewashed to create an ethereal quality. The interior is adorned with an assortment of white-painted car parts and a whitewashed Austin America, serving as a nod to its automotive legacy and a storage for the centre's brochures.

The design's uniqueness lies in its synergy with the past and present identities of the Downtown Toronto property and neighbourhood. The garage-turned-showroom is a testament to the transformative power of design, turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. The white floors, walls, doors, ceilings, and found objects lend a dreamlike quality to the transformed space.

The townhome project’s graphical-projection scale model is a modern-day lithograph. The “black-line” floor plans for its “limited edition” homes are presented as original artworks in a series. Oversized black-and-white photographs, printed on canvas, illustrate the vitality of the immediate neighbourhood, counterbalancing the showroom’s all-white interior.

The car parts and automotive-related objects displayed in this presentation centre were specially selected by the interior designers from within the former garage. The photographs and “black line” floor plans were printed on canvas and stretched over frames measuring 122 cm x 244 cm. The 1969 Austin America – body only – was locally sourced on eBay by the project developer and shop-painted on site behind the garage. The project’s scale model, executed by the interior designers, is a three-dimensional drawing realized on a two-dimensional surface and displayed under Plexiglas.

The main challenge of this design was to transform a most ordinary, pedestrian building interior into one that could engage visitors, signalling for them a transition from the mundane to the extraordinary. Despite the challenges, the design was awarded Golden in A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award in 2013. This award is granted to marvelous, outstanding, and trendsetting creations that reflect the designer's prodigy and wisdom. They are venerated products and bright ideas that advance art, science, design, and technology, embodying extraordinary excellence and significantly impacting the world with their desirable characteristics.