It has been cold and snowy in Toronto lately, which is great if you're looking to shred pow on a snowboard, but suboptimal if you're trying to construct buildings. It pains me deep inside my bone marrow when we lose productive days to weather. But what can you do?

I was, however, thrilled to see this first glimpse (pictured above) of the lobby / co-working space at Junction House this morning. The slightly elevated section (which is the point of view of the above rendering) is the co-working area.

The reason it's elevated is that we needed the clearance below for our parking ramp. We thought about trying to make it retail, but a place for residents to hang out and work seemed like a pretty good idea.

A lot of us on the team are big fans of a great hotel lobby bar, but that's kind of challenging to do in a residential condominium. This is maybe the next best thing. It's been very popular with purchasers so far, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs in real life.

Junction House was mentioned in the National Post this week as part of an article talking about how residential lobbies are being reconsidered. The article is by Lisa Van de Ven.

Transit City in Vaughan is providing direct access to an adjacent Buca restaurant. 55C in Yorkville is providing refrigerated storage space for perishable deliveries. And Junction House is incorporating a co-working space on the ground floor overlooking Dundas St W. We wanted it to have real utility (a place to work and hang out), but also serve to foster a sense of community within the building.

I have long been a fan of hotel lobby bars. They're a place for social interaction, as well as a place for chance encounters. One of the best in the city is perhaps the Lobby Lounge (or "urban living room") at the Shangri-La.

Of course, part of their success is aided by the fact that hotels are, by their very nature, transient places. And that transience can often encourage people to be more open. That makes the spaces more social. You also have the benefit of an operator (i.e. a bar/restaurant), which is what Transit City is leveraging with Buca.

Residential lobbies aren't quite the same, but there are lessons to be learned. Oben Flats has been programming the lobbies in its rental buildings for years and they are doing a great job. And with the growing interest in co-living arrangements and small space living, I am sure we'll be seeing more, not less, lobby rethinking.

A new architecture book, called Entryways of Milan, will be released next month that profiles some of the city’s most beautiful residential entryways. There are 144 of them and they are housed in buildings dating from 1920 to 1970. For a sneak peek of the architecture, click here.

What makes a book like this interesting is that these are private entryways, which means they are spaces that are largely overlooked within a city. They are the spaces that mediate between public (street) and private (residences). The book also dives into things like materials and the art-historical and social significance of each lobby.

I am now wondering if similar books or photography projects exist for other cities. I think it would be fascinating to compare residential entrance halls across different cities during the same time period. Although the above Milanese lobbies have set the bar pretty high.