RENOVATIO EX RUINA: Reclaimed Brick Tiles in Contemporary Furniture Design

Feb 5

Created in collaboration between furniture designer Daniel Gruetter and historic masonry reclamation specialists Arcana Materials, RENOVATIO EX RUINA is an experimental furniture piece that demonstrates how reclaimed historic masonry materials can be reimagined and incorporated with wood carpentry to become contemporary interior design features.

As a part of the 2026 DesignTO Festival, we welcomed nearly 200 guests — a wide range of reclaimed material enthusiasts including architects, heritage professionals, designers, students, and artists — to two receptions that celebrated not only this new bar, but also the grand opening of Ouroboros’ new headquarters and their showroom featuring the “Local Inventory” collection of Gruetter’s reclaimed wood concept furniture.

The RENOVATIO EX RUINA piece celebrates the reuse of 110+ year old clinker bricks salvaged from recently demolished portions of Toronto’s Danforth Baptist Church: materials that were otherwise destined for landfill. Instead, these rare bricks have been salvaged and cut into stunningly irregular and colourful veneer tiles, called ‘Cosmic’ for its outer-worldly appearance. Learn more about the history of these bricks and this product here.

Daniel Gruetter specializes in thoughtfully designed and meticulously crafted furniture that engages with issues of environmental stewardship and cultural heritage, thus inspired by the idea of using reclaimed brick in unique formats. This bar concept combines rugged texture with his signature sleek design forms to create pieces that explore what is possible with unconventional materials, and celebrates a piece of Toronto’s built history through avant-garde modern design.

Watch videos about the history and making of this project:

Video showing images from the history, demolition, reclamation, and reuse process of the bricks from the Danforth Baptist Church for our RENOVATIO EX RUINA project.

Demolition photos courtesy of Assembly Corp.

Behind the scenes of the build process: cladding a contemporary modular bar in 400+ tiles cut from reclaimed brick.

Browse photos from the January 30th event:

[Photography by Edmond Yu]