丨加拿大温哥华丨Mcleod Bovell Modern Houses

Architects:Mcleod Bovell Modern Houses

Area:470m²

Year:2024

Photographs:Ema Peter

Manufacturers:Accoya,Gaggenau,FSB Franz Schneider Brakel,CEA Design,Forbes and Lomax

Lead Architects:Matt McLeod, Lisa Bovell

Category:Houses

Design Team:Thomas Yuan

Landscape Architecture:Andrew van Egmond, Alexander Suvajac

City:Vancouver

Country:Canada

Text description provided by the architects. In an unusual occurrence, our client approached us with a request to re-conceptualize a house mid-way through construction as she took over management of the project from her parents. As a younger person, she came in with new ideas and a different perspective. She asked us to critically reconsider typical programmatic uses and relationships that commonly occur in residential design.

This client direction led us to an intervention that resulted in material and geometric clarification of the exterior planes of the house and the idea that these elements should also be reflected in interior spaces. Folded walls, ceilings, and hovering floor plates (separated from walls) created flexible and irregular thresholds and angled prosceniums that encourage spaces to flow from one area to the next. Angled walls force movement through the house that is cinematic in nature. Glimpses of views, spaces and light can be seen around every bend. Because most spaces have a multifaceted reading, efforts were made to blur normal programmatic signifiers like doors and hallways. Furniture is deliberately sparse and sculptural and, where it exists, is suggestive of several modes of occupation.

Landscape is treated as an extension of a surrounding wetland and is understood to consist of folded layers: sedimentation, wetland vegetation and floating elements. The first layer represents the river's sedimentary deposits, integrated subtly into the landscape as the driveway, functional surfaces and on-grade stairs. The second, connected by wetland vegetation, consists of a resilient carpet of sedges mixed with native and non-native plants, which transition into deciduous shrubs and conifers, enhancing the natural flow between wetland and higher banks. And the third layer introduces constructed elements, like walkways, boardwalks, and benches, which are elevated, floating above the other layers.

The project is a meditation on the interrelationship between the natural world and the object, where all the design decisions try to re-imagine a family house in a very particular location. Folding, whether on the land, with the house, or with its material language plays a role in reflecting an understanding of this place and the people who live there.

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