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Montreal-based studio Atelier Carle has completed a mountainside house with wood and board-formed concrete finishes in Quebec.

Known as SONO Residence, the 214-square metre (2,300-square-foot) project was completed in 2025 in Wentworth-North.

Sono Residence is a home in Quebec with folded walls

Atelier Carle founder Alain Carle said that the design was born from its context, and that its form was derived from "a colliding" of perspectives – to push against the way people think today.

"Architecture is by no means a conceptual imposition, but rather the convergence of several heterogeneous perspectives that generate a language, a notion of the 'common'," Carle told Dezeen. "At a time when our minds are saturated with isolated voices that never even collide, we believe this alternative approach to design is essential."

Glazed walls overlook the surroundings to the north

The studio aimed to make the scale ambiguous, with a long, folded concrete wall – free of windows, broken only by the home's entrance – that runs along the southern portion of the house.

The wall has two purposes. It serves as a resilient retainer for snow and water that cascade down the mountain, and it conforms to the broader landscape, mimicking the stratified bedrock with a horizontal, board-formed pattern.

A windowless concrete wall lines the south end of the home

The northern facade trades concrete for hemlock in both structure and cladding around the many windows that open the interiors to the panoramic views of the forested hillside.

The studio worked with a local carpenter and structural engineer to source the hemlock from a nearby site and adapt it for the wooden structure away from the concrete wall.

The plan was unravelled into an origami-like array – a layout that also served two purposes.

"On one hand, [it serves] the particularity of the program itself – a house for two friends, generated an unconventional layout, not necessarily in terms of room type, but more in a sort of play of 'hide and seek', where some areas of the house can be hidden both visually and acoustically from one another," the studio said.

"On the other hand, the notion we are always striving to achieve in our projects is a diversification of the gaze, a subordination of the dominant landscape to a more fragmented and varied one."

Hemlock beams were exposed in the interior

The friendship of the residents allowed the studio to explore a fragmented plan, but prompted a more complex structural system, greater expertise on site and a slower construction process for the team.

Inside, the structure remains visible with exposed hemlock beams.

Green kitchen units were designed to mirror the verdant surroundings

"A concrete floor echoes the site's bedrock, a green-colored wood kitchen echoes the exterior views and a minimalist plaster finish on the walls allows all these materials to resonate," the studio said.

The studio, formerly known as Alain Carle Architecte, recently completed an Ontario dermatology clinic aimed to "humanise medical practice." Previously, the practice designed a black-toned retreat with intersecting gables and renovated a 1960s ski chalet, both in Quebec.

The photography is by Felix Michaud.

Project credits:

Team: Alain Carle, Isaniel Lévesque, Baptiste Balbrick, James Jabbour, Starr Wang, Sarah Mei Mousseau General contractor: Metric Construction Inc. Structural engineer: VCMa Engineering consultants Geotechnical engineer: Ingénat Engineering consultants Reclaimed wood: Taylor Lukian Windows: Shalwin Millwork: Xavier Collection