Category: Featured

Private Residence
Location: Third Line, Grey County, Ontario

The owners wanted a commanding view. When they first found the 100-acre property with views out to south Georgian Bay and back to rural farmland, they knew where the house would be sited – high atop an ancient drumlin 1,000 feet back from a county road. We drew great inspiration from areas of the site that were stripped away from vegetation, where soils had eroded and revealed colourful layers of sedimentary soil exposed and lay bare. We considered rammed earth walls, but were not sure if they would stand up to the exposure. Vegetation was sparse on the west side of the property. Hawthorns, grasses and other hardy plants grew here, plants that could resist the extreme heat of summer and bitter cold winds of winter. We knew this would be a challenging site.

When construction started, people who drove the road regularly wondered if a motel was being built. The ever-present sloped trusses typical for construction in this area, were replaced with over-sized vented I-joists, almost flat in the Modern aesthetic of the design.

The basic layout is comprised of two rectilinear forms, slid apart and shifted of parallel by seven degrees. The west wing is more adult self-contained encasing kitchen, dining, living, screened porch, den and utility on the main floor and master suite on the second. An office sits half way up another flight of stairs, not unlike the bridge on an ocean-going vessel. Indeed the building has been compared to an ark, left after flood waters receded. The east wing is low and hugs the ground, and encases recreation room, bedrooms, bathrooms, study area and children’s entry.

The space between the wings became the binding knot in the middle of the composition, a residual wedge-shaped space that houses a main entry and staircase running vertically through both floors to the basement level.

Views are commanding and windows were carefully placed to frame particular views in every room. Despite the extensive art collection, the owners found it difficult to compete with the framed views, some out to Georgian Bay in the distance, others to neighbouring barns and fields that blanket the countryside in this area of Ontario.

Window trim was intentionally eliminated, instead using a small reveal between drywall and clear fir window seeming like the view was made possible by merely cutting through the exterior wall.

The owners appreciated how the shifting rectilinear forms of the plan seemed to reach out into the landscape and stitch the building to the exposed site, the residual outdoor spaces near the building becoming partially enclosed outdoor rooms where depending on the season, the sun and the constant breezes, they could move around the building by day and enjoy different views of the landscape depending on their orientation.

The exposed layers of soil in the landscape were recalled in the seemingly random pattern of siding, made up of three different widths of boards, in fact in a pattern that repeated itself vertically every fifty-two inches. Exterior materials are few and low-maintenance including clear anodized aluminum cladding on fir windows, and pre-finished siding with a twenty-five year warranty on finish and an unprecedented fifty-five year warranty on the clear western red cedar.

The connection to the landscape is furthered through a strong environmental design. The house is heated through geothermal pipes laid in the ground, a large heat sink built into the mechanical room in the basement. The narrow forms of each wing and careful placement of operable windows allows for natural daylighting and passive cooling, utilizing the prevailing breezes on this hill-top location.

Natural materials were used where possible to further reduce the environmental footprint, both upstream and downstream over the life-cycle of the house, helping to keep  energy costs to a minimum.

Private Residence
Location: Waterloo County, Ontario

This was the first major residential commission for David after returning to Ontario from ten years in Vancouver. He was working with RHL Architects in Kitchener at the time. The owners approached RHL with a site and intent to build a Colonial style house, but on first review of the wooded and very sloped site, David suggested they consider a Shingle style house, which would allow the design solution to break from the static symmetry associated with Colonial and allow the design to meaner with the site contours, bringing in different forms where needed, while still keeping the traditional, homey feeling of a Colonial house. The owners were skeptical at first, not knowing the style, but on reviewing precedents from the UK, eastern seaboard of the US, in particular the Hamptons in New York state, they quickly approved the change and an engaging design process was born.

A Shingle style home is relaxed and comfortable, associated with traditional family values and can be made more formal, or informal, to suit the needs of the individual project. As its name implies, one of the main exterior materials are cedar shingles, which typically adorn the roof and some or all of the walls. A careful look at the roof shows a horizontal shadow line created by doubling up every sixth row of shingles. Other materials include painted siding, brick, stone and typically ample painted wood trim at eaves, gable ends, windows and doors, and covered porches. Columns are oversized and simple, wood soffits are often natural tongue and groove wood coated with clear varnish to recall wooden boats.

Summer cottage-goers, the owners wanted a home that would be well-suited to fall, winter and spring living, and take advantage of the beautifully treed, south-facing lot located on a quiet cul-de-sac near the edge of town. A stream bisects the front yard and is heavily controlled by the local Conservation Authority. Privacy was important to this family often in the public eye, and the stream was not only a great amenity but also allowed the house to be sited well back from the road, majestic trees near the stream providing a natural buffer to the street.

The design solution lay in strengthening pros of the site and lessening the cons. The stream and downhill slope on the south side, encourage family spaces to be flipped from the typical rear yard, which faced north and uphill, to the front and south side of the plan, using operable windows to naturally ventilate but more importantly bring the sounds of the babbling stream inside the house. A side yard on the west side then, became the family’s outdoor space with cabana, vanishing edge pool, hardscape patios and spa, while the north rear yard sheltered a private Living and Dining and house part of the owners’ extensive Canadian art collection.

The Kitchen, traditionally the hub of a family home, anchored the middle of he plan, and was centrally located on the main floor. Cabinets built into the perimeter walls created a thick transition to adjacent spaces, which at openings became thresholds between two rooms that could be closed off using ingeniously concealed hardware that turned wall panels into double doors. Though centrally located, the Kitchen could be easily closed off from adjacent rooms.

Other design features in this house include a custom-designed, glazed cupola over the main staircase, secret children’s hideaways concealed in residual attic spaces, indoor lap pool and fitness room in the basement walk-out level, and radiant floor heating.

Private Residence
Location: Waterloo County, Ontario

The owners of this shingle-style house had contracted DTAL to do a feasibility study on whether or not they should move out of their existing house and renovate, or purchase a new property and construct a new home. They had been in their existing house for a number of years and had grown attached to the neighbourhood and community, but their needs had changed and it was uncertain their existing home could accommodate them. The property and building were critically evaluated based on a number of different factors, a program was written, plans drawn and proposed solutions evaluated before it decided to move and start afresh.

As is often the case in urban areas, parking became a crux of the site planning solution. DTAL was convinced the garage doors should be turned perpendicular to the street allowing the main façade of the house to face the street unchallenged, pushing the mass of the house back to where the property was wider, and allowing the driveway to become a heavily landscaped multi-purpose courtyard on the west side of the property, where both car and foot traffic are equal.

DTAL worked with the owners and their real estate agent to search out and evaluate potential properties before the owners settled on a wedge-shaped site next to a natural greenbelt, on a quiet cul-de-sac near their existing house. Immediately DTAL began site review and program analysis, and started laying out different activities and uses on the site to take into account all the parameters discussed so far, remaining open to discovering new ones as part of the design process.

The widest part of the property was left in the rear yard then, where the owner’s talents as landscape design and gardener are amply displayed.

In the end, a Minor Variance was required to accommodate the buildings with the particulars of the site, and it received unanimous approval from the Review Committee.

A tee-shaped plan emerged as the most viable layout for the site whereby the north wing running down the north sideyard contained functional uses near the garage and the front of the house, and Master Suite and home Office near the rear of the house, with access out to the patios and lush landscaped rear yard.

The stem of the tee-shaped plan became the shared family and entertaining areas including Kitchen, Dining, Family and Den and provided the façade of the house facing the street. Second story bedrooms for children and guests were nestled in the roofscape, typical of a Shingle-style home.

From the outset of design, the Kitchen was to be the epi-centre of the house from which other activities evolved. While centrally located and open to the rear yard and Family Room, it is blocked from the Main Entry by a solid, feature art wall with open ends, around which traffic flows. This wall is part of a pilastered, spinal hallway that works well in diverting foot traffic out of the Kitchen, though a minor combination hall and Kitchen office on the other side of the Kitchen leads to the Master Suite. An exquisite coffered ceiling distinguishes the Kitchen from other areas of the house.

The exterior palette is limited with low-maintenance random-layed stone as a base layer, pre-finished aluminum clad wood windows, pre-finished double-dipped cedar shingles and environmentally friendly blended simulated slate roofing. Trim is substantial both inside and out, in keeping with this style. 

Private Residence
Location: Grey County, Ontario

The Southern end of Georgian Bay is a landscape intimately tied to the owners, Tom and Katherine, as they both have lived there, either full-time or part-time, over the past twenty-five years. It is characterized by rolling farmland, miles of freshwater sandy beaches and the Niagara Escarpment, a 700 foot bluff home to many ski hills in the area including the latest development from Intrawest, Blue Mountain.

With three children, a bouncing Labradoodle puppy and a desire to have a cottage near their family in the area, the project started as a weekend retreat but turned into their full-time home shortly after completion. Their original needs were for a 3 bedroom, plus guest, cottage that, despite the small 1.600 sf footprint, could sleep as many as 16 in beds and would provide a base for summer hiking, biking and boating and winter downhill skiing and snowshoeing. The pragmatic need was to design a building whereby children and their guests, could play separate from parents and their guests in a building that was economical to build, economical to heat and expressed the nature of living in the area.

The home was to be set on an east-facing slope to take advantage of views to Georgian Bay and the ski hills beyond, and was to incorporate sustainable practices including passive heating and cooling.

Site Selection

The 15-acre site is on the Old Mail Road, about ten minutes from their family in nearby Thornbury. Near the top of the Niagara Escarpment, the Old Mail Road was originally a deer path, then native First Nation route and then mail road from Owen Sound to Barrie. It is now one of the few roads in the area that follows a contour line rather than the survey grid imposed on the landscape by distant surveyors over a hundred and fifty years ago who were interested in quickly settling the land and had little regard for the topography.

Once the shoreline of Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay and molded by receding glaciers, the properties on the Old Mail Road have generous views of the water and distant ski hills. Though close to nearby towns, the property has a remote feel due to the interruption of the concession and sideroad grid by the rugged Niagara Escarpment. The seven hundred kilometer Bruce Trail, which runs from Niagara Falls to the top of the Bruce Peninsula, runs just behind their property where hikers can literally spend weeks or months on backcountry and rural trails.

Design Solution

DTA designed two rectangular ‘buildings’ following the contours of the landscape and positioned them slightly skewed to each other. They are joined by a central circulation spine that houses the main entry and a stair access to the children’s walk-out level below.

The main floor of the larger ‘building’ houses all the primary functions of the house and, as a feature, was designed to function independently of the other secondary ‘building’ should the owners wish to inhabit only a small part of the house — when arriving for the weekend in winter on a cold Friday evening, for example, or in refuge from a power failure. The main floor of the secondary wing houses the service functions and a guest room. See attached plans.

A separate garage and loft was designed a distance from the house to separate car from home, and while some may find this an inconvenience, Tom and Katherine grew up with this detachment in their own family’s homes and find the short walk to the car a delight and enjoyable. The loft will also provide for future guest quarters, teenage living or an office for Tom when he moves up full-time from his office in Toronto.

The long axis of the house aligns with the contours of the land and runs north-south offering views to the ski hills and Georgian Bay to the east and opening up to sunny après ski gatherings to the west through commercial clerestory windows. During the summer, shade trees keep the house cool and natural evening breezes migrating down the slope flow through the house.

A feature detail on the exterior cladding is an aluminum reveal which runs vertically at window and door jambs for several reasons: to modularize the elevation; facilitate cutting and fastening of the siding; and eliminate leaving siding joint locations up to the installer. While the builder was hesitant at first, he embraced the idea and used the reveal at all jambs, thereby using short boards of less than a foot in length and virtually eliminating scrap waste.