FOREST CLEARING ADDITION

FOREST CLEARING ADDITION

The owners of this rustic cedar clapboard country home, located on 15 acres in a peaceful wooded clearing just north of Alliston, Ontario, desired an addition to their home, containing a family room and an office. Intended to capture both rural and modern architectural values, an elegant stone addition was proposed, which follows the rural tradition of “add-ons”, often being built with readily available materials – in this case, stone taken directly from the site. The stone cladding not only gives this small one-storey addition visual weight compared to the lighter, but the much larger existing wood clad house, it also offers a contrast in materials. This contrast is then separated from the house by the glass corridor that links the “old” with the “new”. The addition also pays homage to the rural tradition of repeating similar forms, as we mimicked the house’s pitched cedar shake roof, but articulated it more like a folded plane.

Other modern elements include heavy timber framing bolted together with hot dipped galvanized steel brackets, a glass facade with unobstructed views into the forest, a raised concrete terrace complete with a concrete firewood enclosure, an open planned interior with a ceiling made from branches taken from the forest and a modern rotating wood stove.

LOCATION: Utopia, Ontario

ARCHITECT: LINEVISION Architects

DESIGN LEADERSHIP: Michael Poitras,
Principal-in-Charge of Design

CLIENT: Withheld

STATISTICS:

  • No. of stories: 1
  • Total floor area (addition):
    600 ft2 (56 m2)
  • Total floor area (existing house + addition):
    3,800 ft2 (353 m2)

MATERIALS:

  • Vertical cedar battens
  • Stone (taken from site)
  • Board formed concrete
  • Wood windows & doors
  • Cedar shake roof
  • Douglas fir posts & beams
  • Polished concrete floors
  • Concrete terrace
  • Cedar clapboard siding (existing house)
  • Flagstone terrace (existing house)

GENERAL PROGRAM:
(Addition):

  • Open concept family room & office
  • Wood stove (rotating)
  • Concrete terrace
  • Board formed concrete firewood storage + potter’s bench

LEED: Silver

COST: Withheld

COMPLETION: Project