FOREST CLEARING HOUSE – 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.
Designed to capture both rural and modern architectural features, an elegant stone addition was proposed. The concept was driven by following 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 in comparison to the lighter, but much larger existing wood clad house, it also displays a contrast in materials. This contrast is then separated from the existing house using a glass corridor that physically links the “old” with the “new”. The addition also pays homage to the rural tradition of adding and repeating similar forms, as we mimicked the house’s pitched cedar shake roof, but articulated it more like a folded plane, being supported on heavy timber beams.
Other modern elements include the use of heavy timber framing, bolted together with hot dipped galvanized steel brackets; a glass facade with unobstructed views of the forest; a raised concrete terrace complete with a concrete firewood enclosure; a wide open interior with a ceiling made from branches taken from the forest and a modern rotating wood stove – a simple, elegant project that celebrates the art of construction.
LOCATION: Utopia, Ontario
ARCHITECT: LINEVISION Architects
DESIGN LEADERSHIP: Michael Poitras,
Principal-in-Charge of Design
CLIENT: Withheld
STATISTICS:
- No. of storeys: 1
- Total floor area (addition):
600 ft2 (56 m2) - Total floor area (existing house + addition):
3,800 ft2 (353 m2)
MATERIALS:
- Vertical cedar battens
- Rubble stone (taken from site)
- Board formed concrete
- Spanish cedar wood windows & doors
- Cedar shake roof
- Douglas fir posts & beams
- Polished concrete floors (sealed)
- Concrete terrace (broom finish)
- Cedar clapboard siding (existing house)
- Flagstone terrace (existing house)
GENERAL PROGRAM:
(Addition/Renovation)
- Open concept family room/office
- Wood stove (rotating)
- Concrete terrace
- Board formed concrete firewood storage + potter’s bench
COST: Withheld
COMPLETION: Project