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Résidence M
By : Alexandre Bernier Architecte
GRANDS PRIX DU DESIGN – 16th edition
Discipline : Architecture
Categories : Special Award / Architecture + Renovation : Platinum Winner
Categories : Residential Building / Private House ≤ 2 000 pi2 (≤ 185 m2) : Gold Certification
M house
The M residence project is a transformation of a duplex into a typical row, in a quiet street of Rosemont in Montreal, into a single-family residence. Rosemont being an urban neighborhood conducive to the establishment of young families, the new owners, a couple with 3 children, have chosen to settle there to live in an urban, comfortable and friendly living environment.
Threshold/ limit and transitions
By observing the tumult of everyday life as well as the incessant back and forth driven by the energy of young children, the conceptual work of the project focused on the notion of threshold/limit both at the physical/material level and at the perceptual/sensory level. By using both spatial difference and finishing materials, the project emphasizes the relationship between the opening or closing of spaces, the transition between interior and exterior, between one space and another, between everyday life and rest, between the family and the personal, between the neighborhood and the family unit. This work aims to provide a healthy, fulfilling family environment.
The entrance as a transition space
The entrance is a space too often relegated to its functionality and also often too narrow to accommodate visitors. For this project, this space is large so that the 3 children can prepare for it and even stroll around. The floor is covered with mineral tiles, thus echoing the outer surface of the sidewalk. The threshold of the domestic living rooms is marked by the presence of a staircase which plays the role of a filter and marks the transition between the space of the street and the domestic space. Adding a skylight to this vertical circulation emphasizes this threshold, while allowing the center of the house to be naturally illuminated. The office/work space, a semi-public space, is adjacent to the entrance, reinforcing this exterior transition relationship. A customer or employee can thus be welcomed without having to penetrate deeper into the private domestic space. It is not necessary to remove your shoes in this traffic because the flooring is continuous with the entrance. This entry desk has been a must-have, almost essential, for the past few years.
The garden as a part of the house.
At the start of the reflection, a sentence by the Finnish architect Alvar Alto taken from the text From the doorstep to the living room: “The garden (the courtyard) is as much a part of our home as any room. The passage from the garden to the interior rooms must offer much less contrast than that from the street or the road to the garden. We could say this: the Finnish house must have two faces. The first is this direct aesthetic contact with the outside, while the second, its winter face, is manifested by an interior architecture concerned with giving warmth to our living spaces” (Alvar Alto, 1926, From the doorstep to the living room, The white table and other texts, Éditions Parenthèses
Through the bold opening of the rear facade in an urban context, the full-length sliding door runs the entire width of the facade. This opening makes it possible to bring the environment of the courtyard into the house and conversely to bring the house out to the outside garden. The integration of the shed at the back of the courtyard becomes the real physical limit of the house. On sunny days, the garden serves as a living room and outdoor meeting place between families and friends; on more boring days, it serves as a contemplative space allowing the gaze to project itself to the outside in order to be able to capture some of the restful atmosphere that can emerge from rainy or snowy days. The backyard is magnified daily by its evocation of nature, despite the urban context. This space is reappropriated as to its vocation of parking or storage too often observed, dedicated to a secondary use often dominated by a “clean” mineral surface and impervious to water and plants. The development of the courtyard speaks to our senses, reconciles us with our own inner garden, our child’s heart and our feeling of well-being outside which counterbalances our hectic daily life.
The room as a refuge clinging to the treetops
The bedroom is the ultimate room. Closed and private space where culminates the course of the house. It is the rest of everyday life, a refuge. The parents’ bedroom is treated as an intimate place, separated from the upstairs corridor by two utility blocks. These two blocks lean the bedroom space against the fully glazed wall on the courtyard spruce. The bedroom becomes a perch in the tree where you can contemplate and float in your thoughts, far from the hassle of everyday life, but in connection with the outside nature.
Collaboration
