Dove

Discipline : Architecture

Categories : Special Award / Architecture + Concrete : Gold Certification

Categories : Special Award / Architecture + Wood : Silver Certification

Categories : Residential Building / Prestige House : Gold Certification

Categories : Residential Building / Private House > 2 000 pi2 (> 185 m2) : Gold Certification

Dove

Dove is conceived as a series of interconnected tents or pavilions in the landscape, rather than rooms filling out a governing shell. The tents orchestrate a succession of surprises, at its peak a soaring grand gathering space for dining, transiting to a low an intimate firelit living space. Each space is independently situated and connected to multiple inner routes – thought as trails, so that each main room becomes a destination. The project celebrates the paths between spaces as much as the rooms themselves. The experience of moving through the project is envisioned as a walk-through Ontario woods and meadows — gently up over logs, under low canopies dramatically sweeping to towering heights, squeezing through rock canyons, passing water streams… all lit from unusual and unexpected places.

The heart of the home wraps around back-to-back fireplaces within monolithic concrete trunks, like a gathering place at a clearing in the forest. Natural light is celebrated through glimpses, washing walls, and reflecting off surfaces. Every moment of each day of the year creates entirely different qualities of light and shadow play.

This project employs a concept of environmental stewardship that is often overlooked. Beyond the quantifiable environmental hurdles, the project has achieved- its envelope, ground-source heating and cooling, electrical harvesting, sunshine management, resilient materials- its aim is to directly connect the occupant in a memorable and meaningful way with its setting. The house opens and closes to highlight close and distant landscapes- low foregrounds contrasting tree canopies and celestial events. The effect of natural light washes textures at specific moments of day and year, telling different stories as time and seasons marches on. The goal of connectiveness is to produce lasting empathy and senses of belonging and stewardship to the natural world.

Dove is a 5000 sq ft L-shaped residence. It is designed to be highly efficient, relying on little resources to perform. 41 photovoltaic panels on its highest roof provides electricity that surpasses the home’s demands allowing its surplus energy to be feed back into the grid. Geothermal energy is harnessed to condition the building throughout all seasons.

Its thermal performance is enhanced by a robust blanket on all sides. When concrete masses travel from inside to outside, a distinct thermal-separation separation buffer is achieved.

The building enjoys green gardens on its flat roofs – these gardens are populated with local drought tolerant plants and irrigated from collected site water.

Internal cast-concrete towers and walls are used to both create visceral textural richness, but also designed to perform as structural armatures supporting the roof structure above. The concrete was engineered as masts to anchor a network of structural steel frames spanning across the interior spaces and beyond. This system allows the wood ceiling forms to sculpturally weave through the project and pass from space to space, seemingly floating without support. The monumental heaviness of the concrete forms create play between the expansive openings and lightness of the folded roof forms.

Enduring materials that will embrace time were chosen throughout the home. The folded main roof, lined with white birch on the interior and rich weathering steel on its outer skin, rises gently through the spaces, cradling the interior warmly like a tent. To enhance the tactile experience a material palette was developed holding strong juxtapositions such as reflective boldly-patterned green coloured stone of the counter surfaces and warm oak floors and millwork to the surface of the concrete, carrying the grain of the rough wood boards used to form it, creating a rich tactile character and expressing the memory of its making.

In addition to the architectural design both exterior and interior, the design work included custom lighting fixtures, bespoke rugs, and built-in furniture, as well as the greenhouse and covered walkway, the pool, and the landscape—each element working in concert to achieve a harmonious whole.

The project in images