Light Box

Located in the district of Rosemont-Petite-Patrie, near Père Marquette Park, the project consists in the renovation and expansion of a “shoebox”. The typical “shoebox” was erected by the working class in the 1940s and was originally a modest and economical 1-story single-family house.   In a desire for heritage conservation, the district classified the “shoeboxes” into different categories of interest. In this case, it was mandatory to preserve the existing façade, but we were allowed to add a second story. To respect the original volume of the shoebox and preserve its heritage values, it was intuitive to propose a set-back second-floor addition. This pronounced recess provides an intimate green terrace on the street side, facing south.   The project was designed for a couple passionate about architecture and art, whose judicious integration of several paintings was an integral part of the architect's mandate. Above all, the client's wish was to create a unique living...

Continue Reading

Les Courcelles

The house "Les Courcelles" is inserted in a block characterized mainly by brick facades with irregular alignments and simple cornices with linear ornamentations. Also typical are the irregular and asymmetrical layout of the openings in the facade and punctuated with the presence of a series of carriage porches due to the absence of service alleys at rear end of the lots.   The invested site was originally composed of two unified lots. Two principles therefore guided the design of the project: the dual character of the site with these two lots and the typology of the courtyard we call “Courcelle” defined as a small courtyard, a gap between two spaces or a small garden.   The project sought to fit discreetly into the urban fabric while respecting the proportions, the scale and the rhythm of the neighbouring buildings on the street and within the immediate neighbourhood.   Imposed by the city regulations, a contrasting materiality distinguishes...

Continue Reading

La Radieuse

Located in the heart of the Plateau Mont-Royal, near Sir Wilfred-Laurier Park, the project consists in the expansion and of the complete renovation of the semi-detached single-family house.   The project translates the intention of the family to create a real « family cocoon », where the functional and hearty space is open to the outside, giving rise to a diffuse natural light in all the common rooms. Thus, the ambition of the project is to bring conviviality, warmth, light but also a playful touch to this young family house.   In this way, the brick added to the double-height space allows to make the link between the two main rooms of the house, the dining room and the den up above, while marking the importance of the latter; places where the family gathers.   A central staircase with white painted steel stringers and maple steps connects all 3 floors together. Coupled with the double-height and its...

Continue Reading

La Cache

The project consists in the transformation of a duplex on Garnier Street into a cottage with a rental studio in the basement. Located in the heart of the Petite-Patrie district, the existing duplex is part of a series of two-storey dwellings with identical facades located on narrow and deep property. The genesis of the project was developed around a specific request from the clients: To have a winter living room like an urban chalet, in the heart of their home; a modern day cabin suspended in the image of a watchtower ( La Cache ). Translated by a rectangular volume dressed with wood, the watchtower is visually connected to the different spaces of the house through its materiality. “La Cache” is thus nested in the existing volumetry of the house. Suspended in the air, it cantilevers over the ground floor terrace. This feeling of imbrication is accentuated by the extension of the...

Continue Reading

Beloeil residence

  Following the arrival of a 2nd child, the clients decided to acquire a new 2-storey semi-detached house in the borough of Outremont in Montreal. The young family of 2 children therefore wishes to undertake a complete renovation of this Tudor-style house dating from the 1930s. Located on a 4250 square foot lot, the area of ​​the house is 1250 square feet per floor. Originally planned on a traditional subdivision of the space, the lengthy house has a series of closed rooms limiting the entry of natural light.   Lacking insulation in its exterior walls, it was decided for energy saving reasons to build new insulated partitions around the perimeter of the house. Combined with new needs from the clients, this resulted in an important reconfiguration of many interior divisions. Above all, the clients wished to decompartmentalize the existing spaces in order to create visual openings from the front to the back of...

Continue Reading

L’Escher

The project is located on 6th Avenue in the Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie borough in Montreal. Starting from a two-story duplex built in the 1930s, the project consists of a complete renovation of the building into a single-family house with the addition of a mezzanine. The young family of 3 children, whose parents are passionate about architecture, wants to live in an urban and contemporary home that is organized around excentric and atypical living spaces. On the ground floor, the living spaces are distributed in an open area giving way to a sculptural staircase that unfolds vertically over three floors up to the mezzanine. All the spaces in the house are thus organized around the periphery of the staircase, which becomes the central entity of the project.  Upstairs, the parental bedroom is located away from the children's bedrooms by the fault line in which the staircase majestically unfolds. On the mezzanine, this same void...

Continue Reading

La Brèche

The client wished to have the architect conceive a compact second home immersed in a woody lot in front of Mount Orford, in the Eastern Townships. The one-acre lot, characterized by a hilly landscape, is part of a housing development dating back to the 1970s. At its highest point, the property is topped with a bedrock on which it is decided to strongly anchor the new construction.   The client’s functional needs are strategically distributed inside two independent volumes connected by a walkway forming a breach through the house. The main volume hosts the living and sleeping spaces, while the second volume contains functional areas such as a workshop and a guest bedroom/loft with its own bathroom. This physical distinction of both elements was a desire of the client in order to preserve each other’s privacy.   The orientation of the house on its site was mainly dictated by the desired view of the...

Continue Reading

Quesnel Apartment

The Quesnel Apartment project consists in the renovation of the ground floor apartment of a 1920’s five-unit plex located in the Little Burgundy borough, in Montreal. The family living in the apartment wished to open up the rather dark living spaces in order to maximize the natural light in the heart of the home while establishing a more direct and spontaneous relationship with the backyard.   The layout was reconfigured around the primary need to open the apartment from front to back while maintaining the existing wall pattern as much as possible. This results in the arrangement of closed rooms on one side and a string of open living spaces on the other, all separated by a central corridor. The intervention tends to preserve the original character and several existing decorative elements to draw subtle inspiration from them: whether it is through the curves of an arch, the fluting of the columns...

Continue Reading
Memphremagog lake house naturehumaine architecture & design

La Triade

The project is located on a steep lot on the shores of Lake Memphremagog, not far from the St-Benoit-du-Lac monks' abbey. The owners wish to create on this large wooded lot, a home that reflects their lifestyle: dynamic, welcoming and friendly. They see their house as a contemporary and warm place for gatherings with friends.   Access to the property is through an entryway overlooking the house and offering a peek onto the lake further down below. This bird's eye view demonstrates the visual importance to the geometry of the roof most perceived from the approach. The chalet is composed of three volumes topped by sculptural roofs with diagonal ridge. At each high point of the ridge, a polygonal skylight culminates as a result of the roof geometry. These east-facing skylights provide natural light to the living spaces, workshop and master bathroom all facing the lake to the west. The house is inspired by the...

Continue Reading

La Doyenne

La Doyenne is a renovation and the expansion project of a Victorian house built in 1887, a few steps away from Square Saint-Louis in Montreal. In a high-density built environment characteristic of the Plateau Mont Royal, the main challenge to meet the desire of its new occupants was to design an extension in the back yard preserving their privacy from the side and rear buildings.   The project's singularity comes from the integration of multiple floor level variations. One enters the house through the living room, located half a level above the street, to reach the backyard, slightly recessed into the garden. This intervention aims to create a height offset in relation to the level of the neighboring terraces while reinforcing the verticality of the interior volumes. The proportions of the dining room and kitchen are then perceived as double height spaces. The exterior envelope of the house integrates several devices aimed at...

Continue Reading