Bowen Island, BC

This home is an evolution of the forest house, set on a similar site and located just a short distance away. While it has the wedge shape in common the approach to the plan responds differently in the resolution of spaces driven both by the uniqueness of the site snd of the clients.

The stair, the fireplace and large round window are the icons of which help define this house and infuse the design with the clients youthful love of mid-century modernism.

The stair blurs the boundaries between carpentry and millwork and house extra storage. It provides a visual bookend to living room fireplace, anchors the kitchen with additional cabinetry and at the top landing gives the occupants a perfectly framed view  through their  round window of a craggy 200 year old Fir tree and the Howe Sound beyond.

The house is perched on a concrete base which extends all the way to the lowest eaves as a backdrop for the guillotine fireplace. The engineering of the fireplace requires a large surround to conceal the fireplace glass when it is raised into its open position.  A gun steel fireplace surround is recessed into the concrete fin wall framing the fire box.  Floor to ceiling corner windows on either side wash the fireplace assembly with natural daylight.  If the Forest house’s fireplace was an exercise in lightness the Wedge House fireplace becomes its alter ego with the mass of the concrete and steel rising floor to ceiling.

The round window was a special request of the client’s and completes the building’s north-west elevation’s composition. It rests above a large opening activated by an eclipse door system. The opening is protected by a long mass timber canopy supported by steel braves below as a contrast to the hung canopy of the Forest House.

This house is rendered in a composition of clear cedar, standing seam cladding and corrugated metal cladding.  The various bays and coves of the wedge provide an opportunity to change materials only at inside corners and help reinforce the sculptural nature of the wedge shape.