Status: design

Building area

ground floor - 1,800 sf

second floor - 590 sf

 “We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity” - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

HOUSE IN KIANUKO

the MOUNTAIN & THE VALLEY

Along the southern border of British Columbia are high mountain ranges with vast valley views toward the south. In these mountains, one’s first instinct is to turn south to the almost overwhelming views of the valley with its towns, lakes and streams, highways and meadows.

But of course there is a closer landscape to the north: that of the rocks, crevasses, the peaks that tower high above, dusted with ice and snow and blanketed with evergreen forests.

These two distinct and awesome environments - the expansive valley and the towering mountains - mutate and shimmer as the sun sweeps slowly across the sky, and are a constant presence in one’s mind and eyes.

design response: the valley and the mountain

This house is based on being able to live between and in the valley and the mountain. We have designed a pitched roof with three parts reminiscent of shards of rock face, separated by linear skylights that are light filled crevasses. The north of the house abuts the mountain face where we set three cupped forms to make cave like interior spaces. The cave spaces hold the four bedrooms and the kitchen.

The pitched roof extends to the south to make generous porches for sitting out - and for experiencing the constantly shifting panorama of the valley below. Looking the other way one can see between and above the cave forms to the imposing mountainside just beyond the limits of the house to the north. These two very different views are what have given form to this house in the mountains.