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Design Challenge

The existing, aging building’s façade was badly in need of repair. The clients asked for an aesthetic that spoke of their environmental activism and their desire to restore the integrity of their prominently located home. The clients, a painter, and an esthetician who owns a home-based spa and organic body product business, wished to maintain the building’s original mercantile component for their two studios and to use the original storefront with its large windows for the display of the paintings. Simultaneously, despite the prevalence of their home-based businesses, the clients also desired a fully private living area that opened out to a tranquil, modernist landscape.

Design Solution

The building’s new façade incorporates sections of sensuous and colourful living plant matter that will change seasonally and serve to contrast with the longevity of the new masonry siding. Eventually, the roof, which receives ample sunlight (as opposed to the shaded garden below), will be planted and become a vegetable garden, accessed from the lower landscape via an exterior, steel stair. The planted roof, masonry façade, and planted sunscreen canopies will augment the existing insulation properties of the house, reducing the required heating and cooling demands. The garden wall, also of masonry and plant matter, deadens the sounds of the adjacent, noisy street.