Building Houses

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Interior Decorating

Drew Mandel Design

83A Marlborough Ave

Infill house on a 13ft wide plot, becomes feature residence of the street - Drew Mandel has used every inch of this brownfield (ex 1 car garage & garden) site to create his ideal residence. Influences of Frank Lloyd Wright and Rudolph Schindler eminent in the residence's façade lead to elegant use of wood detailing for the interior.

Overview
Drew, an up and coming Canadian architect snapped up an “interesting” plot, that his colleague at MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects, David Miller had on offer. Setting out to create his debut "big time" design, Drew won a number of awards in Toronto and Canada. The house is an impressive example of modern infill, coming in at a modest $182 per ft².

The Lot
Miller and his architect wife, Amy Falkner, had obtained a minor variance allowing them to build to the very edges of the property line without the usual margin of grass or ground cover. (It's only because the houses on each side are set back from the lot line that there is any space at all between the Mandel-Cooper house and its neighbours.) To support development, the municipality had allowed a substantial increase in the floor space, from 908 to more than 1,280 square feet above ground.
Their relatives labelled the plot a bowling lane, Mandel and his wife like to think of it as a lane each.


Design
Focusing on commercial design at work, Drew’s evening efforts on his own house pulled from his designs of multiplexes, community centres, libraries and banks. The main Achilles heel of the plot, the extended walls down either side of the property, led Drew to (as he sometimes reflects) to overcompensate with house glass panels at either end and a large light well at the centre of the build. I disagree; the house is fantastically bright and airy.



Breaking the house away from other designs out there and I believe linking it to his favoured FLW and Rudolf, is the use of patchwork glass rather than a large expanse of industrial like uniform façade. A cute modernist take on the Juliet balcony protrudes from the master bedroom, breaking the rear wall further and allows great views down to the meticulously landscaped garden, that complements the house so well. Adding to the functionality of the glass façade, a large central panel pivots to allow bigger pieces of furniture to be hoisted in.



Bringing in that industrial design know-how resolved the issue of construction methods too. Such a narrow tall design refused traditional frame design used in residential projects, meaning an industrial to balloon framing technique was adopted. Steel supports for the entire 38-foot length of the walls were put up first, and then the floors were locked in afterwards.

Further industrial features of the house include the two ramps from the entrance of the house to the living room and from the master bedroom to the second bedroom, a comfortable alternative to stairs.

Layout
From the semi-subterranean guest room at the front of the house you head south up the ramp to the living room, then north up five stairs to the dining room-kitchen floor, then south again up the house's only full flight of stairs to the master bedroom and bathroom. Finally, completing the layout you head north, up the second ramp to the second bedroom.

The Result
Drew and Denise have blown their relatives away. Despite the restricting plot they've created a house that through it's high ceilings, skylights and maximum glazing at both ends is a bright, spacious and airy home.


Plans

Architect/Designer: Drew Mandel Design
Client: Denise Cooper & Drew Mandel
Completed: 2007
Structural: Blackwell Engineering Ltd. (David Bowick)
Builder: T. Fijalkowski & Associates
Site Plan Approval: David Miller & Amy Falkner
Lot:13' x 115' or 1560 ft²
Costs: $182 per ft²

Information courtesy of: Drew Mandel Design

House Construction

From their site:

Vancouver Island BC
2000-2003
3100 SQ FT

This project was designed as a vacation house for an extended family. Three concrete and glass pavilions are linked with a large heavy-timber roof, connecting the volumes with a breeze way and 6'-0" deep overhangs. The elevation of the house facing the ocean is a continuous wall of full height glass doors, high on a steep bank above the beach. Nestled between a damp forest and a tangle of blackberry-bushes, the house was conceived as a single-level vacation and retirement house, appropriate for ageing clients and their young extended family. The requirement for an extremely robust, durable and quiet house resulted in thick in-situ concrete walls, intentionally left rough and crude. Hovering above, the simple Douglas Fir roof structure was left raw. In-fill materials squeezed between the concrete and timber were chosen for longevity: bleached red cedar, polished concrete, hand-made porcelain tile and smooth Douglas Fir millwork result in a rugged, unpretentious family house.

The modest materials are countered with a range of carefully sculpted spaces, inside and out. All designed outdoor spaces are clearly defined with wall or ground plane articulation on at least two sides. The morning deck is aimed to catch morning sun for reading and yoga, the two-level western terrace is for afternoon tanning or watching sunsets beside an open fire. These outdoor spaces are furnished with native plantings and large earth berms. Within a very hot and dry micro climate, the house's mass, deep overhangs and carefully designed passive ventilation keep the house cool.

The house has a heavy and quiet presence, it's porous edges abutting the surrounding vegetation. Though still quite new, the house is at ease in its setting; its roughness has the appeal of a well-used home with years of patina.

via: D'Arcy Jones Design INC

House Construction

Patkau Architects

Shaw House

Here's a quick reference to a northern hemisphere version of the Road to Farellones house.

Similarly the pool is built into the second floor, but in this case, the entry is right underneath it. Windows in the bottom of the pool allow light to ripple across the doorway and entrance porch. The galvanised steel, concrete and light timber exterior combines, and no doubt will age, well.

I really like this and the slat covered loft boxes, housing the tall bedroom and study/guest room. There's plenty of room for jumping on the bed, and the fact that they're tall makes up for these rooms being moderate in size. Downstairs, separate living dining and kitchen areas in sequence as you head back from the sunken lounge and views to the harbour (the kitchen is behind a sliding door, seen opened and closed in the shots). Finally, right at the back of the house, as all bachelor pads should, it's got space for the weekday car and the weekend race car (double garage).

As you can well imagine there's some serious reinforcing in the concrete to hold all that water up there, and even more so with Vancouver's stringent earthquake codes. But the house takes in the views and has wide openings despite these constraints. Great.































From their site
Program
A private residence of 285 square metres for a single person. The program includes living spaces, bedroom, study, music room, and a lap pool.

Site
The site is a small waterfront property, 10 metres wide by 47 metres deep, looking across English Bay to the North Shore mountains which dominate the skyline of Vancouver. Required sideyard setbacks result in a plan which is limited to 8 metres in width.

Design
The house is organized with living spaces on grade, private spaces above grade, and music room below grade. The dimensions of the site made it difficult to locate the lap pool on grade while retaining generous living spaces. Consequently, the lap pool is located above grade, along the west side of the house, connected at either end to the terraces off of the bedroom and study.
Within the narrow floor plates spatial expansion is only possible outward over the water and upward through the volume of the house. Small spaces are enlarged with generous ceiling heights, while the fully interiorized dining room rises through the floor above to a clerestory that brings both daylight and light reflected from the lap pool deep into the central area of the plan.

Construction
Vancouver is located in an area of high seismic risk. In this context, with the lap pool located above grade, a robust structure is required that is resistant to significant lateral forces. As a result, the house is constructed almost entirely of reinforced concrete.

Awards
American Institute of Architects National Honor Award 2005
Governor General’s Medal 2004
Record House Selection 2002

via: Patkau Architects, Haeuser & The Slow Home