long view toward main channel
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The four-season family cabin is a deeply thoughtful response to the cultural heritage landscape of Go Home Bay, an enclave of Ontario’s Georgian Bay archipelago. The area was once immortalized by the Group of Seven and abounds with a powerful natural beauty; rocky landscapes populated by white pines shaped by the west winds. However, the landscape is also increasingly vulnerable to development. Over-scaled structures have become ever more commonplace, dominating the context, dwarfing the surroundings and spoiling one’s experience of the natural realm. This cabin is an important, positive alternative to the prevailing trends. It uses contemporary language while embodying the distinguishing and modest characteristics of the vernacular cottages that have unobtrusively dotted the area since the 1890s. The amber-hued interiors, framed in rough-sawn fir, are efficient, compact and distilled down to the necessary essentials for peaceful weekends outside of the city. The simplicity belies a profound connection to the surrounding nature that is at once strong and sensitive, stirring and peaceful. The cabin is strategically sited to respect the natural beauty of the site, and to create a sense of anticipation for visitors. When visitors approach by water (it is 16-miles from the nearest dock, with no road access), the property’s mature trees fragment their views of the low-slung volume. It is only as visitors climb up from the dock through a juniper meadow, surrounded by tall white pines, that they see the building clearly as a charcoal-coloured cedar shingle box. The lightness on the land is instantly evident in the construction: it’s form is cantilevered off concrete piers so that it floats over a whaleback outcropping of granite.
view of forest
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1. entry
2. living/dining room
3. kitchen
4. south window seat
5. master bedroom
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6. bedroom
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10’
7. washroom
8. deck
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sustainability/environmental controls:
irrigated green roof: - roof membrane is protected from UV radiation by either metal flashing or green roof assembly to ensure a long service life - when irrigated with lake water, evaporative cooling tempers the indoor temperature signifigantly
ventilation: - main space transform into screened porch - clerestorey ensures flow through ventilation for all spaces thermal mass: stores heat from two wood stoves rolling shades: prevents unwanted heat gain building/site relationship: The floor structure is comprised of heavily insulated sips panels on a galvanized steel frame, supported off the ground on a series of concrete piers which are carefully scribed to the rock allowing the cabin to “float� above the granite outcropping. the building appears as a discrete, civilized element and has minimal impact on the natural ground plane.
materials: all materials were brought to the site on a single barge
approach by water
approach from dock
kitchen looking south
south window seat
The carefully sequenced interior spaces underscore a rich connection to the landscape. Entering into a simple vestibule from the south deck, visitors’ views are largely withheld to delay and therefore intensify their effect. Visitors then pass into the long kitchen, which doubles as a corridor along the back of the cabin, connecting the principal areas and ending in a cozy window seat complete with a woodstove and views to the extensive forest behind. This space serves as counterpoint to the big water views in the adjacent main room where some 42 linear feet of windows look west toward the open Go Home Bay channel. Here, the ground plane drops out of view, and the short middle ground is lost. This obscuring engages the visitor’s imagination, resulting in a more idealized perception of the scale and drama of the landscape, which ultimately defines one’s memory of the place. Sustainable features lighten the building’s footprint. The main construction materials were coordinated on a single barge to reduce the embodied energy of transportation. Furthermore, an intimate knowledge of the site’s weather patterns — the inner bay locale can be stiflingly hot in the summer due to a lack of airflow — lead to a multi-pronged approach to achieve passive thermal comfort. The irrigated green roof ameliorates cooling, sunshades integrated with the envelope reduce heat gain, and the main space, capped by operable clerestories, transforms into a screened porch with lift and slide doors to improve cross ventilation. This porosity in the architecture helps the inhabitants mark the changes in the days, the seasons and the climate, ultimately forging a more profound connection to the land.
master bedroom at clerestory
entry to living/dining room
deck side of living/dining room
approach from dock
west deck at whaleback