Login
Registered users
Approaching Vancouver Island on a sea-going ferry, plying its way from Vancouver on the mainland, or in a helicopter, buzzing across the many interstitial islands and outcrops of rock, you may well muse on the littoral topography below: an apparent equity between ground and water, plus intuitions of both abundance (modern modes of transportation as mechanical toys; bijou residences in spectacular scenery) and fragility (exposure to inevitable maritime wrath; the prospect of forest fires). In such a remarkable context, one hopes for an architecture that is simultaneously ambitious and deferential, delicate yet bold.
Arbour House is the latest in a distinguished family of houses designed and built in British Columbia by Vancouver-based Patkau Architects. From the compact Barnes House, embedded in an outcrop of rock, at Nanaimo in the early 1990s to the Tula House (THE PLAN 071) with its expansive jagged plan on Quadra Island two decades later, these strategically sited and beautifully detailed houses by Patkau Architects expand and contract in response to light, views, topography, and the inherent needs of each project.
Sunlight and shadow are certainly central to the design – and, indeed, structure – of Arbour House overlooking Cadboro Bay near Victoria at the sunny southern tip of Vancouver Island. The beautiful word “arbour” instantly suggests trees and the presence of nature. It also signals a kind of hybrid architecture, trees clustering to provide shelter or, conversely, delicate garden structures on which plants might thrive and within which human beings rest and, on occasion, cavort. This term connotes, therefore, a place within nature, complementing nature; and, yes, complimenting nature too. Merriam-Webster defines “arboreal”, the associated adjective, as “of or relating to trees” but also “living in or often found in trees”. This house manipulates the poetic potential of...
Digital
Printed
Green Architecture: Observations and Examples
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl
In his editorial “Green Architecture,” Wilhelm Vossenkuhl argues that true green architecture is not a single model, but a social, technological, ...
Private Residence
driendl*architects
For the Highlights column, Michael Webb discusses a private residence in Purbach am Neusiedler See, Austria, by driendl*architects...
Open House and City Walled
Matharoo Associates
In the Letter from India column, Durganand Balsavar reports on Open House and City Walled in Surat, by Matharoo Associates...
