Nearly all housing stock is based on universally useless design myths that misinform the spaces we inhabit. The waste of resources expended on redundant and overly specific spaces baffles me.
paul whelan losing rooms | gaining space
We need better design in our world of increasing consumption of diminishing resources. Too often residential design is based on false axioms. A classic example is the marketing fascination with eating and hygiene whereby many houses have multiple eating areas coupled with multiple bathrooms. Valuable space is devoted to incredibly specific activities while our homes accommodate fewer people on a per-unit basis. In our world of unsupportable consumption of diminish- ing resources, I propose that less specific design can provide the spaciousness and flexibility our housing needs to sup - port a wider range of occupancy styles.
1: (left) aerial view with newer 60s suburb to the west and the Humber River in the bottom left. 2: original house, front. 3: 8’ addition: corner windows erode the sense of enclosure along the addition wall and provide oblique views up the street and into the forest. 4: (right) at the back, the new cladding extends over the face of the existing brick to visually blur the relationship between the original house and the addition.
the Valley The Magwood House is in a valley neighbour- hood bordering the Humber River on the western edge of Toronto’s inter-war suburbs. This area was intensively cultivated as market gardens until Hurricane Hazel flooded it in 1954; the resulting financial vacuum corre- sponded with a need for more housing, which was built following a post-war suburban plan- ning paradigm —new three-bedroom semi- detached brick houses of just over 1,000 ft 2 of an unforgiving specificity. Each house has all the requisite rooms, yet each room is too small to truly accommodate its designated use and too specific to flexibly accommodate the wide needs of today’s families. Paradoxically these houses were built on larger lots than the bigger houses of the adjacent neighbourhood. the Simple Story The Craig-Stakaruk family needed more space — their small house and its small rooms could no longer meet the needs of two grow- ing hockey kids. The simple answer was an economical and straightforward 8 foot wide side addition to increase the overall area to 1,500 ft 2 . Both floors were reconfigured to create open and flexible space.
the Column The original exterior bearing wall has been removed and replaced by a beam with a mid- span fir post salvaged from a family cottage north of Toronto. The rough-hewn column loosely defines the overlapping intersec- tions between dining, kitchen and living and provides a strong material presence in the middle of the space. the Ceiling In openly planned spaces, ceilings offer an uncluttered opportunity to express spatial or- ganisation. The slight drop in ceiling height between new and existing ceilings extends well past the fir column and blurs the junc- tion between the addition and the original house. The lower ceiling is not connected to the exterior walls: the resulting slot conceals lighting and window blinds. Over the con- tinuous cast-concrete kitchen counter a series of parallel lighting slots adds visual interest and light to the food preparation area. the Cladding All the windows were left-overs in a wide variety of sizes stockpiled at the manufactur- er’s warehouse. Cladding is an inexpensive
cement board applied in an interlocking and random pattern to accommodate the range of window sizes. the Second Floor The second floor takes a run at conventional wisdom by converting a three-bedroom house into two bedrooms (of course the simple addition of a wall and door can correct this marketing faux pas ). The bedrooms are placed in the new addition leaving the rest of the second floor as a family room large enough for floor hockey, computers, books, TV and seating. Sweat Equity and the Environment To maximise the floor area and defer some costs, the owners did much of the work themselves, installing the wood floors, stone tile and trim, and painting the exterior and interior. Many of the design decisions were driven by the owners’ strong commitment to the environment. Recycled products and re- used products were used as much as possible – often at great inconvenience and minimal financial advantage.
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