Canadian Urban Infill Project Snatches Well-Deserved Architecture Prize

Think it’s easy to create a home that successfully manages to fill an urban plot and make use of innovative design techniques? The team at Christopher Simmonds Architects sure makes it look easy, with their project for the Fraser Residence, located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The award-winning home definitely had its set of challenges and it only makes sense to imagine that the project brief was chockfull of constraints. The home is located on a steeply inclined, narrow plot, but the design team knew how to turn this downside into a uniquely defining trait of the home. The project was the 2011 winner of the Best Custom Urban Infill award handed out by the Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association (GOBHA). The architects spared no creative resources and came up with a judiciously divided floor plan, which makes use of aptly selected materials and cleverly plays with volumetric stats and design lines.

While it make look understated on the outside, with its subtle earth-toned brickwork, the home’s volumes cleverly define its outward appearance and manage to integrate it into the overall urban scape of the street it is located on. The exterior volumes are extensions of the interior living spaces, while the sloped plot accommodates the garage on the lowermost level. The home also features a protruding porch, with glazed veneers for the day areas on the ground floor. The siding in stained cedar wood, the dark bronze aluminum glazing systems, the dark oak floors and cabinets and the “gallery-like interior” in immaculate white all come together into a balanced color palette that effortlessly speaks of refinement and elegance.

(Source: CSArchitect.com)