AZURE_2014_07_08.pdf

winneR
Residential
architecture
Cliff House
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
Firm: MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple
Architects Team: Brian MacKay-Lyons
with Kevin Reid and Talbot Sweetapple
The East Coast firm has earned an international
reputation for its contemporary
approach to traditional materials, and
to characteristic Maritime architecture.
MLS has earned over 100 awards since
principal Brian MacKay-Lyons founded
the studio in 1984. mlsarchitects.ca
“monumental modesty” is how Brian
MacKay-Lyons describes Cliff
House. Expressing a drama utterly
suited to its breathtaking surroundings,
the house is the first in a
series of projects to be built on a
privately owned property on the
Atlantic coast. Measuring just
89 square metres, it is a triumph in
every aspect – a stunningly compact
building crafted using a frugal
palette of glass, wood, aluminum
and steel, and realized without
breaking the bank.
The skeleton forms the primary
boxy volume, which sits on a galvanized
superstructure anchored
to bedrock, the engineering of
which enables the house to rest
two-thirds of its mass above solid
ground. Inside, a conventional
framing system is left exposed, to
the point of almost being ignored;
after all, it is the panoramic views,
visible from three sides of the great
room, that the house intends to
exploit. Beyond this central space,
kept warm by a wood-burning
stove, there is a compact service
core with an open kitchen and a
bathroom, a sleeping perch above
and not much more.
For those who have sat in the
great room, vertigo constitutes a
part of the experience. Toronto
writer Larry Gaudet, who first
wrote about Cliff House for Azure
in 2012, noted, “It’s as if it has
slipped from its foundation and
is about to topple forward.…
You’re both drawn to the windows
and repelled by them. You have
entered the guts of the thing, and
it’s only after you settle down, after
your heartbeat normalizes, that
you say, now this is amazing.”