Cedar-and-Glass Pavilion and Garden Offer Natural Touch on Modern Design

Created to match the home’s new appearance, the cedar-and-glass pavilion and surrounding garden space extend from an exterior renovation in Toronto’s affluent Forest Hill neighborhood. Replacing a more traditional pool house and round-edged pool, the backyard is based around the arrangement of geometric shapes, with hard edges softened by greenery and vegetation.

“[The client] wanted to extend the same design sensibility and material palette to their private outdoor space,” says Michael Amantea, founder of Amantea Architects. “They wanted something clean and modern … but they really wanted to be careful about not having this new exterior renovation feel too hard-edged or cold.”

The long edge facing the owners’ home features a screen of cedar strips stained black, which begin as wide strips at the edges of the building and grow narrower as they approach the opening. At night, the pavilion illuminates, creating a lantern-like effect.

Inside, each of the pavilion’s uses flow seamlessly from one to the other. The mechanical and storage rooms flank the middle changing areas on either side. The front breezeway leads around a corner, past the storage section, to a washroom, a change room, and an enclosed shower that opens to the outdoors.

The 506-square-foot pavilion is set at the edge of the yard, as far back as zoning would permit, and extends nearly the entire width of the lot. The building stands just above grade on helical piers, made to reduce its impact on the trees behind it. This preserves the owners’ privacy, retains the existing vegetation, and creates a sense of “infinite” space beyond, although the home is bordered by neighbors on three sides.

“We thought, if we designed this well, kind of like a Swiss watch where there’s not a wasted square inch,” Amantea says, “we could really pull this off and develop something that checks all the boxes, but also really heightens their awareness of this little private oasis.”