In architecture, inspiration waits for a problem. Look behind any truly innovative house and you'll find the constraints that made conventional solutions impossible. In the case of this custom home on the shore of English Bay in Vancouver, B.C., the challenges began with fitting living quarters, a swimming pool, and a two-car garage onto a mere sliver of land. The 26-foot-wide buildable footprint led architect John Patkau to locate the pool at the second level. A code limit on square footage led him to make the area below the pool an outdoor walk to the entry door rather than an indoor circulation space. The need for daylight at the walkway led him to design the pool with a glass floor. All of which led to concrete.
Vancouver is in a rather active seismic zone, Patkau notes, “and when you put a large mass in the air in a seismic zone, you create a significant structural challenge.” Reinforced poured concrete was simply the most practical choice for such an application.
But if any of these design moves sound like bows to expediency, one look at the result proves otherwise. Open to the sky and the bay, the elevated pool offers privacy without confinement. The shifting patterns of light that filter through the pool's glass floor create a distinctive mood before one even enters the house.
And the concrete itself transcends its role as brute structure. There's no other way to put it: This stuff is beautiful. “It's not like a cement basement,” says Patkau. “It really is a luxury material.” In the right hands, that is. But as the architect adds, “Vancouver is uniquely blessed with quality concrete construction.” Exterior walls bear the texture of horizontal-board forms.
Beams and columns, formed with smooth plywood, have a glassy surface. “It has almost a creamy character,” Patkau says. “It looks like something carved out of stone.”
Project Credits
Builder: Vern Glover, West Vancouver, B.C.
Architect: Patkau Architects, Vancouver, B.C.
Living space: 3,071 square feet
Site: .12 acre
Construction cost: Withheld
Photographer: Undine Prohl
Resources: Bathroom/kitchen plumbing fittings: Vola; Bathroom plumbing fixtures: Kohler; Dishwasher: Miele; Hardware: Sargent; Kitchen plumbing fixtures: Kindred; Lighting fixtures: BK Lighting and Zumtobel Staff; Oven: Thermador; Refrigerator: Sub-Zero.
Screen Gem “Laciness” and “delicacy” may not be the words that pop into your head when you think of concrete. But Berkeley, Calif., architect/engineer/builder Gary Black achieves just those qualities in the decorative concrete screens he has fabricated for a number of residential and commercial projects. To produce the complex forms involved, he cuts the void shapes from rigid foam board with a hot wire and glues the pieces to a sheet of MDF. “What ends up being the hole was once a piece of Styrofoam,” he says. After waxing the forms, Black pours one of several concrete mixes. For interior screens, he uses Tufstone, a gypsum-based cement. For exterior locations, he has used both Garden Cast, a fast-setting cement used for garden ornaments, and self-compacting concrete. “It's labor intensive, and you can end up with a pile of nothing really easily,” cautions Black, who charged $1,500 for a recent 3-foot-by-3-foot panel. But the results, as in this screen he fabricated for a custom home in Sonoma, Calif., show concrete in an entirely new light.
