Village Life – Canada

Smith House is a vacation home located on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada adjacent to the architect’s farm. The home consists of three pavilions on a two-acre site spanning from a salt pond on the east to oceanfront on the west. This small peninsula historically supported an inshore fishing port.
Designed by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple architects, this is a proto-urban project, forming a village, together with other houses designed by the architect, on the old fishing village site. The reconstituted village is dense, requiring careful consideration of views in order to optimise community and privacy. Multiple courtyards are framed between the structures, creating micro-climates that both catch the sun and block the wind, following the seasons and daily rituals of dwelling.
The village is created by the simple gable-roofed forms, while these traditional forms echo local vernacular buildings, they are made absolutely modern through their cladding, and minimalist detailing.
At a time when so much of our world is in flux, this is a project that is about timeless archetypes, rather than novelty or fashion. It is less about itself than it is about the landscape cultivated around it.