Dove House, Toronto home, New Ontario residence design, Canadian interior design, architecture images
Dove House in Toronto, Ontario
24 July 2024
Design: AGATHOM Co Ltd
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Photos by Steven Evans Photography, doublespace Photography
Dove House, Ontario
Dove is a series of interconnected pavilions in the landscape. The 5,000 square-foot, L-shaped home is at its peak a space for dining, transiting into a low living space. Each room is independently situated and connected to multiple inner routes, so each main space becomes a destination. The experience of moving through the project is envisioned as a walk through Ontario woods and meadows. The heart of the home wraps around back-to-back fireplaces within monolithic concrete trunks. Natural light occurs through glimpses, washing walls, and reflecting off surfaces.
This project employs a concept of environmental stewardship that is often overlooked. Enduring materials that will embrace time were chosen throughout the home. The goal of connectedness is to produce lasting empathy and a sense of belonging to the natural world.
Connectivity revealed through the structure
Dove is conceived as a series of interconnected tents or pavilions in the landscape rather than rooms filling out a governing shell. The tents orchestrate a succession of surprises. At its peak, a soaring grand gathering space for dining transits to a low, intimate, fire-lit living space. Each space is independently situated and connected to multiple inner routes – conceived as trails – so that each main room becomes a destination. The project brings importance to the paths between spaces as much as the rooms themselves.
“Forest bathing” – health from within
The experience of moving through the project is envisioned as a walk through Ontario woods and meadows — gently up over logs, under low canopies, dramatically sweeping to towering heights, squeezing through rock canyons, passing water streams… all lit from unusual and unexpected places. The heart of the home wraps around back-to-back fireplaces within monolithic concrete trunks, like a gathering place at a clearing in the forest. Natural light is celebrated through glimpses, washing walls, and reflections off surfaces. Every moment of each day of the year creates entirely different qualities of light and shadow play.
Sustainability & biomorphic design
This project employs a concept of environmental stewardship that is often overlooked. Beyond the quantifiable environmental hurdles, the project has achieved, its envelope, ground-source heating and cooling, electrical harvesting, sunshine management, and resilient materials aim to directly connect the occupant in a memorable and meaningful way with its setting. The house opens and closes to highlight close and distant landscapes- low foregrounds contrasting with tree canopies and celestial events. The effect of natural light washes textures at specific moments of the day and year, telling different stories as time and seasons march on. The goal of connectedness is to produce lasting empathy and a sense of belonging and stewardship to the natural world.
Dove is a 5,000 sq ft L-shaped residence. It is designed to be highly efficient, relying on little resources to perform. 41 photovoltaic panels on its highest roof provide electricity that surpasses the home’s demands, allowing its surplus energy to be feed back into the grid. Geothermal energy is harnessed to condition the building throughout the seasons. Its thermal performance is enhanced by a robust blanket on all sides. When concrete masses travel from inside to outside, a distinct thermal-separation buffer is achieved.
The building enjoys green gardens on its flat roofs – these gardens are populated with local, drought tolerant plants, and are irrigated with collected site water.
Concrete & steel beyond structure
Internal cast-concrete towers and walls are used to create visceral textural richness and are also designed to perform as structural armatures supporting the roof structure above. The concrete was engineered as masts to anchor a network of structural steel frames spanning across the interior spaces and beyond. This system allows the wood ceiling forms to sculpturally weave through the project and pass from space to space, seemingly floating without support. The monumental heaviness of the concrete forms creates play between the expansive openings and the lightness of the folded roof forms.
Material palette inspired by nature
Enduring materials that will embrace time were chosen throughout the home. The folded main roof, lined with white birch on the interior and rich weathering steel on its outer skin, rises gently through the spaces, cradling the interior warmly like a tent. To enhance the tactile experience a material palette was developed holding strong juxtapositions such as the reflective, boldly-patterned green coloured stone of the counter surfaces and warm oak floors and millwork to the surface of the concrete, carrying the grain of the rough wood boards used to form it, creating a rich tactile character and expressing the memory of its making.
Product design & allied arts
In addition to the architectural design of both the exterior and interior, the design work included custom lighting fixtures, bespoke rugs, and built-in furniture, as well as the greenhouse and covered walkway, the pool, and the landscaping—each element working in concert to achieve a harmonious whole.
Dove House in Ontario, Canada – Property Information
Architects/designers: AGATHOM Co Ltd – https://www.leblancarchitect.com/
Official Project Name: Dove
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Client: Private
Project Manager: Katja Aga Sachse Thom, Adam James Thom
Design team: Serafima Korovina, Stanley Sun, Joshua Henk, David Stone
Collaborators: VMF Structures
Engineers: Moses Structural engineers
Landscape Architect: AGATHOM Co. Ltd, Coivic Contracting Ltd
Suppliers: Torp Inc -windows and furniture
VAEV -Rugs
Lighting Designer: TPL, Viken Kendirjian
Project Sector: Residential +5 Mill
Project completion date: 2021
Photographers: Steven Evans Photography, doublespace Photography
About AGATHOM Co Ltd
AGATHOM is an award-winning architectural studio and workshop. Established in 2005, the firm is the union of two distinct, yet complementary voices — Adam Thom and Katja Aga Sachse Thom. The work they do is an extension of a finely-calibrated collaborative process, built on a foundation of broad technical expertise and a dedication to craftsmanship.
What sets AGATHOM apart is a focus on relationships – with their clients, their inhouse team, and the talented builders and craftspeople they work with. This approach fosters a deeper understanding of their clients’ needs and superior project management. While each project begins with a sensitivity to the site, the studio is at its best when a program entails a broad range of interrelated challenges, including planning, landscape, interior detailing, and, of course, building design.
AGATHOM is fueled by the conviction that thoughtful, timeless, and imaginative architecture has the power to contribute to the well-being of its occupants, while providing protection, comfort – and even moments of wonder and delight.
Photographers: Steven Evans Photography, doublespace Photography
Dove House, Toronto, Ontario property images / information received 240724 from v2com newswire
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada, North America
Houses in Toronto
Contemporary Toronto Buildings
Contemporary Toronto Homes – selection from e-architect:
Stack House, Hill Toronto, ON, Canada
Design: Atelier RZLBD
photo : Borzu Talaie
Stack House, Forest Hill
Petaluma House, Whitby, Toronto GTA
Design: Trevor McIvor Architect Inc
image from architects studio
Petaluma House
Forest Hill Garden & Pavilion, Forest Hill neighbourhood
Design: Amantea Architects
photo : Doublespace Photography
Forest Hill Garden and Pavilion
August House
Design: Giaimo
photo : Doublespace Photography
August Toronto House Extension
Toronto Architecture
Toronto Architectural Designs – chronological list
Ontario Architecture News on e-architect
New Ontario Properties – recent selection from e-architect:
Mila Sales Centre, Scarborough
Design: dkstudio architects inc.
photo : Michael Muraz
Mila Sales Centre Scarborough
Sheridan College Hazel McCallion Campus Phase 2A, Downtown Mississauga
Design: Montgomery Sisam Architects in joint venture with Moriyama & Teshima Architects
photo : Montgomery Sisam Architects
Sheridan College Hazel McCallion Campus
SMYTHE, Summerhill district, north Toronto
Design: Ashley Botten Design and Tommy Smythe
SMYTHE flagship Store
Comments / photos for the Dove House, Toronto, Ontario property design by AGATHOM Co Ltd page welcome.