Albany Residence
View of Indoor Dining Room from Rear Garden (Photo: Peter Legris)
Dining Room at Night (Photo: Peter Legris)
View to Garden (Photo: Peter Legris)
Fountain Detail (Photo: Michael Graydon)
Cherry Sideboard (Photo: Peter Legris)
Rear Wall Open to Garden (Photo: Michael Graydon)
Looking Back from the Garden (Photo: Lisa Rapoport | PLANT Architect Inc.)
Site Section (Drawing: PLANT Architect Inc.)
Project
Albany Residence
Albany Residence
Toronto / Canada, 2008
Description
Marjorie Harris, Canada’s premier garden guru, commissioned this house extension as a way of permanently replacing her outdoor deck dining room with an all-season, indoor dining space. The challenge was to create an indoor dining room that would retain the airy, outdoor quality of a deck perched inside a garden, and maintain a breath-taking view of the home’s stunning outdoor oasis. The solution was a 14’-wide, 12’-deep, 12’-foot high room that could take in the entire garden. This three-dimensional frame features extended walls and eight feet of lower glass that fold out of sight, allowing the plants in this oft-photographed writer’s garden to enter the space visually. The sloped, floating ceiling makes a subtle transition from the existing house to the new room. Like the extending walls of the frame, the slate floor continues on to the exterior, with a built-in cherry sideboard doubling as a stair rail.
Marjorie Harris, Canada’s premier garden guru, commissioned this house extension as a way of permanently replacing her outdoor deck dining room with an all-season, indoor dining space. The challenge was to create an indoor dining room that would retain the airy, outdoor quality of a deck perched inside a garden, and maintain a breath-taking view of the home’s stunning outdoor oasis. The solution was a 14’-wide, 12’-deep, 12’-foot high room that could take in the entire garden. This three-dimensional frame features extended walls and eight feet of lower glass that fold out of sight, allowing the plants in this oft-photographed writer’s garden to enter the space visually. The sloped, floating ceiling makes a subtle transition from the existing house to the new room. Like the extending walls of the frame, the slate floor continues on to the exterior, with a built-in cherry sideboard doubling as a stair rail.