Architects: Campos Leckie Studio ( currently divided into Leckie Studio Architecture + Design and Campos Studio)
Project: South Surrey house
Location: Surrey, Canada
Area 3200.0 ft2
Photography: Ema Peter
South Surrey house is conceived as a domestic landscape that blurs the boundary between interior and exterior space in a temperate coastal rainforest climate. It is essentially a ranch house typology with a guest house stacked upon it – for a physically active empty nest couple who enjoy the idea of welcoming family home for the holidays. The domestic program is spread across the entire site, and the vertical circulation is deliberately understated.
The programmatic organization allows the primary residents to live entirely on the ground floor. The Japanese-inspired courtyard ‘moss garden’ operates as a multi-faceted architectural device: it provides circulation along the primary project axis from the main entry, through the backyard pool and workout pavilion; it provides a visual extension of the living room into the garden; and the sliding glass doors in the kitchen (conceived as a glass box in the garden) open directly into the courtyard and the outdoor dining space beyond.
The central living space is bracketed on the south side by a large concrete fireplace which provides privacy from the street, and extends visually into the mossy, minimalist courtyard to the north. The orientation, form, and positioning of the upper volume was designed to protect against direct solar gain during the summer months, while allowing light at lower sun angles to penetrate into the spaces during the winter months.
