Project: Pivot House
Architects: Splyce Design
Design: Nigel Parish, Nicholas Waissbluth, Ewing Choi
Build: Powers Construction
Structural: Aspect Structural Engineers
Landscape: Splyce Design (hardscape) Botanica (softscape)
Location: Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Area: 5600 ft2
Year 2018
Photography: Sama Jim Canzian
The Pivot House is located on an irregularly shaped lot in a Burnaby suburb. Pinched on the north end and steeply sloped to the front door, the footprint of the house is shaped by the site, which fans out on the south, allowing for a broad walk-out living space. Designed for a young family of four, the house is organized around an oversized three storey triangular cutout in the floors and roof, marking the location of the staircase and the intersection of the two main volumes of the house as they follow the splayed lot lines. This space becomes animated with beams of sunlight across the adjacent concrete wall, and socially interactive as one moves vertically between floors.
While the interior is open and interconnected, a play on the angular geometry defines primary spaces such as the living and dining room on the main level, and the master bedroom on the upper, which pivot off the dominant east-west section of the home. Deep roof overhangs on the main and upper floors provide solar shading and emphasize the unique horizontality and breadth of this portion of the home, which contains the kids’ and guest bedrooms on the upper floor, as well as the kitchen, informal eating area and flex room on the main.
Extensive glazing provides an intimate connection and access to the multi-use rear landscape, where a large grassed area with its playful berms, a wood deck and a sunken barbecue zone can accommodate use by all family members simultaneously.
On the street side elevation, punched windows are calibrated for privacy and views to the distant mountain range. The exterior is clad in two distinct materials- composite panel and cedar siding- to articulate form and geometry- suggestive of what is to be further revealed inside.
