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Two adjacent lots in North Vancouver, British Columbia, were combined into a single ground level where a main residence, a pool house and a greenhouse sit not as stand-alone buildings but as moments within a continuous landscape. Designed by Garret Cord Werner Architects with interiors from HB Designlandscape from Donohoe Living Landscapesand manufactured by Meister constructionthe project treats architecture, interiors and terrain as a single continuous material argument – one where no element claims hierarchy over the others and every boundary between interior and exterior is intentionally blurred.
About 6,100 square feet of built-up space is split between a three-level 4,235-square-foot main house and an 1,870-square-foot pool house. No corridor or air duct connects them – just an alley that the landscape design turns into a real threshold, not an afterthought. Open the internal gates and a view corridor runs through both properties. Greenhouse and vegetable plantings face the public lane and avenue plantings spill over the property line. Ryan Donohoe, founder and principal landscape designer at Donohoe Living Landscapes, viewed the boundary less as a fence and more as a civic gesture — pushing toward the fort believing it drives so much work into suburban housing.
The vocabulary of modern farmhouse architecture – brick, timber and generous glazing – finds its counterpoint in HB Design’s interior materials strategy. Studio partner Shannon Bradner led the interior work alongside lead Jennifer Heffel, bringing the project together at a relatively advanced stage, but delivering a design package that the construction team at Meister found extremely fast and coordinated. The palette is neutral and earthy, drawn from the tones already present in the environment, but what really sets the interiors apart is how familiar materials are reworked to bypass their usual associations.
Porcelain tiles, quartzite and carefully selected woods were chosen both for how they catch and shift light during the day and for their tonal fit with the architectural brickwork. Bradner’s approach layers diverse textures together – softening the precision of the architecture and drawing warmth into rooms that could easily have been frozen. Sourcing alone took several months, a painstaking calibration of tone and grain that speaks to the kind of expertise in materials usually associated with high-end hospitality rather than working for a family.
See more information about HB Design’s website.
Photo by Emma Peter.
