News & Events

Living On the Edge

Carolann Rule
Western Living

October, 2005

Taut lines and sharp angles add visual tension to a house that, perhaps surprisingly, ends up being as warm to live in as it is cool to look at.

If West Vancouver does not have the highest concentration of award-winning contemporary homes in Canada, what other community does? Since the 1940s, when a well-regarded artist name B.C Binning built himself a modest but much touted "modern" home here to explore "blending nature and man-made architecture," this suburban enclave has been on the money design-wise. May of British Columbia's top-tier architects have taken advantage of its rugged coastal setting to construct masterpieces that have earned them professional awards and public admiration.

The latest adventure in architecture to warrant a spot on the greatest hits list is this newly minted residence by David Battersby and Heather Howat for their longtime client and friend Ross Bonetti, his wife, Melissa, and their three middle-school-aged children.

Battersby and Howat are partners in the design firm BattersbyHowat. During their 10 years in business, these 30-something perfectionists have practised a rigorous form of modern architecture–"warm modernism" is the way it's most often described – that has earned their firm an ongoing buzz. Western Living was the first glossy to recognize their talent with a cover story in 1999. Last year Wallpaper magazine included them on their annual list of top 25 modernist firms worldwide.

When BattersbyHowat revamped Ross Bonetti's LivingSpace Interiors showroom to rave reviews three years ago, the idea was to create a simple, subdued, unobtrusive backdrop for the high-style furniture and lighting he sells. "LivingSpace was about corporate identity," says Battersby; "the house is about Ross's and Melissa's personalities. It's about the way they like to live, which is casually; how they want to share what they have–they're the cool family in the neighbourhood where everyone wants to hang out; and who they are aesthetically."

As fortune would have it, Ross and Melissa, who are very well suited in most regards, are not always on the same page aesthetically. "I think Ross would have been perfectly happy to live in a modernist box with a few pieces of beautiful furniture, but I knew I didn't want that," says Melissa, who con¬fesses to a love of ethnic interiors. "When I look through magazines, I'm attracted to Moroccan and Mexican homes. I'm not antimodern, but I do love colour, for one thing, and I don't like things nearly as clean and simple as Ross does. He and David and Heather always saw eye-to-eye, but not me."

This turned out to be a good thing, says Ross, because Melissa's different way of looking at things led to experimentation. "We joke now that instead of a typical square, David and Heather gave Mel a triangle, which is what our house looks like from the front. They also gave her a jolt of colour at the front door. "The red mosaic tile in the entry is all about Melissa: it's unexpected and slightly glam¬orous," says Battersby, "and I don't think we would have done it if it weren't for her." The same goes for another even more dramatic nod to her exotic preferences, the soon-to-be-sewn coloured fabric panels that can be hung off the house to cover part of the pool deck when they entertain.

Client input notwithstanding, this 5,300-squarefoot house is an unmistakable product of the designers' fertile imaginations and keen intellects The front façade, while intentionally understated is an elegant and balanced composition. Inside, the floor plan is an open, classic L-shape, and the terrain is a dramatic mix of floor and ceiling heights. The two-storey part of the structure contains an enormous living/dining area on the ground level, and a children's realm above that overlooks the pool. Like the main living area, the single-storey master bedroom has a wall of accordion-fold glass doors that can be pushed out of the way to dissolve the boundary between the inside and the south-facing "sun bed," as Ross refers to the patio.

The patio courtyard features spectacular walls clad in clear cedar siding that has been cut into short lengths and stacked in vertical bands separated from one another by aluminum channels. The tipped, two-storey façade is not just a groovy design conceit. It serves the practical purpose of shifting the floor plan upstairs to gain an extra four feet of living space in the bedrooms and provides a sheltering overhang on the terrace below.

Of all our award winners, this one had our jurors drooling most visibly. "Detailing throughout is crisp, tight and taut," wrote Russel Acton.

"The team employs a honed restraint, peeling away the layers down to the essence of what defines exceptional design," wrote Shelley Penner. She added, "It looks like an awesome party place."

« Back to News & Events