DESCRIPTION

“We commissioned Sliding House in 2005 as a three-season retreat in Nova Scotia to be built in a hillside field we had bought from the architect many years before.  As visual designers, we wanted a building that possessed a strong identity, knowing that anything placed into that landscape would be prominent for miles around.  Above all, we wanted it to express an idea. Among Brian's first sketches was one we immediately responded to — it was also his most daring: a narrow block that simply reclined on the hillside.  The result, which we would name Sliding House, descended bit by bit from that inspiration.”  David and Rhonda, owners

“The house is sited on an agrarian hillside, along a 250 year old existing stone wall so as to cultivate rather than consume the field. Its sliding axis is eastward, down the hillside to the lake. In the historic village below there are three houses, corresponding to three sons of the original settlers. There are three barns, three chicken houses, etc. The third barn was demolished in the 1970s.

Sliding House adds back this lost barn. It is sited orthogonally to the other village buildings. It is both of its place and radically modern - testing the limits of a critical regionalist position. Sliding House sets up a tension between a 'plumb' interior and a 'crooked exterior'. A building precedent is the 1753 house immediately below, leaning downhill due to 250 years of prevailing westerly winds. The plan addresses the human need for prospect and refuge. A thick north service wall containing stairs, baths, kitchen, hearth and storage protects the house from the cold north winds; while the continuous south ribbon window opens the house to the sun, and the absolute ocean horizon. The volume of the house pinwheels symmetrically in section about the horizontal axis of the ribbon window, creating an upper and lower bedroom.

The rough exterior cladding of industrial corrugated metal is contrasted with a refined interior hardwood liner completely crafted of flush, clear poplar. The tilted box allows the corrugated roof to drain downhill. The quiet restraint of this minimal aesthetic allows the power of the landscape to dominate. This is an absolute architecture both in its platonic form and in its irreducible, monolithic palette of materials. It approaches the idea of zero: minimal form, maximum content.”  MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects