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Koya House

Saint-Sauveur, Canada

he site is part of a real estate development on the approaches
to the town of Saint-Sauveur in the Laurentians. This area is
Tin Montréal’s second ring of outlying communities, where the
occupants have chosen to settle to combine a lifestyle in a natural
setting (in the mountains) with the conveniences of a small regional
town.

They have also chosen to make their project multigenerational, by
allocating spaces for grandparents and their children. There is thus
a temporal relationship, which poses an interesting problem for the
design of this residence’s spaces.

The architect is interested in changing the nature of the program, the
family composition, and the residents’ location in the spaces that are
bound to change over time within the complex.

The project instead revolves around this temporal relationship, by
structuring a mode of implementation related to the topographical
features rather than to a logic of single-family row housing, typical
of suburban areas. The project’s morphology materially distinguishes
the more permanent elements of the residence, in concrete, from
the more ephemeral components in wood. Like a sculptural bas-
relief, the main traffic axes on the site become the two axes of the
composition of the complex.

Different concrete retaining walls, landings, and transitional stairways
install a new topography on the site, a conclusive structuring for what
happens next. Deep geothermal boreholes “anchor” the composition
in sustainability and address the energy needs metaphorically rather
than in strictly technical terms.

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