The Frame House by Marc Boutin
Canadian architect Marc Boutin designed the Frame House in Invermere, British Columbia, Canada.
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The Frame House by Marc Boutin
This design for a young family of five is conceived of as an object sitting within a recreational landscape. The house is not only the space for living, but also becomes a tool by which one’s senses of the natural environment are heightened – it acts as a lens to the picturesque surroundings. Simultaneously, the house integrates sustainable design strategies, including natural ventilation, passive solar gain, a geothermal field, and solar hot water heating. As a result, the house exists virtually “off the grid”, minimizing both its poetical and literal impact upon the site itself.
As one approaches the house, the juxtaposition of its geometry to the surrounding landscape accentuates the mountain and evergreen forest setting in which the house is located. The house itself functions as a ‘frame’ that explores both the view to the mountains and the private/public spatial relationship implicit in the program of the house. This is achieved primarily by the surface treatment of the front and rear facades.
The Northwest side of the house is a controlled, opaque façade. This is also the façade where the main entry to the house is located, effectively disconnecting the viewer from the mountains immediately prior to dramatically framing this same view as one enters the house. The Southeast side of the house is an operable glazed façade which opens to the mountains and to outdoor landscaped amenities, which extend the house into its surroundings. As the exterior spaces are embedded within a conditioned ground plane that serves to define and shelter the exterior spaces, the experience is not as mannered as within the interior space, providing a more primal connection to the natural phenomena. Simultaneously, these landscape walls are conceived as a sculpted base for the pristine frame of the house hovering above.
Within this frame, a carefully orchestrated ‘box’ contains the private spaces of the house. This box is a ‘house within a house’ that still affords views to the mountains, but mediates the view in a controlled manner that serves to heighten the experience. On the main level of this box are the 3 bedrooms for the kids and all of the service spaces for the house, such as washrooms, laundry rooms, and storage. The master bedroom and ensuite bathroom are located on the mezzanine level. As such, the frame of the house defines a two-storey open ‘public’ volume that contains the social amenities of the house. From this space of the house, 18ft high sliding glass doors open to an outdoor patio, swimming pool, hot tub and to the view of the mountains. Meaning is embedded into the circulation between these two volumes, creating a series of occupied layers, each individually acting as its own “frame” that modulates the mountains and picturesque landscape in subtly different ways.
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Visit Marc Boutin’s website – here.
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Snib on 07 Mar 2011 at 9:06 am #
“minimizing both its poetical and literal impact upon the site itself.”
Really? This home looks monolithic and obnoxious.
shane on 07 Mar 2011 at 11:18 am #
looks as if the house was just dropped there, no connection to the surroundings. Nice kitchen & use of colours. Dining table is too small & makes zero impact (9 or 10′ Iconoclast would have looked great!). Poor light fixtures, above table & over bed.
Rube on 07 Mar 2011 at 2:57 pm #
This house serves as a tool for viewing the landscape, I’m not convinced of the ‘primal connection’ the architects claim one experiences on the ground floor.
Michael G on 07 Mar 2011 at 3:54 pm #
I see homes like this and it brings back fond memories of Florida beach homes. Some friends of my parents had a beach house similar to this that I absolutely loved. I was only 5, but the clean and space-age style of it in places, really excited me. To these builders, a beautiful job.
Anthony on 07 Mar 2011 at 8:30 pm #
As an isolated house on the landscape I think it looks fantastic, a bit like a sculpture.
Ryan on 07 Mar 2011 at 10:39 pm #
“The juxtaposition of its geometry to the surrounding landscape accentuates the mountain and evergreen forest setting…” I beg to differ. The shapes are simply to large and obnoxious to have any intimate relationship to the environment. It looks like a commercial building, perhaps an office for an architectural studio? The predictable material choices do little to change this. Reducing the proportions, unifying the mismatched foundation, and more selective glazing would have gone a long ways here. However, that chandelier (sans the table underneath), and that stool in the bathroom are wonderful.
Scott Michael on 08 Mar 2011 at 9:14 pm #
would like a photo of the other facade to get a sense of visitor arrival and see if there is any connection other than visual to the site.
peterfennely on 10 Mar 2011 at 8:05 am #
acoustics would be terrible…. this always seems to be the one thing young architects forget.
in the UK, more people are building their whiz-bang open-plan concrete & glass houses with a “snug”!
wordblox on 13 Mar 2011 at 5:26 pm #
I really appreciate projects that develop a simple concept and push it to the limit, in this case, the “framed view”. The building is such a clear expression of this idea that the written description is superfluous: the architecture speaks for itself.
As for other comments, @Snib I don’t quite understand the criticism that this building is “monolithic and obnoxious”. The description clearly states that the building is to read as an object on the land, not an unusual relationship to establish between site and built form (think Corbusier’s Villa Savoye). Judged against the stated goals of the designer, this should be considered a successful project. @Ryan, the size & materials certainly reinforce this relationship between form and context. To be read at all against something as expansive as a landscape, a certain scale is required, too small and the form is lost entirely. “Predictable materials”? Given the sustainable intentions, and the immediate connection of wood to the natural environment, I would say more like sensible. “Unpredictable materials” would confuse the intention, I believe. I’d be curious to know what you’d suggest though as an alternative.