[ Paul Raff Studio ] Cascade House

Nestled among the Forest Hill neighborhood in Toronto, Paul Raff Studio’s latest sustainable residence is “a marriage of environmentally responsible building strategies and elegant architectural composition.”  The 353m2 residence, entitled the Cascade House, is designed in an I-formation around an outdoor swimming pool and offers a high quality of aesthetics in addition to environmentally friendly strategies.

”The design is shaped around the concept of making visible the architecture as interface between habitation and landscape,” explained the architect.

The specific orientation of the house and its tall windows is designed to maximize its potential for natural light.   The orientation, high-performance building envelope with passive solar design systems, and an internal triple height slate wall that captures available solar energy to warm the home during evening hours, all work to create an effective environmentally-responsible approach to light and heating.

The distinct 13 foot high screen on the street façade of the home is comprised of 475 panels of inexpensive 19mm thick vertically stacked glass in a crenellated pattern.  This privacy screen allows a maximum diffusion of light while “providing a striking element when viewed from the street”. The texture of the stacked panels when viewed from the interior, “evokes being caught up in the crest of a wave”.  To continue this water effect, the opposite end of the room opens out to a terrace and pool.

As a side note about the architect, Paul Raff received both of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Awards of Excellence this June in Montreal.  Raff will be the first architect to receive both awards that credit innovative architecture with beautiful aesthetics along with environmental performance.  “We’re integrating environmental performance, economy of means, and the artistry of architecture,” says Raff. “None of these concerns are new, what is new is the thinking that achieves all three at the same time: the integrity.”


from  archdaily