challenge
The project had to be designed and built whilst conserving the foundations, the pool basin and its finishes, the toilet, the shower and the sauna. The building is adjacent to a tennis court. Furthermore, the details of its new envelope had to be designed to withstand high levels of humidity and air temperature. The new volume and its materiality had to integrate themselves into the collection of buildings to which it belongs.
proposal
The building’s volume was revised for harmonious integration with the building group. A gable roof covered with red cedar shingles replaces the curbed metal roof of the original building. The exterior walls are also covered in red cedar, forming a material continuity similar to that of a barn weathered by time. The new wood structure is positioned entirely inside the building and remains visible. It is made of laminated black spruce wood and sealed with an ecological white water-based, semi-opaque, and water-repellent stain. A lime plaster has been used to finish the walls and ceiling of the interior volume. A natural product, lime makes it possible to regulate interior humidity levels, the latter being the main constraint for the envelope’s design. Lime purifies the air due to its bacterial and antiseptic qualities, and prevents the proliferation of mold. Extremely resistant, it also ages well and does not require maintenance.
project relevancy
The building is part of a set of four buildings, constructed at different moments and arranged in a rural landscape: an ancestral home, a former barn transformed into a sound studio, a building housing a pool (project by in situ), and a guest house (also renovated by in situ). The context is similar to that of the Dame-de-coeur Theatre (Upton, Quebec), and the recommended architectural strategies resemble those to be implemented in the theatre’s upgrade: the reconstruction/renovation of existing buildings, while considering their restrictions and defects in order to create a coherent architectural ensemble.