“Escher house” in Rosemont
(If you don’t think I should be critiquing architecture, please pass over this one.)
Dezeen has another Montreal house Thursday, described blandly as “used to be a duplex… converted into a single-family home.” I mean, bravo, what?
This one has a non-functional twisty staircase worked into it, inspired by M.C. Escher. It also features “irregular punched windows” and “fibre-cement panels left exposed” because symmetry and bricks are so passé.
MarcG 09:52 on 2022-04-21 Permalink
But who will dust the decorative staircase?
Kate 10:17 on 2022-04-21 Permalink
Somebody with a feather duster on a long telescopic handle.
Kevin 10:18 on 2022-04-21 Permalink
I looked through this and other Montreal homes they renovated and I really don’t like it.
Robert H 15:10 on 2022-04-21 Permalink
With gut renovations of older plex housing, my favorite design tactics are the skylight and light well. They’re the best way to brighten the interior of a narrow, deep floor plan. I like Escher prints too. The first time I saw one, I was an adolescent and I remember staring at the image of multiple staircases featuring anonymous figures and shifting perspectives, accordions of treads and risers blurring until I couldn’t tell one from the other. They really took my mind on a trip, still do. Maybe that’s why I don’t mind the odd-angle staircase vaulting playfully across the light well. Otherwise, the rest of the house features the usual tropes of modern design: large, unadorned monochrome surfaces (blank walls, windows without muntins, steel plates), open plan (don’t like the ground floor bathroom being directly off the living room), asymmetry–at least the rear façade (I wonder if Naturehumaine altered the front as well), and the foregrounding of minimally treated material such as steel and cement as design elements. The wooden floors are beautiful and une cour arrière avec terrasse is a wonderful thing to have for summer in the city. All in all, a mixed bag; I wouldn’t buy it, but I
do wish I could afford it.
Meezly 16:04 on 2022-04-21 Permalink
Maybe I can afford to be more generous cuz this one’s not in my hood, but I actually find this one intriguing. I wonder if the stairs going nowhere are merely decorative? If the steps leading up to the skylight is perpendicular to the ground and assuming I could reach, I’d line the steps with plants. Also a bit sad they only punched one small window at the top. Even with a skylight providing light, it’s just nice to be able to look out and it seems like the lack of window is purely aesthetic.
Kevin 18:56 on 2022-04-21 Permalink
Robert H
In my built-in-the-1920s neighbourhood, there are lots of duplexes with a skylight shaft going to the ground floor.
Robert H 01:13 on 2022-04-22 Permalink
@Kevin, they make so much sense, I wonder why they weren’t ubiquitous, a standard feature instead of an enhancement. They could be indoor or outdoor. I know that New York row houses and tenements were often built with party walls that parted about the mid point between the front and rear to create a sort of exterior well or shaft meant to bring in fresh air as well as light. But I’m thinking of an interior vertical space that extends through all or most of the floors of a building and is covered by a glass or transparent roof, a sort of atrium. I’m assuming that because plexes were built for multi-unit housing, such a feature would have eliminated any remaining privacy among the flats. But light wells become feasible for conversions to single household residences.