Maison Glissade

Maison Glissade


Toronto’s Atelier Kastelic Buffey
designed an elegant open-plan getaway for a ski-fanatical family with a taste for contemporary art. Maison Glissade is simple and intimate. Designed for a family of serious skiers, it serves as a weekend retreat away from hectic city life. “We wanted a place near the hill where we could all be together,” says one of the owners, “a place that is playful, a place to relax.”

Maison Glissade is the spartan, quietly handsome 2,400-square-foot result of a corporation between Atelier Kastelic Buffey and contractor Wilson Project Management. The house has the long, pitched, gable-ended top of a barn, and is clad and roofed in red cedar planking that will weather down to silvery grey with the passage of years. PRO TEC has supplied the windows and doors for the facades of Maison Glissade, framing the visions of Kastelic Buffey.

Maison Glisade – Collingwood, Canada
The chalet is set almost at the base of a ski run. Standing in the spacious second floor, which combines a living room, a dining room, a kitchen and an office nook, all within a single sweep, one can see through the pitched windows to the blurred figures of skiers bounding down the hill, then drifting back up on the lift.

An elegant open-plan getaway
This two-storey house is an elegant transcription of a barn. The architects have slid the upper level smartly off the bottom storey along the long axis, creating a deep overhang on the end facing the ski slopes and, on the other end, a broad deck accessible from the second storey.

A warm counterpoint
to the white walls and pitched ceiling comes in the form of pale oak flooring. And the kitchen, defined by a long Corian counter, floats just beyond the room’s midpoint, providing ample space for cooking and serving, with the office nook tucked in behind. The room’s centrepiece, however, is the dining table, which seats 12. Designed by Buffey and fashioned out of reclaimed hemlock, it’s flanked by two rows of Wishbone chairs by Hans J. Wegner.

With such spectacular views all around,
one would think that the house would look outward, but its principal strength is its inward volume. “Luxury doesn’t just have to be material,” Buffey points out. “There is a luxury of space, of line, of shadow and, of course, light.” Streaming in from all sides, it is the light that gives Maison Glissade a translucent presence.

Clarity is everything
for AKB. But what is perhaps more important is how it feels to be within the space. One of the happy owners sums it up this way: “I sit in this place, and it feels better than a dream.”


Place
Blue Mountains, Ontario, Canada

Architect
AKB atelier kastelic buffey

Project
223 m2

Photos
Shai Gil

Call Torp for more information
416-968-2768

Maison Glissade
Maison Glissade
Maison Glissade
Maison Glissade

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