Paul Bernier Architecte

House on Alma

HOUSE ON ALMA

Paul Bernier Architecte

House on Alma
© Adrien Williams

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Paul Bernier

COLLABORATORS
Alexandre Bernier Architecte

MANUFACTURERS
Alumilex

PHOTOGRAPHS
Adrien Williams

AREA
2100 ft²

YEAR
2015

LOCATION
Montreal, Canada

CATEGORY
Houses, Renovation

House on Alma
© Adrien Williams

Text description provided by architect.

The original house is one of those pretty "shoe boxes", these small one-story houses, typical of this area of Little Italy in Montreal. Its façade presents a beautiful masonry work and an ornamented parapet.

This building already had a partial floor for the bedrooms, added 10 years earlier, but this one was too small and difficult to occupy. Our clients are the parents of 2 young children.

The mandate they gave us was to make a new floor for the rooms and to improve the link with the ground floor. 

House on Alma
© Adrien Williams
House on Alma
© Adrien Williams
House on Alma
© Adrien Williams

The proposed addition on the roof of the original house advances forward while preserving a setback from the facade on the street of the original house.

We believe that it is important not to align with the front façade of the original house in order to let it stand out.

The small house of origin is thus highlighted, not by trying to imitate it but rather by juxtaposing, in the background, a contemporary intervention that clearly marks the two periods of intervention.

House on Alma
© Adrien Williams
House on Alma
© Adrien Williams
House on Alma
© Adrien Williams

The space on the roof created by this setback makes it possible to create a terrace for the room of the parents. 

The interior space is divided into two areas separated by a large black cedar wall that crosses the floor from the front to the back.

A first zone houses the parent’s bedroom in a gesture of opening onto the landscape with a high ceiling projecting towards the sky and a large window opening on a roof terrace that allows a view on the treetops and the steeple of Saint-Édouard Church.

House on Alma
© Adrien Williams
House on Alma
© Adrien Williams

A second, more closed area, marked by a sloping roof, covers the children's rooms. The intention is to create a headquarters for the children, a place they can take possession of and at the same time to give the parents the space and peace sought for in an urban family home.

Natural light is an important component of the project. The volume of the parents' room opens onto a new space in double height crossed wood trellis bridge.

House on Alma
First Floor Plan
House on Alma
Second Floor Plan

A skylight in the ceiling of this space allows a natural light supply in the center of the habitat down to the ground floor.

The volume of wood that houses the children's rooms is present on the façade. 

House on Alma
Front Elevation
House on Alma
Section

Also, the white surface of the walls and ceilings of the interior projects outwards like a folded plane that defines the volume of the new intervention.

Paul Bernier Architecte
T +1 514 3033001
Paul Bernier Architecte
4755 Rue Pontiac, Montréal, QC H2J 2T4, Canada