The Port Hope, Ont., home of Andrew and Janice Gregg, designed by architect Simon Routh and constructed by Rick Lovekin.The irony of minimal design is that it often requires a maximal budget. Or, to bastardize a Dolly Parton quote: it costs a lot of money to look so spare. That’s because without traditional frills such as moldings and baseboards, the junctures of the various surfaces – floors and walls, walls and ceilings – are left exposed.
According to homeowners Andrew and Janice Gregg, both retired teachers, a key reason they were able to pull off the project economically and effectively was because the building team – architect Simon Routh, who was raised in Port Hope, but now lives in Toronto, and local contractor Rick Lovekin – were long-time friends.“We’re known them for more than 30 years each,” Mr. Gregg says. “We’ve known Simon since he was a bump in his mom’s belly. Rick did contracting work at my school.
The solution was a collaboration. Mr. Lovekin came up with the idea to build the walls with insulated concrete forms – low-cost, modular building panels that quickly snap together and combine a high-degree of insulation and a poured concrete structure in one. “The walls have a great R [insulation] value,” says Mr. Routh, who laid out the plan with large windows at either end of the house to encourage natural ventilation.
To keep the overall costs contained, the team was judicious with where to save and where to splurge. “For the design, it was a question of looking at the budget, looking at the brief and figuring out the things the things that were essential to making the house special,” Mr. Routh says. “The kitchen has standard IKEA cabinetry with melamine counters and plywood gables. But having $60,000 Bulthaup cabinets wouldn’t have changed the project in any way.
Tease - I can’t read it
Why provide a link if I cannot read it
Stark.
Oh my isn't that angled shoebox house with a cutout window charming! Lol