A place of refuge
In the chaos of life today a home needs to be a place of refuge, a solitude for the homeowners to retreat to. Built for an Italian couple, the design pays homage both to the clientsu2019 Italian heritage and that of the Toronto residential building fabric, while ensuring a sensitivity towards wellbeing, mobility, and convenience.
The design of the Pacific project is born from the homeownersu2019 values and traditions where the comforts of their past are now viscerally felt within their present-day lives. The vault, in its many permutations, is one of the most common archetypes of ancient Roman architecture, characterized by its powerful modulation of light and its sense of lightness.
Pacific project
In adopting this typology into a domestic space, the architects evolved the vault from its primary form, puncturing, cutting, and peeling it into new geometries that help to distribute light and air into key locations, respond to program organization, demarcating each with a different atmosphere, and create a sectional continuity throughout the house.u00a0
In carrying sacred content from the homeowneru2019s past into the present they are transported into another time and place, full of stories, meaning, and memories that become their refuge.
