Reside: Contemporary West Coast Houses
By Michael Prokopow (Figure.1, 2024)
A decade ago, Greg Bellerby’s book The West Coast Modern House: Vancouver Residential Architecture chronicled key developments in West Coast Modern architecture, including several contemporary practices continuing that legacy. The present volume is positioned as a continuation, foregrounding new voices in a selection curated by architect Clinton Cuddington.
The 34 projects range in size and geography, from Openspace’s expansive 8,200-square-foot Trail’s Edge residence, on a forested site in Whistler, BC, to Simcic Architecture’s 450-square-foot Blue Cabin Floating Artist Residency, which occupies a platform that also includes a restored 1927 wood cabin that serves as an artist’s studio. A group of city buildings spans from single family homes by architects including A A Robins and Haeccity Studio Architecture, to the multi-unit East Georgia Flats by AIRstudio with Birmingham and Wood.
Prokopow visited each of the houses in the book, sometimes accompanied by architects and hosted by owners, and sometimes on his own, retrieving keys from hiding spots in sheds. His thoughtful commentary touches on the history and culture of the different sites, the composition and materials of each project, and the experience of moving through the houses—often emerging onto a top floor with expansive views of nature.
Both Prokopow and Cuddington are at pains to address the elephant in the room: what is the relevance of a book on luxury homes in the midst of a housing affordability crisis? Cuddington writes: “Each practitioner [included in the selection] strives on a daily basis to engage with projects that further an appropriate community response to [the evolving set of pressures placed upon residential architecture], inform a larger discussion of affordable housing, and increase the domain of who can inform that work […] In some way, each has also acknowledged that they struggle with the privilege inherent in this typology, but embrace a sincere goal of using the platform of this publication to grow a conversation of those who have not been at the table, and in service of those who have not had an opportunity to benefit from the response.”
For Prokopow, “these houses say much about the states of residential architecture in British Columbia, and about the place itself”—including the inherently elitist, settler-colonialist contexts that produced the houses themselves. “Mindful of the larger histories of architecture and society, it is possible to engage with the actuality of a house and its multiple meanings,” he adds—from its aesthetic power and form, to its applications of current technology, to the philosophical statement that these projects offer about the meaning of home.
-Elsa Lam
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