Corollary to sanctuary is resilience – the home acts as a buffer both mentally and physically. To that end, it is designed to be Passive House Certified, with specific heat demand at 14.6 kWh/m²a and airtightness 0.6 ACH, triple or quadruple glazed windows and skylights, and efficient electric mechanical systems for both units. Considering the small footprint and duplex typology requiring
double equipment, much effort went into the enclosure design in conjunction with the energy model for sufficient insulation, reduced thermal bridging, and constructability advice from contractors.
As for the Sublime, it is invoked through aesthetic philosophy but reinterpreted to serve as the framework for exploring architectural tectonics as ascribed to fundamental design elements such as light and materiality. On Wikipedia, it is described in grandiose terms: “In aesthetics, the sublime is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual, or
artistic. The term especially refers to a greatness beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement, or imitation”; but distilled and reinterpreted here for architectural simplicity:
Sublime (adj./n.): That which elicits some feeling of awe, expressed via architectural tectonics**
**Tectonics has been described as the art of construction. And art can be defined as part craft and part vision. Thus, tectonics can be thought of as understanding the elements of architecture (light, materiality, massing, etc.) to craft a vision or concept.
The sense of awe comes from observing an architectural phenomenon articulated tectonically in a way that cannot easily be discerned, leading to a sense of mystery and depth. Viewed as a form of art, the craft of creating spatial experiences with massing, light, and materials should be in service of a larger concept or parti. In this case, the striated and interlocked forms speak to the multi-unit typology, which is common in the neighbourhood, but more honestly articulated here. The different materiality of lower vs. upper pulls from the surrounding context, with the base of bricks speaking to typical Toronto housing, while the upper is more expressively composed of wood slats, less common for usual reasons of combustibility, but here they are thermo-treated and class A fire rated.