East Dover House
MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects
22ga corrugated weathering steel
14ga weathering steel
The design process for this modest house began 16 years ago when we were engaged by a landscape architect and a teacher living in Singapore, who were planning to retire in Nova Scotia. A hiatus of 13 years allowed the clients to save enough to build.
The 2,000 SF project consists of a living pavilion and a sleeping pavilion, with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a study, and a future garage. The problem of designing ‘the good generic house’ has been a longstanding research aspect of our practice. An affordable prototype makes architecture more economically accessible; in a way that is simple and dignified; and which quietly creates background fabric. In this effort we are inspired by the Usonian House of Frank Lloyd Wright, and the industrial designs of the Volkswagen by Ferdinand Porsche and the Model-T by Henry Ford.
The house is perched high on a granite hilltop, overlooking a bay and the open sea, on Nova Scotia’s rugged Atlantic coast. The project touches the land lightly, pinned to the granite bedrock. Windows are strategically wrapped around the south corners facing the run and the sea.
Photography: James Brittain