Providing a laneway and main home for two generations of family, the unified property and its shared outdoor spaces are right at home in our landscape. The developed front yard and communal connective courtyard are nestled in native plants to create green privacy, retirement hobbies in plant tending, and fruit trees for the grandkids.

The exterior of the laneway continues the classical Canadian material cues of the main house, creating a friendlier and more inviting face towards the back lane than a typical garage and fence.

At it's heart, the laneway is defined by its functional and compact layout and its familial relationship to the main home. To this end, the entry hall is a straight pass through from the lane to the shared courtyard, featuring clear glass doors, bike storage, and the home's main closet bank.

The laneway uses creative spatial interconnectivity and volume throughout in order to make its relatively small floor area seem much larger. The home office sits on a translucent perforated floor between the open tread stairs, allowing light passage upwards and downwards.

The main highlight of the laneway is the ethereal second level solarium. The passively heated room creates a perfect environment for year-round plant cultivation and relaxing hangouts.

Special attention is paid to the systems integration and building science details throughout both homes, particularly in the solariums. A freestanding fireplace and polycarbonate cladding with operable windows combine to provide heating and cooling, while warm air is vented through the planter boxes to create optimal growing conditions.

The main vaulted space of the laneway serves as the connective axis for light and people to move through the home. Having a professional chef as a client necessitated a well-equipped and spacious kitchen, which sits as the central anchor of the room.

The ethos of functional millwork and refined details ensures that the space is a canvas for the clients' carefully curated belongings. Operable windows into the living room create opportunities for dialogue with family members in the outdoor courtyard below.

A ladder on the living room millwork leads up to the listening loft, both a meditative space to listen to records and a passage for western light from the skylight above to stream down into the living room below.

A consistent colour and material palette across the laneway bedroom's built in closet, custom baltic birch bed, and felt headboard ensure this is a minimalist and calming respite at the end of the day

The immersive and refined material application in the laneway carries through to its bathroom, where diffused western light animates the cedar shower floor boards, bounces off the fully-filed walls and floor, and emphasizes the warm glow of the cedar ceiling.