Hasta La Ideas

Canadian studio Appareil Architecture has created a wooden, light-filled mountain house with a single-pitch roof in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec.

Known as Résidence des Rapides, the three-bedroom house is partially embedded in a sloped four-acre site on the banks of the Diable River in the Laurentian Mountains.

Montreal-based Appareil Architecture completed the cedar-clad house in 2023, informed by the studio’s earlier design of its Piloti bench sofa with exposed joints and absence of hardware.

“Through its exposed solid wood structure, the Résidence des Rapides creates a coherent, visible language, at the crossroads between object and architecture,” founding architect Kim Pariseau told Dezeen.

The team designed the house with a bold form that expresses its structure. It has a monumental roof that overhangs up to eight feet (2.4 metres) in some places to form covered passageways around the house and a 15-foot-high (4.5 metres) cathedral ceiling inside.

“We wanted to give the roof a sense of lightness, almost floating above the house,” Marc-Olivier Champagne-Thomas, an associate architect at Appareil Architecture, said.

“We deliberately avoided the use of lateral columns for its support, opting instead for an integrated approach where the body of the structure and that of the roof are harmoniously linked together, fitting like pieces of furniture.”

The roof is raised on a colonnade of rectangular wooden columns from the floor-to-ceiling glazing on the south side.

“The house has two distinct facades: a bashful, timid side overlooking the access path, and another, opening onto the back, revealing the magnificence of the landscape,” the team said.

On the main upper level, the corner entry leads to an open-plan living room, dining room, and kitchen.

The primary bedroom and bathroom hold one end of the plan, while the other is composed of a covered veranda with outdoor dining space.

The walls of the primary bedroom don’t extend all the way to the roof to maintain “a feeling of openness and fluidity, reinforcing the home’s sense of space and luminosity.”

The ground floor – which is set halfway into the hillside and as close to the river as possible – contains a living room, home theatre and two bedrooms that each look out to a covered outdoor passageway and spa, where residents can hear the gentle sound of the flowing water.

The interiors are clad in red oak panelling and wood floors, while porcelain countertops and ceramic tiles provide a cool juxtaposition to the natural wood.

“Beyond covering the surfaces with wood, we wanted to work with this noble material in all its diversity, using its structural properties for the framework, playing with its nuances to create a unique exterior language, and diffusing its warmth in every nook and cranny of the house,” Champagne-Thomas said.

Previously, Appareil Architecture designed a dental clinic to “feel like someone’s home” and updated a minimal 1960s home with a minimal palette, both in Montreal.

The photography is by Félix Michaud.

Project credits:
Contractors: Fairfiled construction, Larix Construction
Cabinetmaker: Roland Grenier Construction, Daniel Casaubon
Windows: Alumilex
Lightings: Luminaire Authentik
Kitchen stools: Appareil Atelier

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