This video is brought to you by 10, our debut hard cover book celebrating
10 issues of The Local Project. Use the code BOOK5 at checkout for a 5% discount.
The feeling of the home is almost cocoon-like, it feels extremely private and secure.
My name is Omar Gandhi, principal of Omar Gandhi Architects and today we're in my own home OG
House which is located in Halifax, Nova Scotia which is a province on the east coast of Canada.
The brief of this project was to house my family but at the same time the intention
at the time was to become the new home for my studio which was previously located on
the waterfront. As it turned out during the course of construction our studio grew and
we weren't able to move entirely into this studio on the ground floor, it then became
an extension of our waterfront studio, a place where we work on community projects.
The challenge of this site was actually really exciting for us and in this
scenario the perimeter of the building was actually set out for us from the setbacks,
to budding properties into the street. So it was really about how we could design
an interior that was really exciting and took advantage of the entirety of the space at hand.
Although there's a front door it's really not the main door that we use,
we go to the back of the house and descend stairs into the rear of the house.
At the front is a nice little lounge space
that ended up becoming our favourite place to drink coffee in the morning,
and then at the back towards the street is actually the studio. The second floor which
has a bathroom at the end is almost like a little brick dungeon, on the other side of that wall as
you enter the main space through a sliding door is the kitchen, the dining and the living room.
As you traverse from the kitchen to the dining and into the living room space,
the ceiling itself starts to rise, with only a window into my son's bedroom where his
desk sits. Connecting the kitchen dining and living room is a long white bar of mill work,
that bar also includes a wood burning fireplace and wood storage, the second flight of stairs
takes you up to the bedroom level. Adjacent to the primary bedroom is the ensuite with no windows
looking out to the neighbourhood and only skylight from above which washes the textured tile walls.
Back out into the hallway there's another half set of stairs that takes you up
a partial level which is where my son's bedroom is as well as our guest bathroom.
With the volume somewhat resolved from the outset it really became a process of
articulation as well as sculpting. In some cases even sacrificing overall square footage for joy
and delight and surprise. Light and sculpted space is really central to the design of this project,
it was always intended to have a really soft indirect light in most spaces whether dappled
light through the front screen, or light from above in the living room whether on a sunny day
or a rainy day like today it was always meant to have a soft ambient glow on the inside.
The primary materials of the house both exterior and interior are white oak,
buff brick, very neutral colours of stone and a lot of raw steel that was custom fabricated.
We really intended for it to be a neutral palette but at the same time didn't want
it to feel too delicate. As part of the design process we designed some custom
furniture pieces including the dining table which was done in collaboration
with an incredible craftsman out of Prince Edward Island, Brodye Chappell.
After running my own studio for 10 years and at that point having designed more than two
dozen homes, it was pretty exciting to be able to build something for my own family. I thought
it was going to be a lot more daunting than the process actually was it was actually quite fun
and with the help of my incredible team I think we were able to make decisions fairly quickly because
there was a very clear vision from the outset. It also was a platform for us to take on aspects
of design that we had only dreamt of. What I'm most proud of is that from the street looking
at the building it's actually quite closed off but on the inside it's so light and light
filled and highly textured and really warm it's a wonderful duality that we were able to achieve.
My favourite part of the house is waking up in the
morning and coming down that second storey staircase and ending up in
the living room with light bouncing from every wall it's actually quite amazing.
This video is brought to you by 10, our debut hard cover book celebrating 10 issues of The
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