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The three children who dwell in a new Edmonton home in the pretty, treed Valley view area must fancy themselves the luckiest kids in town: their house has a secret tunnel. Architect Jonathan Rockliff created the ingenious passageway, which goes from the front carport to the backyard—running “literally right under the kitchen,” he says—to facilitate passage to the big rear garden. But it creates a unique sense of discovery and drama to be able to pop from the front to the back of the 6,300-square-foot house without having to set foot indoors.
The tunnel is a symbol of the indoor-outdoor philosophy that drove the design of the house, which is created in two distinct modules that hinge out like wings on the big pie-shaped lot. “The wings align themselves with the property, creating a more public entertaining zone and a quieter family zone,” says Rockliff, a Carleton University architecture graduate who’s part of the second-generation Edmonton firm Rockliff Pierzchajlo. “Quite naturally, the kitchen is the connector between the two zones.” More a great room than a simple kitchen, this teak-panelled hub has two big marble-topped islands and a wall of windows and sliding doors overlooking the back yard. Structural needs necessitated one indoor column just off the kitchen, and Rockliff ingeniously dotted another six identical Glu-lam posts along the back deck, creating an almost totem pole-esque, West Coast feel.
Interior designer Fay Papanikalaou echoed that two-part philosophy in her decor scheme, striving to bring energy and life to the young family’s digs. “We used vibrant, fun colours in the private family area; in the more public areas of the home there are big windows, tall walls and high ceilings—you already have that visual energy so we used more classic, subdued colours there.” Carefully selected furnishings, built-ins and art pop dramatically out of the space. “The house is a shell and the things within it are a chance to explore design and showcase it,” says architect Rockliff of the custom staircase, millwork, and fixtures. Papanikalaou played smartly off the home’s crisp modern angles with a series of playful round and globular lights that shine like gems throughout.
Upstairs, the two-part harmony is reinforced by a long corridor with the adult zone (master suite) at one end and the kid zone (children’s rooms) at the other, divided by a staircase. The staircase design incorporates a clever, temporary gate the owners can remove when their children are grown.
Marshall and Lisa Sadd, a stylish and design-savvy couple, actively collaborated on the project. “People hear modern and they think cold and unusable, but when they come through our house they can’t believe it—it looks and feels very warm,” says Lisa. Best of all, the clever features—the under-house tunnel, the two-winged layout—facilitate the lifestyle full of family time and entertaining that the couple treasures. Marshall, who recalls sketching out the house’s basic lines with Rockliff on a napkin, says: “This design brings us all together”—surely the sign of successful architecture.
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