By: Nigel F. Maynard
Project: Berkley House / Location: Vancouver BC / Architect: Rafael Santa Ana Architecture Workshop, Vancouver / Photos: Ema Peter
When architect Rafael Santa Ana and his wife were house hunting, they came across a California-style post-and-beam that had really good bones. Buyers had shied away from the house partly because of its location in the suburbs. “It felt like the boonies because there’s a bridge that separates that neighborhood, contextually speaking,” Santa Ana says. “Northland feels so separated from Vancouver proper, and it’s only 7 miles from the downtown core.”
But the couple saw the potential and bought the property. After living in the home for 10 years, learning about what they liked and disliked and how they wanted to live, the couple decided it was time to renovate. “In the 10 years of thinking about the project, you can imagine the number of ideas that I blew through in sketches,” says the principal of Rafael Santa Ana Architecture Workshop in Vancouver.
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Sitting on a 10,000-square-foot lot, the house is not the typical post and beam that one would find in the United States, which are usually one level. “This one was a post and beam and yet it had a garden suite, not quite a basement and not quite a second level proper,” the architect explains. “But from the front of the house, it reads as one level and the back of the property slopes to have a bit of a garden as we used to call it. It is a two-level house only from the back.”
The couple wanted to preserve and enhance the Californian-style atmosphere of home while adapting to the Canadian climate, so they gutted the building and replaced all insulation, installed triple glazing and energy efficient heating systems. To give the home a sense of space and volume, they vaulted the ceilings throughout the main floor and added skylights and oversized windows and doors to bring in light. The larger windows also provide views of the North Vancouver greenery in the garden and beyond.
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“We did something interesting when we renovated,” Santa Ana says. “We took away square footage, and yet we added square footage to the house, ending up now with 3,000 square feet. So there was quite an expansion that happened within the same footprint, and that’s because part of the post and beam components above the bedrooms, we were able to claim with a very shallow attic. It became the playground for the kids.”
Surprisingly, the house pretty much retains its exterior. Santa Ana upgraded the front door with a new fiberglass unit, used the same slats that were on the front, retained the front-facing transom windows and the location of some of the lights. “We simply swapped fixtures, and this monolith of a fireplace is still the original fireplace, which was simply just painted.”
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As you enter the house there is a small vestibule with coat racks and storage. If you turn right, there are two bedrooms and the primary suite and to the left is the double height–almost triple height–space, fireplace, kitchen and the dramatic staircase/bookcase. “We took care with the design and really made a point of making sure that every little detail was considered,” the architect says. “As the stair comes down, there is a little reveal. The reveals show respect for the wood and the transitions between the material of drywall and the wood steps.” The basement level contains the media room, library, craft room, office and bathroom.
The light colored materials in the home give it a bright and casual feeling. Santa Ana chose white oak for the floor, steps and builtins, white-painted walls and white kitchen cabinets. “Everything, as you can tell, is very gallery-like,” the architect says. “It’s just white because North Vancouver is dark. It’s the rainforest and it’s depressing for most of the year.”
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The original architect did a good job with the house, Santa Ana says, so it was more about updating the house rather than a full-scale redo. “It was a very methodical approach,” he says. “We wanted to do as little as possible and get as much impact out of it as possible. It was a very studied, respectful intervention.”
What’s more impressive is that Santa Ana and his wife had to do the project on a limited budget. “There was no money to do this house, so we were very limited to do what we dreamed of doing,” he says. “It was a shoestring budget. I think we could have gone a lot further, but it just goes to show that design should follow the principles of the performance of the spaces that it has–to allow the user to be as comfortable as it can be and to fulfill the needs of the users. That’s where it starts.”
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