Magdalen Home, a home designed in 2024 by Atelier L’Abri in Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine, Canada, sits on an inhabited plateau above the dunes of Havre-Aubert Island and the Atlantic Ocean. Drawing on the archipelago’s gabled vernacular, the compact constructing pairs cedar shingles, a timber-supported terrace, and a transparent inside plan with a cautious response to fragile coastal floor. Its west-facing dwelling areas and enormous openings hold the panorama central with out disturbing the protected dunes.
About Magdalen Home
Magdalen Home occupies an present inhabited plateau on Havre-Aubert Island, above a large sandy seashore, protected dunes, and the Atlantic Ocean. Atelier L’Abri positions the home on the plateau’s edge, the place the bottom is extra steady, and helps a part of the constructing and its giant terrace on timber piles. This transfer limits excavation, reduces the quantity of concrete, and preserves the soil, vegetation, and delicate coastal environments beneath.
The restraint is each environmental and architectural. As a substitute of treating the vernacular of the Magdalen Islands as a set picture, the home attracts from its sensible grammar: a easy gable, a compact one-and-a-half-storey profile, supplies suited to wind and salt air, and development particulars related to island life. The modern expression stays discreet and recognizable inside the surrounding constructed panorama.
A Gable Kind for the Islands
This native kind takes form between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as an adaptation of the Acadian home. Its compact flooring plan and one-and-a-half-storey association reply the situations of island life, whereas the gabled roof and cedar shingles go well with an uncovered maritime local weather. The undertaking doesn’t deal with the vernacular as a set custom. It makes use of the kind as a framework for a home that connects previous, current, and future whereas retaining its kind direct.
Supplies for Wind and Salt
Cedar shingles cowl each the roof and exterior partitions, giving the envelope a constant floor that weathers naturally to a silvery gray. Japanese hemlock types the uncovered construction of the terrace and timber piles, whereas marine-grade chrome steel mesh makes up the guardrails and resists salt air. Inside, pine flooring and wall paneling proceed the usage of pure supplies alongside North American pure stone surfaces. Customized millwork comes from a woodworker on Cap-aux-Meules Island, whereas the sunshine fixtures come from a Quebec producer. The shoppers’ art work and ceramics are all created by artists and artisans from the Magdalen Islands.
A Compact Plan with Two Orientations
Inside, the association concentrates the kitchen, utility areas, rest room, and staircase in a central service core. This retains the plan legible whereas providing beneficiant dwelling house. The dwelling areas face west towards the panorama and setting solar, whereas the bedrooms profit from morning mild. A double-height dwelling house enhances the sense of quantity with out growing the footprint, and enormous openings keep a direct visible reference to the dunes, seashore, and ocean.
These selections give the home a transparent relationship to a fragile territory. The dune ecosystem relies on vegetation, wind-driven sand, and seasonal coastal dynamics, so the constructing stays on already inhabited floor fairly than getting into protected environments. Developed with contractors and craftspeople from the Magdalen Islands, Magdalen Home treats sturdiness as greater than technical efficiency: it relies on development that may be maintained, used, and handed on inside its setting.
Pictures by Alex Lesage
Go to Atelier L’Abri
– by Matt Watts
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