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River House in The Globe and Mail 2010

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River House in the Globe and Mail 2010

‘A poetic wedge of housing’

John Bentley Mays—River House applies spatial brilliance to robust materials for a brand new interpretation of the country retreat. For architects since the time of Palladio, the rural villa has been a prime site for trying out new artistic strategies and testing design theories in real-world situations. The most memorable results of this ongoing, centuries-old experimentation are often modest in size and bearing: Palladio’s country seats, for example, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Illinois, and Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye. What makes these projects stand out is not grandeur and opulence, but the quality of intense, robust architectural imagination they embody.

River House, in the Toronto suburb of Brampton, is among the newest contributions to the long, fruitful tradition of modem villa design, and it is surely one of the most excellent new Toronto-area homes I have ever reviewed in this column. Crafted by Adam Thom and Katja Aga Sachse Thom, partners in both life and art, this small, brilliant residence for a couple and one child combines a strong material palette—poured-in-place concrete, untreated cedar cladding on the exterior, handsome jatoba flooring throughout—with refined, gracious livability in a rough, lovely pocket of Ontario countryside.