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Architects: Omer Arbel
- Year: 2023
Text description provided by the architects. 75.9 is a family home on a hayfield in the Canadian Pacific Northwest. Built around monumental ‘lily pad’ columns – the results of a method of concrete pouring invented by the studio – the house marks the first time Arbel applies his process-based design approach on an architectural scale.
Before Omer Arbel had been formally commissioned to build the home, on a vast acreage in the countryside south of Vancouver, Arbel started devising a method of pouring concrete into a fabric stretched out between lightweight plywood ribs arranged radially. Only after the first column was poured on-site – in a successful first experiment – did the clients agree to let Omer Arbel design the rest of the home around it.
The fabric-formed columns are treated as if they were found archeological ruins in the landscape, with the house considered a contemporary construction built around and among them. The living spaces are separated into four double-height volumes, built in glass and cedar wood. On the roof grow magnolia trees, planted in the hollow tops of the columns. The surrounding hay field has been lifted like a carpet to cover the house’s connecting passages, allowing the architecture to merge with the landscape as if it were a natural extension of it
Inside 75.9 (all Arbel’s projects are numbered chronologically) differing heights and positions for each column create a cinematographic narrative of domestic habitation. The double-height living room, dining space, and open-plan kitchen are all under the canopy of one column.
Its rough finish stands in contrast with the polished floors – also concrete – and is complemented by warm timber fixtures and furniture, as well as a lush, Japan-inspired indoor garden. Throughout, spaces are illuminated with pendants from Bocci, the Vancouver- and Berlin-based lighting company co-founded by Arbel.
75.9 is a result of over a decade of experimentation with material, and the most ambitious experiment in Arbel’s process-driven approach to date. By considering an ancient construction material anew, the house is at once a highly contemporary domestic landscape and a timeless monument with an archaeological scope.
