Sometimes, the architecture of cities and suburban areas can feel repetitive. Houses end up looking the same, sometimes with a hint of personality depending on the door colour, and buildings are often simple — but not all the residential areas in Canada are like this.
In this article, we’ll be looking at non-traditional residences created for visual impact among “regular homes.” These unique homes were inspired by art movements, and are usually passion projects for those that decided to design and build something different. There are a few residences that fall outside the norm of house building in Canada. Absolute Towers | Corner of Burnhamthorpe Rd and Hurontario St, Mississauga, Ontario This one is more on the popular side. Built in 2012 and located across the street from Mississauga’s Square One Shopping Centre, these two skyscrapers are revered around the world. Ma Yansong, a Beijing-based architect, designed the buildings for the international design competition and was awarded the project in 2006. Due to the curving and twisting of both buildings, they were quickly nicknamed the Marylin Monroe towers. They were awarded the “Best Tall Buildings in the Americas” award in 2012 as well. The buildings are shiny and curved in a way that brings an interesting visual change in comparison to the simple rectangular buildings around them. Habitat 67 | 2600 Avenue Pierre-Dupuy Montreal, Quebec As part of the Canadian Pavilion for the World Exposition of 1967, Habitat 67 wasn’t originally meant to be a place for actual residency. Moshe Safdie designed this structure as an experiment on modern, dense living that still provides enough space and individuality. The structure is a collection of cube-like shapes stacked on top of each other in a seemingly random way. Each “box” was prefabricated, connected by steel cables and all different shapes and sizes. Today, the boxes are available to live in, though they are not cheap considering the $128 million (adjusted for inflation) it took to complete the project. The Cube House | 1 Sumach St, Toronto, Ontario Famously known as The Cube House, this structure was built in 1996 by Ben Kutner and Jeff Brown. Inspired by the Dutch Cubist architectural movements in the 1970s, the Cube House displays large cubes rotated, and sitting on their corners on top of a smaller white structure. This residence was meant to inspire more sets of cube-shaped homes called the “UniTri”, but the trend died with the single-cube home. Unfortunately, in 2016 the land was sold to a real estate developer and in November of 2018, the famed Cube House was torn down. Dome Home | 1196 Upper Dwyer Hill Rd., Carp, Ontario Often, unique homes are inspired and built by non-traditional shapes, and the Dome Home in Carp, Ontario, is no exception. Located west of Ottawa, the Dome Home is constructed on concrete walls and relies on an open-concept interior. Because of its curved, non-geometric shape, the Dome Home is meant to blend in with the nature surrounding it from the inside and out. Comments are closed.
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AuthorLarry Weltman is a Customer Service Representative for AccessEasyFunds Limited, or AEF, an Ontario-based firm Archives
November 2022
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