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Four centuries ago, a French landscape architect designed an exquisite garden for a chateau called Vaux le Vicomte, using principles of scale and proportion to create extraordinary vistas that looked longer and larger than they actually were.
His technique of hidden distortion called anamorphosis abscondita, or forced perspective, impressed King Louis XIV and the young expert was hired to create gardens for a new palace the monarch was building called Versailles.
Argentinian architect Silvia Bonet does not work on the Sun King鈥檚 lavish scale, but she uses similar techniques in residential and commercial buildings, and recently in her own new home in Deep Cove.
鈥淭his house is all about angles,鈥� said Bonet, who previously designed buildings and taught history in art at the National University of C贸rdoba, the oldest university in Argentina, founded in 1613. She came to Victoria during a sabbatical to study Emily Carr, and visited her brother, cardiologist Dr. Jorge Bonet, while she was here. She moved here shortly after, married, became a partner in Finlayson Bonet Architecture and joined the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria board.
This is the first house she has designed for herself and it is urbane and contemporary, replete with visual delights thanks to her talent for blending architectural caprice with exciting proportion, perspective and a passion for geometry. The home is expansive rather than expensive and it plays with 鈥渢he idea of perception and how we explore space,鈥� said Bonet, in elaborately accented English.
Normally walls are parallel and corners meet at right angles. But not here.
Bonet creates rooms that open up as people walk through them, an effect achieved through angling walls wider at one end, taking rooms off parallel and slanting ceilings and roof lines. For example, the living room appears to be an absolute rectangle, but is two feet wider at the far end, and her master suite expands by even more.
Such hidden distortion has long been used in movies, ancient staircases and classical gardens to make things appear closer or farther away, larger or smaller.
鈥淚n the baroque period, people worked with the idea of perception of space as not being finite, hence the spiral staircases and never-ending boulevards,鈥� said Bonet, who enjoys challenging or validating our human senses.
鈥淲e have to go though a space to fully capture it and understand it,鈥� she said with a smile, calling her house an example of opera aperta, an open work that it is completed by the experience of the user or spectator.
鈥淵ou must be careful when slanting walls because if you put everything on an angle, then nothing looks like an angle,鈥� warned the architect, who was dressed in an asymmetrical black tunic and triangular earrings.
Pausing on a catwalk overlooking the living room, she explained her interest in expansion stems from being slightly claustrophobic and pointed to another visual element that extends sight lines: an angled aluminum-topped beam that flashes across the front of the house, creating a three-dimensional triangle.
鈥淭he whole design is based on triangles and I believe it drove the contractor slightly mental.鈥�
Her contractor was up for the challenge, however, and laughed at the suggestion.
鈥淎lmost nothing is square in this house, and almost nothing is parallel except maybe one hallway 鈥� but it鈥檚 very interesting,鈥� said Mike Kaercher of Patterson and Kaercher Construction.
鈥淟ots of the walls are raked. Sometimes it鈥檚 obvious and intriguing, but most of the time it鈥檚 extremely subtle. You just look up and think, hmmm. 鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 not like building a box. You have to wrap your head around the concept. The deck off Silvia鈥檚 bedroom is a real head-scratcher that rakes back from a complete point.鈥�
Many of the home鈥檚 best aspects are mechanical and invisible. For instance, the house is both insulated and 鈥渙utsulated.鈥�
鈥淭his involves a very labour-strenuous process,鈥� said Kaercher. Once the house was framed, all plywood joints were taped and sealed, then two-inch thick Styrofoam panels were added, and a layer of stucco. This insulated cladding system, called Dryvit, is often used on commercial buildings but he had never done it on a house before.
鈥淪ilvia spent money very wisely. Where other people look at cosmetics and flashy finishes, she spent money where it can be felt, not seen, on features that are onerous and expensive to change once a house is built,鈥� such as walls, windows and heating systems.
Bonet had an energy-performance analysis done during the design phase and found by using exterior insulation she could increase her home鈥檚 thermal efficiency by 16 per cent.
鈥淎nalysis at that stage is wise because a homeowner can determine how to proceed. I found increased insulation in the roof would only give me five per cent more efficiency. So the wall system was my best investment.鈥�
Her home is also warm thanks to energy efficient fibreglass windows by Cascadia Glass, and because it takes advantage of southern exposure. Bonet chose not to have a south-facing entrance as that would interfere with passive solar gain. Instead, her solid door faces east, and what she calls a 鈥済allery of rhododendrons.鈥�
While supplemented by in-floor heating on the ground level, and plumbed for solar in future, her home is so toasty she doesn鈥檛 heat upstairs at all, and didn鈥檛 turn any heat on until November.
The 2,400-square-foot house was sited within tight physical margins because, although the lot is large, it is irregular, just 18 metres at its narrowest, and it has a five-metre-wide right-of-way along the drive. There were financial constraints, too.
鈥淭his is a very cost conscious house,鈥� but experience told her she could still be stylish without being lavish. Its streamlined interiors feature no flourishes, frills, mouldings or casings and she counters any industrial vibe with an appealing interplay of textures and finishes, from soft leathers and suedes to hand-woven baskets, antiques and abstract artwork, by acclaimed local and Argentinian artists, as well as herself.
Her wooden staircase is another contrast, built with Parallam beams. These are rugged-looking composite forms made from bonded veneer and normally used for structural purposes, and clad with other materials. She has coated them with epoxy resin and the finished look is exotic rather than industrial.
鈥淚 value design over everything,鈥� she said, and admits having windows recessed on the exterior cost a little more. 鈥淚 like the look of natural volume and articulation of masses. It is very Argentinian or European. We don鈥檛 have nail-on windows in Argentina, because buildings are all masonry.鈥�
Not surprisingly, her kitchen is sleek and functional, a place to entertain her three sons鈥� families and friends. Harbour City Kitchen cabinets reach to the ceiling 鈥� 鈥淚 don鈥檛 like useless space鈥� 鈥� and hang five inches higher than usual to allow space for a long, low window behind the sink.
She chose a five-burner gas stove rather than induction, 鈥渂ecause gas still works during power outages,鈥� and she loves her pullout exhaust fan that鈥檚 as thin as a panini.
Instead of high-priced granite or quartz on her island, she opted for an attractive grey, tan and white patterned laminate 鈥� and of course the island is angled.
The house is full of visual delights and surprises, such as the arrangements of wall art, where one 鈥減icture鈥� actually frames a view to the outside. She also designed interior 鈥渨indows鈥� that allow her to look from one room to another. Her grandchildren love the duo of small square holes in her bedroom that allow them to peek down into the living room, where another long, lean window carries the eye up again into the den.
Bonet started drawing house plans in Grade 8, but three years later decided to study architecture seriously since it appealed to all her interests: humanities, sociology, technology, science, geometry and art.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 care about fitting in, architecturally or even personally, but I do value having new experiences, seeing different things, creating something that strikes a different tone. We humans deserve physical environments that speak to us in new ways, where we turn a corner and are surprised.鈥�
And talking about new things, how was the experience of building for herself?
鈥淒ifficult. Challenging. But I would do it again in a heartbeat.鈥�
