This redo of a stately 115 year-old house undid many odd additions and awkward past renovations. The building was once a rooming house, after it was a hospital at the edge of old Vancouver when the area was surrounded by farmland. The entire structure was retained and seismically reinforced with an exposed steel frame and bent steel stair. The new stair is in the same centre-hall spot as the old one. The steel frame is blunt. Its only job is to support the wood framing in a straightforward way.
Modern tray ceilings reinterpret the house’s past, in contrast to exposed piping and wiring. All fresh air vents are actually mini operable screened “doors”. The existing building’s two existing bay windows were remade in place as pure glass vitrines, shaped into two well-lit living room window seats.
Photos: Sama Jim Canzian
