The townships of eastern Quebec have long been home to sheltered courtyard configurations, which provide shelter and convenience of access for those on a working farm. This nod to historical heritage was an enormous inspiration for the Townships Farmhouse, which does indeed sit on an active farm, and provides a new take on the classic family farm home.
One of the key design decisions here was to extrapolate the idea of the ‘aisle’ from barns and see how this concept could serve a contemporary home. These aisles were traditionally used as a thoroughfare for bringing in materials and livestock from the farm – but in this project, it was repurposed to provide beautiful views over the surrounding fields. The ‘aisle’ offers a vantage point from which you can see ‘through’ the house – an important consideration for the owners, who have a young family.
The interior design is very minimal – one half of the couple who commissioned the project is an avid art collector, and the interior spaces have been designed to let the art shine through rather than distracting from it. Classic features like the traditional farmhouse table are juxtaposed with a contemporary kitchen to great effect, and the exterior hemlock was reused from Ontario barns for a sustainable nod to the past.
