Into the cedars. A peek into our schematic design process for our Tofino surf retreat project.

Tofino Surf Retreat 2

During the height of COVID isolation, we were awarded the commission for a home on the wild Pacific coast of Vancouver Island. Located on Tofino’s Chesterman Beach, the site is a densely forested plateau lifted just above the beach.

We set out exploring architectural strategies that react to the differing physical conditions of the site, the programmatic requirements of the client, and the desire for optimized experiences of forest retreat and ocean view in the most direct manner. The house finds its massing form in simple moves of carving, staggering, opening, and extending. 

At the same time that we explored abstract architectural moves through massing studies, we also explored qualitative responses to materiality, light conditions and genius loci (spirit of place) through a series of impressionistic representations capturing elevational studies and experiential moments in the design as it starts to take shape.