Three blocks east of Main Street in Vancouver?s Little Mountain neighbourhood, the 480 House project of D?Arcy Jones Architecture (DJA) sits on a gentle incline overlooking the north end of what early settlers called the Tea Swamp. Unlike Vancouver?s tectonically produced Coast Mountains and the landmark-protected Douglas firs of Stanley Park, the Tea Swamp also had its architects?the beavers who turned the area?s creeks into a colony of their own.
The original century-old bungalow, prior to transformation.
Approaching 480 House from the west, the visitor is treated to a range of similarly styled houses that feature varying degrees of renovation, from a closed-off front porch entrance in one house to a front entrance that has been removed altogether in another. Sharing the block are two modern renovations whose source style is not so much assimilated but erased. Taken together, these renovations provide a prelude to DJA?s artistry: a 1,500-sq.-ft. house that retains not only its source style, but its renovation history as well. The narrow structure sits on is a 25-ft-wide lot, so to increase the usable floor space, its basement floor was lowered and the attic became a third floor.
To make the former basement habitable, DJA had the floor lowered three feet and a water-heated slab poured. Upon opening the north-facing front door is a wooden staircase; to the left, a den/dining/kitchen continuum with a glass window and glass door at the south end. Running down the centre of th...