Lawrence MacIsaac recalls stories of his great-grandfather using the property to teach his sons how to snare rabbits, while his great-grandmother used the ?laundry stone? at the bottom of a small waterfall ?to wash clothing. With the extremely steep sides of the gorge, it was difficult to do anything with the land, including harvesting the trees, so it was left to grow wild.
The cabin at Rabbit Snare Gorge is the first of three small creature-like structures hidden in the mysterious landscape. The cabin is the primary dwelling on a 46-acre parcel of land found on the rugged wooded coastline of rural Cape Breton. It is designed as a gently adapted gabled tower. This allows it to reach above the forest canopy with two major viewing platforms; one oriented directly toward the ocean, and the other along the length of the convergent brook valley. The local suetes demand robust structural systems to withstand major lateral loads and uplift. The tall cabin combats the high winds through redundant sheathing. Every solid plane, including the interior partition wall, contributes as shear walls, diaphragms, and stacked compression rings. The windbreak, constructed out of welded weathering steel, is then hung from the framing.
Jury: Rabbit Snare Gorge suggests an alternative idea of a dwelling in the Canadian landscape. The programme is simple: a country home on a small footprint with an elegantly restrained palette inside and out. But the architect has visually ?stretched? what we thi...