This house designed by Canadian studio MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple for a site on the Nova Scotia coast comprises a cluster of Corten-clad buildings that are influenced by traditional fishing huts.
The clients for the Smith Residence purchased a two-acre plot adjacent to a farm owned by Brian MacKay-Lyons, who is a partner at Halifax-based MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects (MLSA).

The holiday home consists of three pavilions which, along with other buildings designed by MacKay-Lyons for his Shobac farm, work together to create the feeling of a new village on the peninsula.
The property is located near the end of a peninsula that protrudes into the Atlantic. The land it sits on was once the site of a small inshore fishing port, which influenced the forms used by the architects for the new buildings.
MacKay-Lyons has been working on the Shobac site since the 1980s. Many of his firm's best-known buildings are situated there, including a cabin clad entirely in cedar shingles, and a holiday home that is raised above the ocean on a row of concrete fins.
The Smith Residence's three structures each feature gabled forms that reference and complement the area's vernacular architecture. The new additions are placed on a plinth made from local granite that anchors them in the landscape and frames the sea views.

"The reconstituted village is dense, requiring a careful handling of views both from and to each building, in order to optimise community and privacy," the architects e...