The mandate was to renovate and expand a 200-year-old traditional Quebec stone house, which formerly belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company. The layout of the existing residence follows the old river side route, explaining the fact that the main entrance door is today at the rear of the original building. It therefore quickly became obvious that the challenge would be to design an extension which could contrast with the original stone house, with the aim of accentuating the authenticity of the existing volume while adapting to the conditions of the current site.

 

The program provides for the cohabitation of four generations: the great-grandfather, the grandparents and the children in the original house, the parents in the extension. This led to the idea of drawing a parallel between the promiscuity of these different generations and the fact that a contemporary project would be attached to a historic house. By analogy, architecture takes up this idea of generational cohabitation while being sensitive to the passage of time.

 

The strategy was to build a very contemporary project, contrasting with the original stone house, while maintaining an obvious relationship with the existing structure. This idea has also been applied to the way spaces are defined. Two double-height living spaces at each end of each volume are connected by a path, physically accentuated at the junction of the old volume and the new volume by a bridge.