Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

When designing a new home for a Montreal recording engineer and his graphic designer wife, architect Natalie Dionne knew the design needed to make space for music. “She really likes graphic objects and minimalism, but it was important to add space for the sound system and the husband’s album collection,” says Dionne, principal of the Montreal-based firm Natalie Dionne Architecture.

Located in the verdant Ahuntsic-Cartierville neighborhood of Montreal, the house needed to play well with the surrounding homes, many of which are in the style of mid-century California bungalows. Taking inspiration from the clean lines, brick facades, and pronounced horizontality of its neighbors, the home borrows a 1960s architectural language but injects contemporary geometries.

“I wanted to respect the other buildings and integrate this project on its street,” says Dionne. The home’s brick cladding brings a familiar texture to the exterior, which is broken up by a mixture of horizontal and vertical window openings on all four sides that lend a contemporary feel.

Entering under a cantilevered white aluminum canopy, the home’s front door leads to a compressed space that bursts open to the double-height main living area. Here, a built-in white oak record storage unit is the star, containing concealed storage, ventilation ducts, and sound equipment for the TV and record player. The casework continues uninterrupted to become the stair landing, and white oak is repeated in the kitchen cabinetry and in upstairs flooring.

“We liked bringing in the visual texture of the album sleeves—it gives animation to the sleek design of the rest of the interior,” says project architect Corinne Deleers, who worked with Dionne to complete the design. Designing the casework around the dimensions of a typical vinyl album sleeve allowed the storage to feel integrated and helped pack maximum punch for the colorful collection.

How They Pulled It Off: a Custom Record Cabinet

For the casework, the team used a white oak veneer that matches the stair treads and upper level flooring. The depth of the cabinet responds to the size of a standard vinyl record, allowing the records to align flush with the edge of the shelving.
Incorporating the casework into the architectural design, rather than treating it as an add-on, allowed the architects to detail the cabinetry so that the upper section aligns with the dimensions of the clerestory window above, and so that it seamlessly extends into an under-TV console, ultimately terminating as the stair landing.
The design team worked with a local cabinetmaker to fabricate the custom piece, along with the kitchen cabinetry which uses the same material. Together, the oak casework enwraps the home’s main level, bringing a sense of warmth.

Upstairs, a walkway with a glass railing allows unobstructed views to the living room level below. Large sliding doors, hidden within the walls, allow for closing off the rooms upstairs, which include an office and the primary suite. Drapes adorning the white walls and aluminum-framed windows, along with the oak flooring, bring warmth and softness to the second floor.

The primary suite contains hidden sliding doors that can close for privacy.

The basement level continues the emphasis on music with a soundproofed mixing studio. There is also a guest room and laundry area on this floor. Although the lot dimensions dictated the compact footprint, a careful arrangement of glazing and space planning allows the home to feel light and voluminous. “From the street, you can’t imagine there is so much space and light inside hidden behind the brick,” says Deelers.

Project Credits:

Architecture and Interior Design: Natalie Dionne Architecture / @nataliedionnearchitecture

Builder/General Contractor: Antarès

Structural Engineer: MA.TH.

Cabinetry Fabrication: ovi ébénisterie

Related Reading:

How They Pulled It Off: a Massive Sculptural Skylight