Everything was stripped down and even the front facade brick proved to be rotten and we had to redo it,» said studio architect Marc-André Plasse. The cabinets and doorways are clad in a mixture of natural and lacquered Anigre veneer, intended to unify the space. The staircase rises from a double-height entrance hall and has an angular balustrade made from sheets of Anigre veneer – a type of warm-toned African hardwood. Kitchen appliances, a pantry and toilet are recessed into a wall to the rear of the kitchen island. Related story: Correia/Ragazzi Arquitectos add curving white staircase to a remodelled Portuguese apartment The architects carried out a complete interior reorganisation of the Drolet Residence, adding a large open-plan kitchen on the upper floor, as well as bedrooms and a garage on the lower level. Photography is by Adrien Williams. Two black I-beams arch over the white kitchen walls to support the ceiling and outline a dining area to one side of the large open-plan space. Towards the back of the house, the kitchen island breaks off into a breakfast bar next to a glazed patio door, which leads onto a terrace on the roof of the garage, overlooking the back garden. At the centre of this, they added a wooden staircase with a flattened appearance, designed to give the impression it is constructed from a single strip of folded wood. «We wanted to create a wood ribbon that would draw your attention up and define the contours of the double-height space.»
Upstairs, the wooden ribbon reappears as the frontage of a long kitchen island topped with a soapstone counter. «The lines of the stair invite the natural and fluid transition from the ground floor entrance to the living spaces above,» Plasse told Dezeen. «By placing two mirrored L-shaped columns, we were able to transform a structural necessity into a sculptural object,» said the team, which also added an extension to a 1920s Montréal home featuring an angular projecting window. «There was nothing of value to keep.
