当客户找到McLeod Bovell时，他们即将成为空巢老人。满足一个家庭不断变化的需求成为了建筑师的动力，建筑师的设想是一座能够在概念和体验层面体现过渡状态的住宅。“边缘”一词包含了设计过程中的各种想法：即在一个短暂的地方居住的感觉；在空间中协调活动；以及在 “从”与“到”之间的时刻居住。

The clients approached McLeod Bovell at a pivotal stage in their lives as soon-to-be empty nesters. The evolving needs of a family became the impetus for how the designers imagined a house that could embody the state of transition at a conceptual and experiential level. The word liminal encapsulates ideas that have informed the design process: namely the feeling of inhabiting a transitory place; orchestrating movement through space; and dwelling in the moments between from and to…

该项目的选址位于一片郊外的住宅区域与西温哥华的自然石质海岸之间的中间地带。坐落于一片山海之间的开阔地带，建筑的外观参考了占据这一领地的生物，它们的生理机能已经适应了这种具有挑战性的条件。因而建筑也拥有类似的特质，外观由混凝土，染色Accoya木材和铝型材构成，这些经久耐用的材料可以抵挡海岸环境带来的的撞击影响。

The project site straddles the interstice between a suburban residential neighborhood and West Vancouver’s natural stony seashore. Positioned on an expanded border between land and sea, the building form references the creatures that occupy this interstitial territory, whose physiology has adapted to such challenging conditions. In the same spirit, the house establishes itself in concrete, stained Accoya wood, and aluminum plate—enduring materials that can resist the battering effect of a shore environment.

基于建筑师协调复杂地形和与近邻关系的经验，McLeod Bovell事务所并未将该项目解读为一系列单一的“立面”，这些立面仅仅存在于想象之中或人无法到达的视角。与此相反的是，建筑师采用了一种布景设计的方法，在住宅中环绕穿行才能理解它。庭院，悬挑体量的设计语言和景观化的立面延伸至地下一层，瓦解了住宅和自然环境之间的边界。

Drawing from their experience negotiating complex topography and tight proximity with neighbors, McLeod Bovell has learned to abandon the reading of the project as a series of flat “elevations” which exist from an imaginary or inaccessible viewpoint. Instead, they embrace a scenographic approach where the house can be understood after having moved through and around it. The language of courtyards, cantilevered volumes, and extension of landscaped surfaces onto floor areas below dismantle boundaries between the house and the natural environment.

海岸边不断变化的室外氛围不仅为住宅带来活力，同时住宅也使室外的氛围生动起来：实墙和玻璃隔墙框住海边的景色，房屋边缘的水池和内部庭院的玻璃也映射出海景色倒影。室外景色的倒影和折射唤起一种既不在此处，也不再彼处，而是处于二者之间的氛围。

The changing outdoor atmosphere at the shore not only animates the house, but is in turn animated by the house: views are framed between solid walls and walls of glass; their images duplicated by a dark pool at the edge of the property and by the glazing of internal courtyards. Reflections and refractions of the outdoors evoke a feeling of being neither here nor there, but somewhere in between.

Project Name: Liminal House
Designer: McLeod Bovell
Firm Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Project Construction: 2017–2022
Gross Built Area: 1,016m2 / 10,940ft2
Project Location: West Vancouver, BC, Canada
Program: Private residence
Design Team:
Lisa Bovell, Matt McLeod, Daan Murray, Daniel Ching
Landscape Design:
Karin Hers-Schaffner
Otto Schaffner