CHALLENGE IS the mother of innovation. Consider, for instance, this puzzle presented to Patkau Architects of Vancouver, B.C.:

The client, a single businessman, wanted a one-bedroom house with public areas for entertaining, a private study and an outdoor lap pool. The site was a high-bank waterfront lot overlooking Vancouver's English Bay.
 

HERE, AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS looking toward the study, the inky-blue light of dusk permeates the lap pool, visible through the windows at left. The round dining table is at lower right, below a support beam that is both sculptural asset and structural necessity.

There was just one problem. The property was a mere 33 feet wide, and set-backs limited building width to a bit over 26 feet. The living area would fill the entire width of the main floor, so where would the pool fit?

Patkau's innovative solution was to put it on the second story. Cast-in-place concrete not only levitates 130,200 pounds of pool water but also allows an open design for living spaces within narrow confines. The result is an easy-maintenance, 3,070-square-foot house where light and color shift in a dynamic play of shapes.

The structure is sandwiched between its neighbors and, seen from the curb, reveals little beyond its wrapper of concrete and clerestory windows behind wide louvers. But inside, the view out is an unobstructed panorama of freighters bobbing at anchor, the green mat of Stanley Park, skyscrapers and the mountains above North Vancouver. The living room and adjoining terrace are angled to this view, and jut toward the bay. Tempered-glass safety barriers border the terrace, enhancing the illusion that the house's bow is cutting through the water.

Water's important role here is evident right at the doorstep. When the sun is directly overhead, aqueous, shimmering light projects through four glass panes on the bottom of the pool and onto the entryway sidewalk below. As the big front door pivots open, jellied light spills inside, splashes across the floor, then bounces across walls. Upstairs, light from the pool's wind-rippled surface is reflected down dining-room walls in an effervescent play of blue glimmering. A similar, more subdued effect emerges after dark, when underwater pool lights are switched on.

Architect Joanne Gates, who was involved in the early stages of the project and now has her own practice, says conventional planning and a good deal of thought helped designers anticipate how the house would react in varying circumstances. The dance of watery light by the front door, for example, was a byproduct of the client's wish for a well-lit entry. The problem was, with the pool envelope doubling as a canopy for the front walk, how could natural light get through? "The glass panels in the bottom solved that," Gates says, as she folds her arms and admires the shapes shifting on the walls. Despite all the dazzle, she adds, she really prefers the house in rainy weather. "On a gray day, the light envelops the house, creating a pearlescent glow inside."

The lap pool on the west side of the house is brightened by tawny light on a late-September afternoon. In the view on the left, the pool appears to merge with nearby English Bay. A steel awning, at right, shades a bank of windows along a second-floor passageway, while the concrete shelf, foreground right, is a useful space for sitting or storing cleaning gear. At dusk (photo on the right), with the pool lights on, cool northern colors reign and perspectives shift. Underwater windows appear to lead to another world.

 

	THE LIVING ROOM and adjoining terrace provide views of North Vancouver and English Bay, while stair-step upper windows above massive sliding doors turn cloudscapes into individual paintings. The smaller pane, upper far left, is tinted a grayish blue; the rest of the glass is clear. The round dining table, right, has a lazy Susan built into the center.

Gray or bright, this is a dynamic house. The sculptural qualities of the interior change every few feet. Thanks to the strength of reinforced-concrete walls, columns and support beams, interior volumes are large and irregular, making the floor area appear much larger than it is. The ceiling above the dining table, for example, soars more than 20 feet to a clerestory.

Inside and out, finish work matches the care taken with structural integrity. Glover Corp., the general contractor, used a dense, light-colored concrete that has an attractive wood-grain pattern impressed in exterior walls. Floors are poured concrete warmed by radiant-heat coils and buffed to a soft glow. Interior walls, painted a grayish-white, are insulated gypsum board mounted over poured-in-place concrete. Despite the cold materials and cool-spectrum paint color, the house is inviting, as well as visually intriguing.

Upstairs, the roughly 10-by-12-foot bedroom is spare, with waxed-concrete floors and built-in maple cupboards that extend down a hall to the master bath. The south wall, nearly all glass, has electric shades mounted in tracks in the window molding, while outside, a terrace by the pool is bordered by a planter box with a yew privacy screen.

An open passageway parallel to the pool leads to a study roughly the size of the bedroom. Windows here are inches above the water and permit light to bounce down to the dining area.

The lap pool is 7 feet, 5 inches wide and 4 feet deep — deep enough for underwater turns at the ends. It's lined in custom-glazed white tile, the better to reflect sunlight and take on sky color. A swimmer can jump in from the bedroom terrace and stroke nearly 70 feet to the terrace off the study at the north end, where the pool abuts a hot tub.
 

SUNLIGHT FROM A CLERESTORY cuts across the bedroom wall with its maple backdrop. The large window gives a view to the south-facing terrace and has an electrically controlled screen to manage light. The lap pool is just to the right of the terrace. Radiant-heat tubing in the concrete floors keeps them comfortable.

On the main floor, the galley-style kitchen has east-facing windows partly etched to block the view of a neighbor's house. Simple meals can be served at a small table tucked near a concrete pillar.

A three-step elevation change defines the living and dining rooms; the back of a built-in sofa provides the physical barrier. Windows and massive sliding-glass doors on the north side reveal the bay view. A media room is in an out-of-the-way, basement-level corner. The stairway down is brightened by windows that open onto ivy-filled grottoes to reveal more of the broad-shouldered concrete work.

Architectural planning began in 1996, construction got underway two years later, and the house was completed in 2000. Plenty of back-and-forth between engineers and architects occurred in the early stages as structural requirements and elegance struck a balance. "This area is part of a big seismic zone," says Peter Suter, a key architect on Patkau's design team. "We needed some very complex steel rebar cages in the concrete to solve any problems with lateral earth movement, as well as to accommodate the weight of a filled pool."

In many ways, the house is understated, but Suter is even more so. "It reacts to its site quite well," he says, finally.

A postal worker who dropped by recently put it another way. Looking up through the pool at blue sky overhead, she said, "I wonder if they would adopt."

IN THE EVENING, the living room's sculptural qualities are especially evident. The cantilevered corner, right, shields the media room's foyer on the basement level.

LOOKING FROM THE LIVING ROOM toward the dining room, the interior's planes and angles are complemented by an entertainment console, right foreground, and the oversized sliding kitchen door, middle left. The lap pool sits above the concrete pillars. Stairs to the right lead to the media room.

Dean Stahl is a Seattle-based free-lance writer. Benjamin Benschneider is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff photographer.

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