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its glorious, tree-laden location.
Taken with the site, the owner found the
property and planned at some point to
build a house there—a house quite unlike
anything he had built before. He had, after
all, strong feelings about what he wanted,
which was, as put by the practice, an
"'architectural expression of self'" via a
design embodying "individualism, tran-
quil strength, respect for nature, simple
beauty, privacy, and crucially, a 'hamo-
nization of contradictions.'" Boldness
and simplicity, openness and enclosure,
intimacy and exposure, among them. In
taking a chance on Gort Scott, a younger
architectural practice, the client's faith
was rewarded with a thoughtfully imag-
ined, audaciously designed expression
ixed to a rocky crag above Alta
Lake in the Canadian mountain
resort of Whistler, a truly excep-
tional private house surveys
the mountainous landscape
from which it is quite literally inseparable.
Fittingly named The Rock, this newly built
family home eclipses mere possibility
with its actual presence. Why dream the
impossible when it is here— the summit
of ambitious, vision-driven design from
London-based architectural practice Gort
Scott.
With viewpoints and exposures through-
out, the project is a physical manifesta-
tion of Gort Scott's architectural ethos,
which is very much centered on creating
connection between individuals and their
environments. The Rock is an elevation of
this idea. Not just for the obvious fact that
the house is cut and built out of the moun-
tainside, but more boldly as a response to
42 DIGS.NET
| 4.19.24
