"Perfect Angles"
Lisa Bovell, Principal
McLeod Bovell Modern Homes
Vancouver, B.C.
Marco Rizzo, President
Jacob Mueller, Construction Manager
Aloha Pools
Burnaby, B.C.
It’s true that the cliffside view from this home would make a lovely postcard, all deep blue ocean, evergreens and craggy rock. But neither the homeowners nor the architect would accept merely framing the scene.
Instead, they sought to bring the ocean to the home and, by extension, the pool. Specifically, they wanted both the pool and the ocean to interact with the tea room at the farthest edge of the property. “Even though they’re on a cliff, they wanted to bring the water up to level so they could be closer to the water,” says Lisa Bovell, a principal with Vancouver design firm McLeod Bovell Modern Houses. “ That’s how the idea started.”
He solution plays off the home, whose strategic mixture of lines beckons the ocean to the right places. This approach extended to the pool, which surrounds and immerses the tea room, then dramatically reaches out to the Pacific, creating an indelible connection.
Two geometries
The pool design started at the tea room. Like most of the modern home, it was enclosed in floor-to-ceiling windows. But unlike other parts of the home, it projected toward the ocean at an angle.
The angling reflected the unique relationship that room was to have with the ocean and pool. In this respect, the pool design not only fell in line with that of the home, but layered onto it.
To best understand how Bovell developed this design, you first need to understand the home’s architecture.
“This house has two geometries,” she explains. “It has a main floor that is on the axis of the property, and then the upper floor is [angled] so that it looks out west towards the ocean. Those two geometries are reflected in the pool shape.”
One side of the pool,with its right angles, follows the roofline of the home’s lower level. The rectangular floating spa/seating area further anchors this section.
However, the other side of the pool and the tea room it surrounds, take their cue from the home’s second floor — in the case of the pool, reaching out to the ocean at the same angle as the upper floor and forming a sharp point.
The pool comes directly against the tea room. “You can sit at the tea room and put your feet in the pool,” Bovell says.
A vanishing-edge effect was a given, not only to create a visual connection with the watery horizon, but also so the wall and catch basin can serve as the property fence.
“We ended up wrapping the pool around the whole deck, so that we could create a kind of seamless connection to the water without having guardrails,” Bovell says.
The seating on the spa island is versatile. The homeowners can move a table to the center or add pillows to the wrap-around bench, and remove it all in prepartion for winter or any time it suits them. The bench means they don’t have to remove as much furniture in the off season.
SUPPLIERS:
Pump/ filter/ controller/automatic cleaner/Lights/drain covers/fittings/: Pentair
Heater: IBC
Chemical feeder: Hayward
Tile: Daltile
Waterproofing/interior finish: Hydrazzo
Spa components: HAI
Autofill: Jandy
Skimmers: Infinity Edge
Outdoor elements: FRP Grating
