A Storied History

Architect Kanau Uyeyama’s very first commission was to build a house for a garter snake that then-science-student Mary Todd had adopted. Now, Uyeyama and Todd have been married for four decades and have been running design firm Architecton for just as long. With Uyeyama as principal and Todd as chief researcher (she wrapped up her career as a medical professor five years ago to join the firm full-time), the company has a long, storied history in the Vancouver area. In recent years, the four-person firm has focused most of its energy on developing a market for high-end, prefabricated homes. “People are still distrustful of modular construction because it’s not the usual way,” Uyeyama says. But Architecton is working to change that perception.

Architecton’s first prefabricated project, the Hemlock Ski Chalet, was experimental and required a great deal of research. Uyeyama and Todd had bought a lot in the mountains for $25,000, and they decided to build a home that would showcase the potential of architect-designed modular homes.

In addition to being in a region with the heaviest snow load in North America, the property also had a severe slope, which presented both a challenge and an opportunity. Building on the side of a mountain is tricky, no question, but Todd points out, “in British Columbia, there are a lot of remote areas where it’s almost impossible to get a contractor and trades … This type of construction is ideal.”

For the Hemlock Chalet, Uyeyama came up with a multilevel design perched on concrete columns that was made up of six prefabricated modules. Once the support structure was in place, it was simply a matter of assembling the modules. “The work in the factory and the work on the site started the same day, September 20,” Todd says. “On November 20, the six modules were put together in one day. The speed of construction was amazing.”

Prefab construction also offers a lot of design flexibility. And once it’s assembled, Todd says, the effect prevents it from being identified as modular or site-built construction. Todd and Uyeyama use the Hemlock Chalet as a vacation rental. Its success has found the duo several people interested in commissioning a modular mountain hideaway of their own.

In 2007, Peter Simpson, the head of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders’ Association, asked Uyeyama to design a show home for the British Columbia Home and Garden Show. “They wanted a small house that was green, prefabbed, and of a design that you wouldn’t walk down the street and see,” Uyeyama says. That’s just what Architecton delivered.

The home consists of two wings (each a prefabricated module) that join in the centre at a 90-degree angle, framing a cozy and inviting deck. Wood abounds in the home: custom-cut cedar siding, rough-hewn fir stilts, cherry and cork flooring, and a maple drop ceiling in the corridor. The house also boasts a great many green features, from energy- and water-efficient appliances to cabinetry made of recycled paper. “This was the first project where we really went out of our way to get everything as green as possible,” Todd says.

“Because it’s an exhibition house, there are design details that bring art into it,” Uyeyama says. For example, a sculptural drop ceiling controls the scale of a corridor with a high ceiling. Another is the multihued, prismatic, plastic highlights on the steel window braces. “[Uyeyama] always has unique ways of using colour,” Todd says.

After the home show, where the EcoFabulous Home had more than 60,000 visitors, it was a home without a home—until 2010, when Architecton found the ideal site. Now, this testament to architect-designed modular construction sits on Gabriola Island, 17 minutes by seaplane from Vancouver, where it’s currently waiting for the right owner to come along.