Spotlight: Full House, 2021 GRAY Awards Finalist

A closer look at Full House, one of five finalists in the 2021 GRAY Awards Residential Architecture category.

Full House

Leckie Studio Architecture + Design Inc.

Full House is a multi-generational housing typology developed in Vancouver by Leckie Studio Architecture + Design. While this particular project is a contextual response to the economic, social, and urban conditions of this specific place, urban regions across Canada are bearing witness to skyrocketing real estate prices across, and a general increase in the numbers of adult children living with their parents. In a city where the average selling price for a detached house is now over $1,800,000 (over $650,000 for condos, and over $850,000 for townhomes), multi-generational living is often the only viable home ownership option for many families.

The finished result is a five-bedroom home with a detached one-bedroom laneway dwelling. The home is reconfigurable and can operate across a variety of traditional program scenarios through the orientation of a pivot door that was inspired by the Duchamp Door (in 1927 a carpenter built a door, to artist Marcel DuCamp's specifications, which cleverly used a single door to operate within two door frames that sat at a 90-degree angle to each other). The device is a pivoting steel-plate partition that can occupy three possible positions—adjusting the position of the door alters the architectural programming of the suites in the house.