Sunken Treasure
DECOR AND INTERIOR DESIGN TRENDS COME AND GO. Remember waterbeds, shag carpeting and wall-to-wall wood panelling? Or the sunken living rooms of the ’70s, as seen on the Mary Tyler Moore Show? Fashionable or not, step-down family rooms make good sense. For one, they’re a way for architects to create distinct living areas in openconcept homes and, for another, these dropped rooms gain height without affecting the roofline. They simultaneously appear taller and more intimate than other parts of the house.
Studio Arch’s decision to give this Humewood house a sunken living room began with the removal of a tired back addition and the crawl space below. The architects carved out the living room and added ceiling height glazing, which brings light into the heart of the home and doubles as a walk-out. To integrate the space with the rest of the ground floor, they lined up the living room’s millwork with the home’s spine: one central element that runs the full length of the house, amalgamating storage, plumbing and structural elements. Rather than hide this 84-centimetre-wide “backbone,” the architects accentuated it to visually connect the rooms. White oak flooring runs throughout, but along the spine, Studio Arch ran the wood perpendicular to emphasize thresholds and millwork. Now the ground floor has a continuous look as well as clearly demarcated zones. There’s nothing ’70s about that.