Weathering-steel accents break up the massing of the all-white Badlands Home that BLDG Workshop designed in a rural area outside of Toronto.
The project is named after the unique topographic features of the area, known as the Cheltenham Badlands. Situated near the town of Caledon, in Ontario, the site is approximately an hour’s drive from Toronto.
BLDG Workshop, a Toronto-based design studio, was approached by a client requesting an all-white home, “including roof, walls, and windows”.
This monochrome palette plays off the site’s landscape in winter, and also the area’s red earth.
“We added a couple shocks of colour that make a playful nod to the nearby Badlands,” Buhler told Dezeen.
“Contrasting details of Corten steel nod to the Cheltenham area connecting the home to the Badlands’ unique red earth features,” he added.
The badlands are characterised by their red soil, rolling hills, and deep grooves in the landscape.
Today, the Badlands are considered a heritage site and are protected under Ontario law.
The home’s main living areas are located on the ground floor. However, the house also has a walk-out basement with additional guest bedrooms. In total, the home counts six bedrooms.
Visitors enter the home through an opening in the main volume that appears to cut the building into two sections.
Off to the side, a weathering steel block separates the home from a guest house built above the garage.
Its flat roof also offers some contrast to the rest of the home, which is topped with steep, gabled volumes.
This area leads to the open-concept kitchen, living and dining room. This double-height area overlooks the rolling hills of the property through floor-to-ceiling glass windows, which open out onto a back patio in the summer months.
“Glass expanses frame views to the most natural and unaltered parts of the landscape, while intentionally obscuring less desirable and obtrusive built forms,” Buhler told Dezeen.
A smaller corridor separates this open and expansive area from the home’s two main bedrooms, which are located at the opposite end of the building.
The interiors mostly feature white walls and wide-plank wood floors. The owner’s furniture, lighting fixtures, accessories and art pieces bring plenty of colour to the pared-back interiors.
“The homeowner is the builder and interior designer,” said Buhler.
Other Ontario homes include a Muskoka retreat by Studio Paolo Ferrari that is nestled into a granite outcropping, and a farmhouse-inspired home by Everyday Studio that reinterprets the traditional style with a monochrome palette.
The photography is by Younes Bounhar of Doublespace Photography.
