Located in Toronto’s western lakeside streetcar suburb, this single-family home is deeply contextual yet deliberately unconventional. By engaging its surroundings in a simple yet unexpected way, the house makes a strong impression without feeling imposing. An elongated ground floor sits on a plinth, referencing nearby homes and emphasizing horizontality through clear separation between floors. Carefully carved openings and subtle shifts in the massing break down the long form, allowing light to penetrate and creating a clear relationship between interior and exterior spaces.

Steel-clad volumes define the long elevations and extend to the front and rear, contrasting with warmer cedar-lined apertures that balance privacy and openness. This interplay of form and material softens the bold exterior and grounds it in the character of the neighbourhood. The street façade remains restrained, while the rear opens more fully, offering glimpses into the home’s intimate yet expansive interior.

Private rooms are consolidated on the second floor, while vertical and horizontal circulation is stacked along one side, creating efficient movement and allowing for generous shared spaces. Entry occurs beneath a solid front volume, where a sense of compression gives way to openness as the stairs lead through the house. A central carve brings daylight deep into the plan, visually connecting both floors and blurring the boundary between inside and out.

Organized around the kitchen, the ground floor transitions from public to private, with a formal dining room addressing the street and living spaces opening toward the rear yard. Throughout the house, a sequence of expansion and contraction shapes the experience, gradually revealing spaces. Within the limits of conventional residential construction, the Tesseract House seeks to be more than a dwelling—offering a layered and evolving spatial experience.