Photo by Steven Evans
Japanese-inspired pavilion
A strong architectural focal point in the garden combines style and function—a match made in nature
Seeing this elegant linear structure set in the back of a narrow Toronto garden, you wonder “What is it?” It’s certainly not a shed. A gazebo? Nope. The building, designed by architect Paul Raff, is actually a multi-use pavilion: part meeting space for the homeowner’s artists’ co-operative, part bandshell and part *chuppah* for family weddings. The inspiration came from the homeowner, who had spent time in Japan and was charmed by the tea houses there. “So I began to study the tea ceremony and that’s what drove the idea,” says Raff. “It was about defining how people sit outside while keeping it all in harmony with nature.”
To that end, Raff used humble two-by-fours of untreated knotty cedar. The wood for the roof was soaked in water overnight by Sasquatch Designlab, a collaborator on the project, to make it pliable. The planks were then bent to create a slatted, concave canopy: “It’s a little like peering up through tree branches,” says Raff. “We tend to think of architecture and nature as a contrast, and yet our whole world is made out of both—we actually need the help of architecture to inhabit our landscapes.”
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