Framing the Landscape: SONO by Atelier Carle

Set in the landscape of Wentworth-Nord, Canada, SONO is a secondary residence by Montreal-based Atelier Carle, oriented toward northern light and framing a sweeping panorama across the site. Three long concrete walls, varying in height and scaled to the landscape, form the approach to the building — anchoring it in time and grounding it within the site. A narrow gap between the walls reveals the entrance. Beyond this threshold, the interior tells a different story. Here, a timber structure and flexible layout signal a home designed to adapt and evolve over a much longer horizon than most.

The brief was a unique one: the clients, two friends wishing to share the same secondary residence, without being obliged to "live together" in every sense. Atelier Carle responded with an architectural sequence that meanders — gradually revealing the whole of the home, room by room, while maintaining a quiet sense of visual privacy and acoustic separation. True to the spirit of the times, it's the kitchen that opens most completely to the landscape, becoming the natural gathering point — for the couple, for guests, and metaphorically, for the surrounding environment itself.

What's interesting about SONO is that its design isn't rooted in regional architectural style or identity. Instead, the practice has focused on something more phenomenological — the connection between how the body perceives landscape in real time, and how architecture can "frame" that experience as it shifts across the day. The spaces unfold in terraces that follow the natural slope of the site, each room offering a different vantage point, with light constantly changing the feel of the space. It's this sensitivity, rather than a fixed formula, that defines Atelier Carle's approach, resulting in an architectural language that responds to its surroundings rather than imposing on them.

Just as compelling as the design is the process behind it. SONO was built through close collaboration between the architects, builders, and trades involved — a relationship the firm sees as essential, and one that a traditional fixed-price contract model often struggles to support. For a project of this depth, decision-making couldn't be linear or architect-led alone; it required patience, trust, and enthusiasm from everyone involved, including the clients themselves.

That collaborative spirit extended to the materials too. Working closely with a local carpenter, the team sourced a significant quantity of hemlock from a site adjacent to the project — used throughout the exposed timber structure, and on the north façade for the columns, fascias, and cladding. It's a fitting material choice: locally sourced and ecologically considered, hemlock aligns naturally with the project's broader values. The house itself sits directly on existing bedrock, with no blasting or major excavation required — a final, quiet gesture toward leaving the site as undisturbed as possible.

Credits

Atelier Carle Team: Alain Carle, Isaniel Lévesque, Baptiste Balbrick, James Jabbour, Starr Wang, Sarah Mei Mousseau

General contractor: Metric Construction Inc.

Structural engineer: VCMa Engineering consultants

Geotechnical engineer: Ingénat Engineering consultants

Reclaimed wood: Taylor Lukian

Windows: Shalwin

Millwork: Xavier Collection

Photography by Félix Michaud