Designlines Feature: Ontario Fallbrook Farmhouse Renovation
A LAMAS Architecture project is featured in Designlines in a story on the renovation of a farmhouse in Balderson, Ontario.
Written by Alexandra Whyte, the article centres on a little-known 1970s addition by architect John Honer—later the executive architect for London’s Barbican Centre—which had been partially obscured by subsequent renovations. Once rediscovered, this fragment of the house became the conceptual and spatial anchor for the project.
Rather than overwrite the existing structure, LAMAS approached the renovation as a process of recovery and reinterpretation. The original addition—defined by its cedar cladding, deep window recesses, and proto-Brutalist sensibility—was restored and used to inform a broader reorganization of the house. Contemporary interventions extend this logic, introducing a restrained material palette alongside moments of colour that draw from both the surrounding landscape and the architectural language of the Barbican.
The project negotiates multiple temporal layers: a 19th-century farmhouse, a modernist 1970s intervention, and a present-day reworking shaped by sustainability and contemporary living. Locally sourced materials, upgraded performance, and a reoriented plan support this synthesis, while maintaining a continuity with the building’s original character.
As presented in Designlines, the renovation reflects an approach that treats architecture as an accumulation of histories rather than a singular moment—where design operates through editing, framing, and extending what is already there.
