Warm Minimalism Pervades This Split-level Home

Interior designers Falken Reynolds created a peaceful home inspired by 1960s and 70s West Coast Modernism, all the while reflecting the homeowners’ Asian heritage

‘We were really intrigued by the client’s open-ended vision for the home,’ recalls Kelly Reynolds, co-founder of Vancouver-based interior design practice Falken Reynolds. ‘On one hand, they had a clear understanding of how they wanted to use parts of the house and on the other, they looked us to find a solution to both the spatial planning and how the visual concept would come together. From the beginning, we knew it was a really nice balance of constraints and creative freedom.’

The project entailed renovating a 360-square-metre 1960’s-era split-level house, which sits across the street from the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver. The clients are a couple with a young son; the wife was born in Canada to a Chinese-Malaysian mother and a part-Chinese father, while the husband was born in Hong Kong and moved to Canada with his family when he was young. This heritage subtly pervades the whole house, where every newly remodelled space reflects a sense of harmony and connection with nature.

‘There were four split-levels, each about 75 square metres, and the spaces on each level were divided up into smaller areas,’ says Chad Falkenberg, the other half of Falken Reynolds. ‘The house felt quite cramped, so we wanted to create much bigger spaces for family living and entertaining,’ he says. The kitchen and dining area are now visually connected to a playroom, while new structural beams allowed the designers to raise the ceiling in a part of the living room, giving the space a much loftier feel. A large sliding door now opens the kitchen up to a large deck with a dining table and lounge area, all raised just above the spacious garden.

The original travertine fireplace was the starting point for the colour and material palette. ‘Light oak hardwood flooring brings the lightness of the travertine to the rest of the house, while medium-toned oak millwork adds warmth,’ Reynolds says. White walls balance the wood and give the space a sense of what he describes as ‘Scandinavian warm minimalism’. Additionally, he says, ‘The quiet, neutral tones in the public living spaces frame views of the gardens outside.’

Inspired by West Coast Modernist architecture from the 1960s and 70s, the design of this house was also guided by the local weather. ‘Since Vancouver is in a temperate rainforest, the lush green views have many similarities to Malaysia and Hong Kong,’ Falkenberg notes. Light and welcoming, fresh and effortless, this home is an ode to both the identity of its inhabitants and the place it belongs to.

Text / Karine Monié
Images / Ema Peter