Project Name: Armstrong Cottage

Location: Peterborough, Canada

Design Team: Peter Braithwaite Studio

Total Floor Area: 4,200 ft² (approx. 390 m²)

Completion: 2024

Photography: James Morley / doublespace photography

Feature:

Project - Nestled on a remote lakeside island in Peterborough, Armstrong Cottage by Peter Braithwaite Studio represents a masterful exercise in off-grid sustainable design and innovative construction methodology. Completed in 2024, this 4,200 square foot residence for a Toronto-based family seeking to rekindle nostalgic childhood memories demonstrates how contemporary domestic architecture can achieve net-zero performance under extreme site constraints while preserving fragile island ecosystems.

The project's most striking design feature lies in its revolutionary structural approach. Rather than employing traditional foundations, the residence fastens steel wide-flange columns directly to native bedrock, allowing the buildings to float above the landscape on stilts. This strategy achieves breakthrough results in two critical dimensions: first, it completely preserves the natural terrain beneath, permitting native vegetation to thrive undisturbed; second, it drastically reduces concrete requirements, essential for a remote site where toxic contamination of fertile topsoil must be avoided and material transportation logistics simplified.

Peter Braithwaite Studio's approach synthesizes environmental stewardship with construction ingenuity. The dwelling fragments into two separate pavilions dedicated to sleeping and living functions, each positioned within naturally occurring forest clearings on the island. This organizational strategy creates the sensation of dwelling among the treetops, with structures appearing to hover within the forest canopy like architectural tree houses. The elevated positioning not only generates extraordinary spatial experiences but crucially allows the natural landscape to slip below, minimizing disruption to the native ecosystem.

The choreographed construction sequence epitomizes the design's attention to logistical detail. The remote location necessitated transporting materials by barge during warmer months and heavy machinery across frozen lake ice in winter. Seasonal water level fluctuations required specially designed docks capable of rising and falling with the lake. These challenges inspired the design team to conceive the building as a "kit of parts," with the entire superstructure designed as a modular system for transportation and site assembly. Structural members comprising wood and steel beams, laminated beam rigid frames, wood and steel hip members, and wood rafters could be barged to site then easily assembled with steel plates and bolts, maximizing their innate structural properties and ease of transportation.

The house employs advanced sustainable building systems but with uncommon environmental sensitivity. Every system was meticulously selected for sustainability, efficiency, and low lifecycle embedded energy. The design maintains net-zero operational standards while integrating into the forest setting through a refined material palette of dark stained wood cladding and floor-to-ceiling glazing. Inside, natural wood surfaces and exposed structural elements create warmth, dissolving boundaries between interior and exterior spaces and allowing occupants to remain fully immersed in the surrounding natural beauty.

Armstrong Cottage thus becomes an architectural statement that demonstrates how contemporary residential design can achieve environmental excellence through a gesture of humility. It establishes a poetic dialogue between site-specific conditions, client nostalgia for childhood memories, innovative construction techniques, and sustainable practices, creating a retreat that is both pragmatic and deeply contemplative, allowing its occupants to dwell peacefully within the natural rhythms of lakeside wilderness while treading lightly on the land that shaped their own childhoods.

Design Team - Peter Braithwaite Studio, founded in 2014, has established itself as a distinguished architecture and construction firm committed to design excellence and exceptional craftsmanship. Led by principal architect Peter Braithwaite, the interdisciplinary team includes associate Lucien Landry, project manager Abby Lawson, designer Jam Basilio, and student intern Keegan Gray, collectively bringing decades of expertise in both architectural design and construction execution. Based in Nova Scotia, Canada, the studio specializes in thoughtful, context-driven residential work, delivering comprehensive services from conceptual design through construction completion.

Their design methodology synthesizes analytical rigor with humanistic sensitivity, rooted in an integrated design-build philosophy. Drawing upon extensive carpentry and contracting experience, the studio treats construction as the medium through which architectural ideas achieve their fullest expression, facilitating seamless collaboration between architects and craftspeople throughout all project phases. This approach enhances efficiency, ensures quality control, and ultimately serves environmental stewardship. Peter Braithwaite himself holds membership in the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and registration in Nova Scotia and Ontario, maintaining direct involvement throughout all stages from project concept to final detailing.

As specialists in net-zero and Passivhaus principles, Peter Braithwaite Studio consistently surpasses code compliance in thermal envelope design and sustainable features. The practice rejects the false dichotomy between sustainability and aesthetic beauty, demonstrating that true design excellence emerges when both coexist harmoniously. Working primarily across Nova Scotia and Canada, the firm employs exhaustive site analysis, detailed construction logistics, vegetation transplant planning, and ecological principles to achieve sensitive integration between built structures and natural environments. The studio's collaborative approach emphasizes creative problem-solving, material honesty, and rigorous detailing.

Peter Braithwaite Studio's architectural approach draws profound inspiration from site sensitivity and contextual responsiveness, committed to creating timeless architectural solutions that exist in harmony with their natural surroundings. The firm's commitment to design excellence is manifested through meticulous attention to detail, deep understanding of client needs, and continuous pursuit of ecological stewardship. The studio's contextually responsive work has garnered international recognition, including the 2024 RAIC Emerging Architectural Practice Award, the 2023 Ronald J. Thom Award for Early Design Achievement, and designation as Architizer A+ List Best Global X-Small Firm in 2025. Their projects exemplify a sophisticated balance between functional efficiency, spatial quality, and environmental integration, continuing to forge new paths within contemporary Canadian architecture through ingenious material applications and novel formal expressions.