WITH A LIT TLE H E LP F R O M YO U R F R I E N D S
“It takes a village to build a house,” says Daren McLean, who has been building a home for his family in the Caswell Hill neighbourhood. He describes his new home as, “a product of a lineage of relationships.” Like The Beatles, McLean had “a little help from his friends”: people like Curtis Olson, a unique developer in the city who is best known for the sustainable Shift Home (i.e. a modern, green and affordable home designed by an entire community online). A shared passion for sustainable development and design has brought together a group of folks who take any opportunity to work on a project as unique as McLean’s home. Daren has been working with architectural designer Crystal Bueckert, who has become a best friend now, after working with him and Curtis on the
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Shift Home. “It has taken us a year to design [this house] and another year to build,” notes Curtis. “Friendships like these, and many others, made this home possible.” McLean himself is a web designer, but sustainable building and home design has become a hobby to him in the last half-decade or so, which was the major impetus in building his new home. “Every designer has a passion for design,” he says. “Whether it’s print, web or architecture, you have a sense of what’s neat. Designing a home sort of fit into that.” The two-floor house is approximately 1700 square feet; it’s an open concept design, with a staircase in the middle of the home that helps to divide the space. Accents like the main support beams, something that would
Tamarak siding softens a modern mix of West Coast and Scandinavian design
Fall 2011
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S askatoon H O M E
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