Surround Architecture

At Amani, finely crafted casework lines the entry to the primary bath, softening the transition between the home’s shared spaces and its most private retreat. Floor-to-ceiling brushed oak cabinetry brings a rich, tactile warmth to the home, drawing out the depth of the stone and steel that give this family’s space its grounded character. We’re fortunate to work alongside very talented millwork partners who bring real craft to every Surround home — people whose skill and attention show up in every detail.

Architecture + Interiors: Surround Architecture
Builder: Dowbuilt
Landscape: Marpa Landscape Architecture
Specialty Timber + Steel Fab: Spearhead
Photography: Paul Dyer
FFA + Styling: Surround Architecture

Our process begins and ends with how the home engages the site. While traveling through the vast farmland north of Toronto on our first visit to this rural site, a realization occurs that the approach becomes perched atop a plateau overlooking an ancient seabed. A cresting vista of the Georgian Bay with a soft fading sky is finally revealed and nestled below, amongst the apple orchards, is the Lacuna residence.

Lacuna sits near the southern edge of the Georgian Bay of Ontario. Within a short distance from shore is the extensive Niagara Escarpement—an extensive Paleozoic landmass of eroded cliffs, wetlands, and a forest ecosystem that spans nearly the entire southern edge of the Great Lakes. As visitors from the high desert region of Boulder, CO we were fascinated by the seemingly omnipresence of water that ran underneath, through and around every crevasse of the land. A few million years of flowing water has revealed fantastic rock formations and boulders which continue to inspire our language through out the design process.

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Specialty Timber + Steel Fab: .ca
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Our Dry Creek project greets the morning sun while nestled into the base of the Jack Pine forest. Morning dew still glistens on the standing seam steel roof.
Cascading patios rest gently on the landscape finding their way to the pool deck below, offering a variety of morning coffee locations to start the day.

Builder: Total Concepts
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Drawing on the additive nature of agricultural architecture, this Folly Farm was conceived as a series of buildings that grew together over time, blending comtemporary, rustic, and industrial elements. Responding to the owner’s declared love of “single-story houses that ramble and keep you guessing about what’s around the corner,” this meandering Boulder ranch home features a sunken living room at its core that is flanked by the kitchen and dining room with a small conversation space and fireplace on the other.

Our enduring love of barns runs a deep—as archetypes they are at once essential and auxiliary. On a larger scale they complement a house, shape microclimates, and help define courtyards in the landscape. As structures they capture the essence of shelter in the simplest terms by providing prospect and refuge. Barns can also be elevated to serve a seemingly endless spectrum of modern life.

Surround’s barn at the Lacuna project in Ontario employs stone, timber, and charred wood cladding in a balanced manner of refined rusticity. The clients enjoy the barn as an ultimate flex space which can be made cozy with close friends to watch regional hockey tournaments, or versatile enough to host impromptu concerts with neighbors during the holidays.

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Specialty Timber + Steel Fab: .ca
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Photography: .photo

Guardian of the vineyard, our Sleeping Bear design rests atop the fruitful banks of Lake Leelanau, keeping watch from the ecotone habitat at the forest’s edge.  Inspired by the agricultural heritage of the area, as well as the layering of the vineyard below, this design crafts a vintner’s residence fit for quiet contemplation on the banks of the Great Lakes.

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Soft white walls and ceilings shape an ethereal greatroom at Lacuna, becoming the canvas for punctuated moments of stone, steel, and wood. Delicate steel trusses lend scale to the expansive volume, while stone and wood touch points soften the spaces clean lines.

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Specialty Timber + Steel Fab: .ca
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Photography: .photo

Nestled in the rolling meadows below Mount Sopris, Crystal Bridge is an ode to the mining homesteads that first settled Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley.

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Amani’s restrained palette of wood, steel, and stone sets a neutral stage for the owners’ vibrant collection of fine art and sculptural furniture.

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Specialty Timber + Steel Fab: .ca
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Amani is a distillate of the elemental palette that defines our work: grounding stone, raw steel, and soft, warm woods. As the glass walls retract, the pure form remains, sculpted from this material trinity.

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Specialty Timber + Steel Fab: .ca
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