MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple's Hilltop Cottage: A Monolith That Vanishes

Halifax-based MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects completed Hilltop Cottage in New Brunswick in 2023, a 600-square-foot pavilion that appears as a solid, monolithic block from a distance. The structure's exterior is clad in eastern white cedar shingles that run continuously from walls to roof, with sliding barn doors concealing all openings. When these doors and glazed wood doors retract, the cottage's north corner disappears entirely, achieved without any steel structure. The design draws on vernacular Scottish shielings and Irish tower houses, with thick walls and a hipped roof, grounded by a local field stone foundation. The walls hide four-foot-thick cavities that house the hearth, kitchen, and storage, a strategy also used in the studio's Morris House and El Aleph Guest House. The interior features two vaulted skylights and a nested central living space, a parti traced to Charles Moore's 1962 Orinda House. The studio cites its own Bigwin Cabin for the exaggerated roof proportions and references Baillie Baillie's Iorram cottage in Scotland for material discipline. The project is framed by a line from Octavio Paz: 'Taken alone, tradition stagnates, and modernity vaporizes.' The cottage marks the site where its owners got engaged and overlooks a river valley.