This Lanefab Design House Is Nothing but Net (Zero)

The home is designed with an intentional indoor-outdoor connection, right down to the landscape design. Plantings of native ferns on the outside approach to the house appear as if they continue indoors, where tropical plants keep the green flow going.

“From the beginning we knew we wanted to have the rear forest be an integral part of the daily living,” says Lanefab’s Bryn Davidson. The team decided on a split-level design: the homeowners enter into a foyer that’s filled with tropical plants, and then step up a half level to the main living and dining room, which opens onto that forest at the back. The primary suite and two bedrooms and baths are on one side, and a secondary suite—earmarked for aging parents—and guest bedroom, along with a TV room, flank the other.

The walls in the home are 17 inches thick, with European triple-glazed windows and a high air tightness in the building envelope—a combo that contributes to the home staying cool in the summer and warm in the winter. “That’s the other aspect of a sustainable design approach—resiliency,” says Davidson. “When you have a house like this, the power can go out and you can stay comfortable for quite a long time, whether it’s a heat wave or the middle of winter.”

The home is also built to withstand the unfortunately commonplace “smoke season” that now hits the West Coast (and much of Western Canada) each year. “With a very airtight house, you can close everything up, and a bit of cooling and air filtration brings air in but filters it,” explains Davidson. “Supplemental HEPA filters are used just during smoke season.”

The central atrium space opens to the backyard via three triple-glazed high-performance sliding-door panels. Each panel is over 350 kilograms, yet it moves easily in the system.

Not focusing on a high-performance building design (including insulation, high-quality windows and airtightness) is “like having a Ferrari with a one-cylinder engine,” says Davidson.

“If you’re used to being in a typical Vancouver house with leaks and a radiant chill, you want a fireplace,” says Davidson. “But once you go into a house that’s airtight with insulation, it feels quite different.”  Clients that put in a fireplace tend not to use it, he notes. “You don’t have that same kind of chill you’re trying to counteract.”

This story was originally published in the July/August 2024 print issue of Western Living magazine. Sign up for your free subscription here.