The Dupras house is a tad unusual. It is also boldly modern, saves big energy dollars and is completely computerized.

There are many design and technology lessons inside the skin of the Dupras home, which sits on the shore of a pristine lake in the lower Laurentian Mountains, one hour north of Montreal.

For starters, the 6,400-square-foot home boasts an interior volume of 104,174 cubic feet — more than double the interior space of a traditional home. It is also designed for the family’s unique lifestyle. The home is also environmentally smart, winning Quebec’s Concours Energia Award for green residential design in 2003.

The house, designed in collaboration with architect Benoit Pelchat, sits on five acres of soggy land, which prompted the engineer owner to carefully check to make sure it was not protected wetlands. There is no basement; instead, the architect called for 400 truckloads of fill, which were meticulously layered and mechanically compacted every 12 inches before a cement pad was poured for the foundation.

The house sits well back from the lake’s edge, protecting the natural shoreline.
The crucifix plan reads something like that of a Gothic cathedral, with a 27-foot by 130-foot nave bisected by a 27-foot by 60-foot symmetrical transept that soars 31 feet above the floor of the two-storey house.

The entire east wall is a double-paned curtain of glass, a face often found on office buildings, not homes. The results is a spectacular view of the lake and surrounding hills and a merging sense of inside and outside spaces.
Windows high along the south and north sides of the house bring in additional natural light.

Look to the northern end of the home and the ceiling lowers to 20 feet and the kichen, which features a massive, cherrywood island that separates the great room from the cooking area while also providing a perfect place to share an early breakfast or late dinner. There’s a second cherry island for food preparation.
Now look toward the longer, southern wing and the ceiling shrinks down to a cosy, single-storey media/living room. Yet drama is not far away because above is a second-storey balcony office that is open to the great room and more views of the lake.

The Dupras house has been designed to take advantage of the outdoor scenery, with the first-floor hallways in the south wing looking outward while bracketing an interior room allocated for the sophisticated energy system.

The eastern, lakeside corridor, with doors opening to a large terrace, leads to a first-floor corner bedroom. On the west side, a lofty hall ends with a steel and wood stairway leading to three bedrooms facing the lake. Overlooking this hall is a circulation balcony connecting to the office. A generous guest suite takes up the second level of the north wing.

It takes special construction to support this unique home, which has been made entirely of steel I-beams fabricated off-site and then assembled on-site. Even the ceiling uses steel beams strong enough to support snow loads dumped during a Quebec winter and the Dupras family’s circus antics.

The architect left the underside of the corrugated steel ceiling exposed, while the insulation and membrane are on the exterior of the roof. Cross bracing provides a lateral support, leaving the interior volumes free of structural columns and more space for trapeze tricks.

The homeowners put most of their budget into the design and exterior skin of the home and very little on inside finishes. «We put less than $2,000 into the finishing by using low-cost industrial fixtures out of Home Depot,» Dupras says.

The results are dramatic and animated spaces. The exposed steel forms muscular frames around large planes of drywall painted vibrant yellows, reds, blues and mauves. These surfaces act as backdrops for Quebec artist Johanne Corno’s towering canvases of muscular men and pouty women.

Dupras then brought the rough cedar he used on the exterior indoors and wrapped it around the first level of the great room.

During the design process, the engineer also used technology to smarten up his home. In 1988 when PCs were first emerging, he programmed his Montreal apartment with 50 different programs. «If someone rang the doorbell,» he laughs, «the computer would turn off the vacuum, but this was overkill.»

Now five programs manage the house, controlling 42 separate thermal comfort zones, as well as security, light, sound and in-ground irrigation systems.

One piece of technology manages several cameras that allow Dupras to see what is happening in the house. Like the other systems, it can be controlled from anywhere in the world. If wired Internet access is not available, he can connect his laptop through his cellphone.

The Dupras residence is very much a house of the 21st century — flexible, durable, environmentally responsible and wired. Its intimate connection to its landscape is just one more bonus.

TIGHT CONTAINER
To create the optimum container, Dupras erected a pre-fabricated steel frame and then attached a metal stud wall using flexible joints. Drywall was applied to the stud wall and spayed with 2.5-centimetre layer of acoustical and thermometric insulation. Horizontal wood strapping with additional insulation followed.

Dupras then attached V-joists and exterior cedar cladding. Openings at the top of the joists allow heat inside the cavity to vent out during the summer while the are closed during the winter to trap and warm air, which helps heat the interior.

The commercial doors and windows set in the flexible stud wall are not affected by any movement of the frame. In addition, the two impressive steel balconies are separate from the interior metal frame to ensure they do not act as thermal bridges.

GEOTHERMAL LESSONS
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the house’s energy system is its geothermal heat exchange system. The ground floor is about a 13-cm pad of concrete over radiant heat/cooling water pipes that lie on two layers of rigid insulation. The upper level is also concrete, with pipes on a steel deck that has been lined with a reflecting membrane.

One large pump sends water through a closed loop system of pipes set under a field near the western edge of the house. In winter, the water absorbs heat from the ground and in summer the water is cooled.

Five smaller pumps regulate the flow of water to the exchangers and a second large pump pushes the water through the floors. As a result, the Dupras only have to buy one kilowatt of electrical power to obtain four kilowatts of energy.

In addition to the radiant-floor heating, three of the interlock pumps convert energy from water to forced air that is distributed through stainless-steel heat cannons manufactured by the German firm Krantz.

In winter heat is washed over the glass wall, while in summer the cannons are redirected to sweep across the ceiling of the great room, allowing the cool air to settle to the floor.

MICRO CLIMATES
The house is divided in 46 separate comfort zones that can be programmed or individually controlled using a digital direct computer (DDC) Tracer Summit system.

Through a Web browser interface, Dupras can access the DDC with his laptop and regulate heat, light, security and irrigation systems from anywhere in the world. There are also pre-programmed panels and a PC workstation that allow master programming of all zones and functions within the house for heat, halogen lights and the services.

The home’s many windows are positioned to take advantage of the sun’s path. Although the great room receives indirect light in the summer to minimize solar gain, the concrete floors act as a passive thermal mass for the winter sun.

The house uses about 60 per cent less energy for heating and cooling than the same house using a traditional electrical system.

«Our system costs more initially. But the normal recovery in Quebec is only eight to 10 years, in Ontario even less,» says Dupras, adding it is clean, renewable energy.

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