A Modern Boathouse

On one of the many islands dotting The Archipelago in Georgian Bay, Ontario, Kevin Weiss gives shape to a private boathouse that responds gently both to the natural and cultural context of the area.

Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited,  A Modern Boathouse in a Canadian Landscape, Parry Sound District, Canada
Located on one of the many islands dotting The Archipelago in Georgian Bay, Ontario, this private boathouse and docking facility designed by Kevin Weiss exemplifies a quiet and precise modernism.

Through careful form-making and the use of rustic materials, the project responds gently both to the natural and cultural context of the area, where historically built-form yields to the power of the landscape with its exposed and glacially carved granite and wind swept jack pines.

Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited,  A Modern Boathouse in a Canadian Landscape, Parry Sound District, Canada
Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited, A Modern Boathouse in a Canadian Landscape, Parry Sound District, Canada

Sitting on a structure of robust timber and rock cribs, the large cedar dock, and its amenities, is the primary location of the family’s daytime leisure activities – both active and reposed. The building elements consists of the cedar dock, floating docks and bridges, a storage building for kayaks, canoes and windsurfing equipment, a food servery, linear shade canopies, and a covered seating pavilion.

The storage building is clad with black stained resawn cedar, while the steel pavilion structure is covered with cedar and terne coated copper. The two are connected with a light, steel, and canvas linear shade canopy structure. On approach, due to its thinness, lightness and horizontality, the finely crafted ensemble almost disappears as it recedes into the landscape.


A Modern Boathouse in a Canadian Landscape, Parry Sound District, Canada
Program: boathouse
Architects: Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited
Conceptual Design: Kevin Weiss, Maya Przybylski
Structural Engineering: Blackwell Engineering (David Bowick, Matt Bowick)
Completion: 2015

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