Town of the Blue Mountains, Canada

Toronto-based architectural firm Williamson Williamson redesigned and renovated a private late 70s ski club and transformed it into a graceful, contemporary ski lodge using wood and glass respecting its prior form.

The Osler Bluff Ski Club was short-listed for a 2021 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The Osler Bluff Ski Club is a renovation of and addition to a 1974 heavy-timber and core slab structure. A new facade creates a view from the terrain of a modern Clubhouse linked to the Club’s history.

To the east, an extension mimics the re-skinned gabled Clubhouse and contains a new Great Room, servery, washrooms, flex spaces, and a new child-minding space.

A Clubhouse renovation and expansion was required to solve the most pressing issues facing the Club: overcrowded lunchtime seating, poor flow between the change rooms and social spaces, a deafening après-ski experience, and no childminding spaces.

The original building also needed to be brought up to current health, accessibility, and life-safety standards.

The design resolution focused on tying together the old and new structures with an intent to capture the historic and beloved spirit of the existing heavy timber spaces while creating a modern and sustainable expression that speaks to the Club’s future.

Carrying through an ethos of craft and timber construction, new Y-Columns reinterpret the existing heavy timbers and are CNC-milled to mimic the soft profiles discovered through the history of hand-carved wood skis.

The figural character of these new columns marks one of many wood details throughout the clubhouse, establishing a site-specific language of solid and veneer-based construction techniques and presenting the members with tactile moments throughout the Club.

A new Douglas Fir acoustic ceiling runs through the entire project, acting as a primary surface in both the renovated and new spaces.

The new ceiling aligns with the lower face of the existing timber frames, allowing the new sprinkler system and lighting to be concealed and giving the Clubhouse the feeling of a wooden tent.

The dramatically reduced decibel level has made for a space that is warm acoustically, which complements the warmth of the interior finishes.

The initial decision to reuse the existing clubhouse instead of demolishing and rebuilding was critical. It meant a reduction in the amount of waste generated by demolition, conservation of the embedded carbon, and fewer new materials to achieve the new building.

Given that many of the existing solid Douglas Fir timber frames were previously exposed to the exterior on one side, many had checks of up to an inch wide.

Each timber was assessed and repaired, and the accumulated weathering was left intact, preserving the memory of the old building line.

The new slope-side facade, which replaced 40-year-old single-glazed windows with a timber-backed curtainwall, now encapsulates the timber, protecting it from the elements.

These measures ensured that all the existing timber was kept in the building and will continue to perform as originally designed.

Working to retain and reinforce the original structure allowed the spirit of the existing Clubhouse to be maintained while delivering what is essentially a new building enveloping it.

Project: Osler Bluff Ski Club
Architects: Williamson Williamson
Client: Osler Bluff Ski Club
Contractor: Upstream Construction
Photographers: Doublespace Photography