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Unique builds
Shanty-chic
By Quentin Casey
“Shantih,” designed by Omar Gandhi Architect Inc., is located in Hunts Point, a small Nova Scotia beach town. “The clients required that their new cottage engage the landscape, have a modest and hidden façade facing the road and provide a venue for their ever-growing extended family,” Gandhi says of the design.
“There is certainly a heritage element that can’t be ignored,” he says. “We start with what’s been done for a long time and we use that as the first stage in a metamorphosis into something contemporary. We’re very playful with what people know and love. And we do something different with it.”
Among the prominent East Coast features Gandhi enjoys fiddling with: gabled roofs, shingles, and “kitchens that people gravitate to.”
Gandhi’s practice, Omar Gandhi Architect Inc., was formed in 2010. His initial projects, when he was sole proprietor, were renovations and additions. Today he works with a team of six and the firm specializes in single- family residential buildings. Many of his projects are in urban areas, but a good number are in rural locales, often near the ocean.
Among his firm’s most notable projects is Moore Studio, a 1,500-sq.- ft. house in rural Nova Scotia that features industrial fixtures, salvaged steel grating and natural construction materials.
Gandhi’s goal is to expand his firm’s reach into the design of public buildings — in other words, “making spaces that everyone can enjoy.” He aspires to design a project like the new Halifax library. “Something like the library is the dream project — anyone can go in, regardless of their background or how much money they have. They can go in and really enjoy a public piece of architecture.”
The library, he says, also offers proof of the innovative design and architecture that is emerging on the East Coast. “I’m surrounded by a lot of really good, exciting young architects and interior designers who are certainly doing a lot more modern work. Things are changing,” he says. “The library is going to really push things forward because it is so modern. People are going to fall in love with it and realize that modern is not a bad word. It’s something that people can find warmth in and find comfort in and really enjoy.”
By Quentin Casey
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