The Local Project (January 23, 2024) – OG House by Omar Gandhi is an architects own home in Halifax, the capital of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Defined by a deft understanding of light and form, it is a deeply personal home and a compelling piece of architecture, as seen in The Local Project’s house tour.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Architects Own Home 00:55 – The Family Centred Brief 01:58 – The Layout and Walkthrough of the Home 03:42 – A Focus on the Light and Sculpted Areas 04:28 – The Neutral Material Palette 04:59 – Customised Furniture Pieces 05:57 – Proud Moments and Favourite Aspects

As the project’s architect, Omar, says, the brief for this home was to create a house for his family as well as a new studio space for his budding practice. As it happens, his architecture studio grew rapidly over the course of the build, and as such, the ground floor studio space is now an extension of his original waterfront studio and a place to work on community projects with his team. This project illustrates a seamless understanding of how domestic and non-domestic principles can coexist within an architects own home.

The footprint of this house was heavily defined by the site and its setbacks from abutting properties and to the street. Cleverly, Omar has used these parameters to gently guide the architecture and ensuing build. In the house tour of an architects own home, Omar highlights the site’s various constraints, which have been reinterpreted as opportunities in designing a compelling piece of architecture. As Omar says, “the volume was resolved from the outset, so it became a process of articulation and sculpting, and in some cases, sacrificing overall square footage for moments of joy, delight and surprise.”