![Cliff House / Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects - Image 1 of 13](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/52a3/e29a/e8e4/4e00/d800/00be/newsletter/PORTADA.jpg?1386472082)
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Architects: Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects
- Area: 960 m²
- Year: 2010
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Photographs:Greg Richardson
![Cliff House / Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects - Coast](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/52a3/e258/e8e4/4e00/d800/00b9/newsletter/Cliff_House-1.jpg?1386472017)
Text description provided by the architects. This project is the first of a series of projects for a large 455 acre site on Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast. This pure box in the landscape is precariously perched off a bedrock cliff to heighten one's experience of the landscape through a sense of vertigo and a sense of floating on the sea. This strategy features the building's fifth elevation - its 'belly'.
![Cliff House / Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects - Coast](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/52a3/e27f/e8e4/4e00/d800/00bc/newsletter/Cliff_House-8.jpg?1386472056)
This modest 960 square foot cabin functions as a rustic retreat. Its main level (16x44) contains a great room with a north cabinet wall, along with a service core. The open loft (16x16) is a sleeping perch. A large south-facing deck allows the interior stage to flow outward through the large windows. This is a modest, affordable cabin that is intended as a repeatable prototype. A large, galvanized, steel superstructure anchors it to the cliff. A light steel endoskeleton forms the primary structure expressed on the interior. The envelope is a simple flat form framed box, which is clad in cedar shiplap.
![Cliff House / Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects - Image 13 of 13](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/52a3/e2b2/e8e4/4ec6/2300/00c4/newsletter/Cliff_House_Ground_Floor.jpg?1386472100)