a chalet remade along the escarpment
UUfie’s Belfountain House sits within the wooded slope of the Niagara Escarpment in Belfountain, Ontario, Canada, where a 1970s chalet has been reworked into a contemporary family home. Hidden among a sprawling, forested site, the residence keeps the northern portion of the original structure and extends the southern half along the existing footprint, allowing the project to grow through reuse, excavation, and sectional adjustment.
The house was designed for a philosopher, an artist, their children, and a dog, and that mix of work, play, study, and movement defines the home. Instead of treating the slope as a backdrop, the team uses it as the organizing structure. Floors step with the land, rooms open across changing levels, and the building gathers beneath a long roof that stretches across the hillside.
images © Ema Peters
movement through the house
The architects at UUfie layout the Belfountain House with a gradual arrival. Visitors move past the pool and artist’s studio, a separate building further into the woods, before the home appears among the trees. The entry begins in a compressed, timber-lined mudroom, then opens into a tall living room where exposed rafters extend toward the canopy outside. The shift feels direct and physical, moving from enclosure into height.
Diagonal red steel beams cross the interior, giving structure to the span while bringing a vivid line through the wood. Above the living area, a large suspended net becomes part guardrail, part hammock, and part play surface. It gives the main room a looser social edge, where children can climb overhead while adults remain connected across the floor below.
UUfie reshapes a 1970s chalet into this Belfountain House in Ontario
one roof across four levels
With a single elongated roof, UUfie ties the four-level Belfountain House together, but the experience inside is sectional. Compression, release, ascent, and descent shape the way each room is read. UUfie describes the project through this sense of motion: ‘Belfountain House is conceived as a dwelling shaped by movement and daily life. Its spaces unfold through ascent and descent, pause and release, creating an architecture closely tied to the land it inhabits.‘
That idea comes through most strongly in the stairs. One stair feels carved into the hillside, while another is held above the terrain with a lighter touch. Together they create two different encounters with the same slope, one embedded and heavy, the other suspended and open.
a long roof gathers the four-level home beneath one continuous span
a suspended net becomes a place for play rest and connection
the design preserves part of the original structure while extending along its footprint