Back Streets Back
Tiny homes are popping up in unconventional spots
Avenue Edmonton Magazine – July 31, 2017
In a Westmount alley Carillon Cameron has a new house. The 70-year-old grandmother and marriage commissioner moved into a garage suite in her daughter and son-in-law’s backyard in May. The suite includes a living room, a sleeping loft tucked over a kitchen, a bathroom plus a laundry and storage area, all in 520 square feet attached to a double-car garage. Designed by Battle Lake Design Group, the alley abode has vaulted ceilings and lots of windows to feel cozy yet spacious.
One to Watch: Chris Buyze
Battle Lake Design Group creates modern design from a century-old practice.
Western Living Magazine – December 5, 2014
Edmontonians are sometimes in denial that we have winter here,” laughs Chris Buyze, a partner at Battle Lake Design Group. It’s an attitude his sustainability-minded design firm rebels against with their residential straw bale construction projects, which place tightly compressed bales of straw between the wall frames of a home. The design results in two and a half times the insulation value of materials used in conventional homes, not to mention a higher fire resistance.
Straw-bale home design for future
Mill Creek triplex boasts energy-saving features
Edmonton Journal – August 7, 2012
Let’s begin where things should always begin — with personal hygiene and a good hand washing.
If I lived in Dave and Caroline’s home, no problem. I’d be washing my hands on the half-hour and hour, during commercials, before, after and during meals, when the mood struck, the band played, the earth moved or any time I happened past the half-bathroom on the main floor.
Inside Dave and Caroline’s half-bath is the cutest, tiniest and most manifestly awesome sink in the world. No, really. The design of this twee-little sink won a prize at an international design festival.
Edmonton’s Downtown Condo Boom – Census 2011
Toronto Star – February 8, 2012
Buying an investment property wasn’t on Chris Buyze’s mind when he signed the papers for his 58 square-metre studio on the edge of downtown Edmonton.
“It was a place I wanted to be, it was something I could afford … I wanted to be close to amenities,” including the city’s light rail transit network, he said.
Buyze was 20 when he purchased the loft in a three-storey converted warehouse in 1999. The neighbourhood, which was deserted after business hours, was considered a rough one.
Edmonton Urban Design Awards 2009 – Award of Merit in Urban Architecture
City of Edmonton Website – 2009
The Mill Creek Flex Homes’ project purpose was to develop sustainable residential infill within the inner city.
This three-unit, 2-storey row housing fits into the City of Edmonton’s vision of higher urban density in the “core,”
while complementing the existing neighbourhood’s built form.
The development’s location and proximity to local amenities increases the desirability and livability of the project.
Top 40 under 40 2010 – Chris Buyze
Avenue Magazine – November 1, 2010
Forget brick and wood. Chris Buyze has seen the future in housing, and it is straw.
As a partner in Battle Lake Design Group, Buyze is a leader in the construction of straw-bale homes, bringing to Edmonton this sustainable form of building that was once considered a back-to-the-land practice.
The company recently finished the first multi-family straw-bale project in Canada — a triplex called Mill Creek Flexhomes.
On the day he was interviewed by Avenue, Buyze spent the morning laying sod at the project.
‘Heart of Edmonton thriving with condo owners’
Edmonton Journal – April 11, 2009
Friends and family of Chris Buyze were incredulous when they heard he was planning to move into a condominium in downtown Edmonton.
“People thought I was crazy,” Buyze laughs. “They said you’re moving where? A nd you’re moving that close to the Greyhound (bus station)?”
Buyze, president of the Downtown Edmonton Community League, says the reaction was not totally unjustified when he took up residence 10 years ago in a loft in the historic warehouse district on 104th Street.
‘It’s Good to the Last Straw’
Edmonton Journal – July 8, 2008
Battle Lake Design Group are partners in the Mill Creek Flex Homes in Edmonton.
The development uses straw bales and solar energy and is almost sold out before the sod is turned.
Battle Lake’s Chris Buyze says that Mill Creek homes will have a lower footprint with flexible uses, such as rooftop gardens and home studios to work in.
The air quality will be good inside and out, because the major components reduce toxicity and no volatile organic compounds will be used.
“We need to look at higher densities in urban areas that provide well-designed housing that creates community. Mill Creek has a lot of focus on green space and gardens,” says Buyze.
“These homes are designed to be low maintenance with new solar systems that are no more complex to operate than high-efficiency gas furnaces.”