In the rolling hayfields of Canada’s Pacific Northwest, artist and designer Omer Arbel has unveiled his first large-scale architectural project: 75.9. More than a family home, it is a poetic experiment in material, form, and landscape integration - a dwelling where concrete columns rise like giant lily pads and architecture seems to emerge from the earth itself.
Project Info
Project Name: 75.9
Location: British Columbia, Canadian Pacific Northwest
Architects: Omer Arbel
Contractor: Chris Wright of Build Wright Construction with Joe Haley & consulting by Brad Martin of Treeline Construction
Architect of Record: Bruce Gernon Architect
Structural: Thomas Duke & Nick de Ridder of Fast + Epp Structural Engineers
Geotechnical: Matt Kokan of Geopacific Consultants
Building Envelope: JRS Engineering
Architecture Born from Experimentation
The project began not as a house but as an experiment. Arbel explored pouring concrete into fabric stretched between lightweight plywood ribs, producing a form that was both organic and monumental. The resulting lily pad-shaped columns captured the imagination of his clients, who commissioned an entire home built around this radical technique.
What emerged was a new kind of domestic space: four double-height glass and cedar volumes, each defined by the towering concrete structures. The columns, with their irregular contours, resemble archaeological ruins, anchoring the home in a timeless dialogue between nature and artifice.
Lily pad-shaped concrete columns rise from the hayfield, anchoring the house in its natural setting
Source: Fahim Kassam
The raw finish of the concrete columns contrasts with polished concrete floors and warm timber interiors
Source: Fahim Kassam
A Dwelling Embedded in the Landscape
Rather than dominate its site, 75.9 sinks into it. The surrounding hayfield has been elevated, cloaking the connecting pathways in grass so the home reads as part of the terrain. Openings curve through the walls, guiding movement between interior and exterior, while magnolia trees are planted atop the hollow columns on the roof, extending life upward.
The effect is a home that feels discovered rather than built - its forms as much a part of the field as the hay and wildflowers that surround it.
From a distance, 75.9 appears as though it has grown out of the landscape rather than been placed upon it
Source: Fahim Kassam
Grassy pathways weave between the house’s four volumes, blending built form with the surrounding hayfield
Source: Fahim Kassam
Interior Narratives of Domestic Life
Inside, each column dictates its own atmosphere. In one volume, the living, dining, and kitchen areas gather beneath a monumental column, its raw finish contrasting with polished concrete floors and warm timber details. Elsewhere, smaller volumes frame more intimate spaces, their scale calibrated by the varying heights of the columns.
A Japan-inspired indoor garden, carefully crafted timber fixtures, and lighting from Bocci (the design company co-founded by Arbel) add texture and softness. Together, these elements balance the monumental with the human, the experimental with the familiar rhythms of domestic life.
The dining and living spaces unfold beneath soaring concrete forms, balancing monumentality with domestic intimacy
Source: Fahim Kassam
Lighting fixtures by Bocci add a crafted touch to the home’s sculptural interiors
Source: Fahim Kassam
A Landmark in Process-driven Design
75.9 crystallizes Arbel’s decade-long exploration of material processes at the scale of furniture and lighting, now translated into architecture. For Arbel, the project is not about controlling form but discovering it:
“Our approach has been to design methods of making concrete artifacts and treating them as if they were found form, as if they were archaeological ruins,” he explains.
This mindset positions the home as both artifact and innovation - a structure that feels ancient and futuristic at once.
Toward a New Kind of Domestic Architecture
In a time when many homes aspire to sleek perfection, 75.9 embraces irregularity, texture, and chance. It shows how architecture can emerge from a dialogue with material, environment, and memory, not just from preconceived design.
Here, in a Canadian hayfield, Omer Arbel has crafted not only a family residence but also a manifesto: a vision of domestic architecture as experiment, artifact, and landscape all at once.
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