Project Heartlake is a minimalist residence located in Caledon, Canada, designed by Interior Affairs. The barrel vault is one of architecture’s oldest structural forms – a continuous arched ceiling that Roman builders used to span great distances without columns. In contemporary residential design, the form has largely been reduced to a decorative gesture, but at Project Heartlake, the barrel-vaulted oak ceilings do something more nuanced. Executed in exposed timberframe across a double-height living space, they compress and expand the interior rhythm in ways that make a large open-plan home feel neither cavernous nor imposing. It is a structural decision that doubles as an emotional one.

The project occupies a newly built property set against the rolling hills of Caledon’s countryside, and Interior Affairs approached the interiors with a mandate that is deceptively difficult to execute well – making a contemporary home feel genuinely welcoming without defaulting to nostalgia. The architecture carries traditional bones, particularly in its timberframe construction and vaulted volumes, and the design team chose to work with these elements rather than against them. The result is an interior language that reads as modern but never attempts to erase its own vernacular roots, a balance that recalls the restrained warmth of Belgian designer Axel Vervoordt’s later residential work, where historical craft and contemporary sensibility coexist without friction.

Stone and marble surfaces introduce a cool minerite solidity at ground level, counterbalanced by oak flooring and detailed millwork that bring grain and warmth into every sightline. The material hierarchy is deliberate – heavier, cooler elements anchor the lower planes while timber dominates overhead, drawing the eye upward into the vaulted ceilings and reinforcing the vertical generosity of the main living volume. This layering creates a tactile richness that a purely neutral palette might otherwise lack.