FrankFranco Architects’ design for a sprawling Modernist house set on a wooded hill in Vaughan is an exercise in making Mies van der Rohe-style minimalism work in a family home. 

“I love researching the roots of Modernism,” says principal architect Frank Di Sarra, who names Frank Lloyd Wright and the great Italian designer-architect Carlo Scarpa — who was himself enamoured with FLW, even during the dark days of Italian fascism — as longtime heroes. “Both of them were very disciplined in their use of materials, and in the idea that houses should have a sense of how we live, not just their style.”