This project is grounded in a critical approach to sustainability issues related to residential architecture in rural areas. This approach is embedded in the site’s context: a prestigious estate that had been occupied by the same family for nearly a century, located on the shores of a lake in the Eastern Townships region. Given the constant transition of the rural landscape in Quebec, it is important to uphold a critical reflection on aesthetic approach, in the philosophical sense, in order to reposition contemporary architecture — not solely in relation to universal environmental concerns, but in relation to what is considered a product specific to our culture, our shared body of work.