The guiding idea for the house was, above all, to respect the views and privacy of the Mountain House on the slope above. Everything needed to remain low, discreet, and integrated into the terrain. The site has an average incline of about twenty degrees, and the approach was to treat this incline almost as a membrane or raised layer of land.
I imagined raising the terrain by a single storey, parallel to the natural slope, and then extending it as a continuous surface. This surface becomes the roof of the new dwelling, folding and enveloping to create spaces beneath it. The house, therefore, exists entirely below this single, sloping roof plane, concealed within the hillside, with nothing rising above it other than two modest chimneys, which act as sculptural beacons in the lower landscape.
Beyond the practicalities of the site and the need to protect privacy, this roof-membrane is also a response to the Client’s main reference: the archetypal low-slung pitched roof. The idea was to reinterpret this traditional structure in a contemporary way, allowing the new home to feel both familiar and innovative.
The aim was simplicity and continuity: a house that belongs to the slope itself, present but not intrusive, sheltered beneath a single gesture that is both roof and land.
