A site is never empty. It has a direction of wind, a path of sun, a view worth framing and another worth hiding. Our first drawings are rarely of buildings; they are of shadows, contours and the places where people naturally want to stop.
Listening to the ground
On a sloping site, terraces follow the contour instead of fighting it. On a flat one, a single wall can create shelter and sequence. The landscape sets the rules and the architecture plays within them. When we ignore those rules, we pay for it in retaining walls, cooling systems and buildings that never quite settle.
We walk every site at different times of day and, whenever possible, in different seasons. A meadow that is pleasant in May can be a wind tunnel in November.
The landscape usually has the first idea, and it is often the best one.
What we record on the first visits
The path of the sun in summer and winter
Prevailing winds and where shelter already exists
Trees, walls and paths worth keeping
Views to frame, and views to quietly hide
When the building disappears
The Terraced Villa, the Coastal Pavilion and the Mountain Lodge are very different projects, but each began the same way: with the ground. Each steps, bends or presses itself into its setting so that, from a distance, it reads as part of the landscape rather than an object placed on top of it.
When a building learns from its landscape, it stops looking new very quickly. That is the highest compliment we know.
