A home in upstate New York imprinted on a hill, designed in relation to the earth, the sky, and its mediator, the horizon.

The Hillside Residence, or “Landscape Relief” as the clients called it, is a single family home in Oneonta, NY. The clients selected the south facing mildly sloping site for its expansive views of the valley as well as the short commute to the hospital where they worked at the foot of the hill. The clients selected Of Possible after extensively and exhaustingly interviewing many architects throughout the region. During our interview for the project we asked the clients how they wanted to live and what their interests were in architecture. Towards the end of the interview we asked if they had ever worked with an architect before. Though they had not, the clients mentioned they had downloaded and read most of a good book on architecture: Marcus Vitruvius Pollio’s “De Architectura, Ten Books on Architecture” from 15 BC. The interview turned into a conversation that lasted all night.

The design proceeded with the premise that historically, the single family home in nature has been a manifestation of the virtues of the society that authored it . For example, not only has there been a formal evolution of the plan, section, and architectural conception of space in canonical single family homes from Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotonda to OMA’s Dutch House, there has also been a corollary evolution of the society’s world view those projects were built within. The attitude of architecture towards nature is usually an affectation of the time and place in which it is built. In the 21st century, the idea of nature itself is evolving. Where one person sees a tomato another sees a genetic copyright. Genetically grown buildings are already here. Artists like Natalie Jeremajenko and her work, “Tree Logic”, captures architecture’s current awkward and incomprehensible moment. Classic architectural programs are going extinct. Studiolo’s (a room to consume and effect the universe) have long been replaced by their virtual equivalents — Instagram and Pinterests. The design for the Hillside Residence asks these questions. Can the architecture of a contemporary home engender questions about the evolving definition of nature, program, and our relationship to it?

The home is designed on an insulated rammed earth foundation. It is literally an imprint on the sloping hillside. Interior courtyards are left in relief. Their earth is thermally coupled with the foundation. Conditioned spaces are positioned in and around courtyards and thermalyards. Thermalyards are designed as green house rooms providing insulation, food, and flora. Private rooms are nested within the plan and within the thermalyards. It is unclear if the architecture frames the site or the site frames the architecture. Living in nature is confused.

The clients had exceptionally unique programmatic desires. The further the design progressed the more ambitious and spectacular the clients’ program requests became. They wanted to be able to mash grapes for wine on the concrete floor of the kitchen, so a mashing tub was designed into the floor. They wanted to be able to host recitals for the different choir groups from the various churches they belonged to. With no way to contain such a program in the modestly sized or budgeted home, a plinth was designed off of the living room so their grand piano could be wheeled out into the hillside. A small amphitheater was designed in the hillside to host the largest of the choir groups.

Each room is terraced onto the hillside at a slightly different elevation. The sloping adjacent grade is left undisturbed. As you move throughout the home over the course of the day, your relationship to the horizon line changes. The entire roof is pitched roughly in the direction of the hillside creating the sensation that you are living within the topography of the site. The design relates to the most primitive experiences of our bodies in relation to the earth, the sky, and its mediator, the horizon. The behavior of the horizon colors our emotional connection to the experience of the world. We determine our position in the world relative to the horizon. Its flatness or turbulence provokes instinctive reactions to the environment. The three lines of the ground, horizon, and sky are constantly presented and repositioned by the architecture of the home and your movement throughout it.