Project Team: Amalia Gonzales, Kelly Bair, Claus Benjamin Freyinger
Type: Design Study
Year: 2005

The Hillside House is a research project for a prototypical single-family residence which rethinks grading as a strategy for amplifying, directing, and controlling the physical forces of water, wind, and gravity. Instead of attempting to cut a flat pad into the steep hillside, the parcel is graded using a geometry borrowed from a mogul field. The mogul field is understood to be a gradual yet consistent erosion of soil into rut formations which aid ascension and regulate decent: the field is both a series of structural footholds for the vertical load-bearing system of the house and a means of controlling the movement of water and soil down the hillside.

As the grading, drainage, and structural systems are shaped (morphed) to respond to the dynamic gravitational forces present on the site, they produce a specific sensory drama at the moments of interface between systems. The habitable area of the house, suspended between subsurface, ground-level, and overhead structural elements occupies a thickened atmospheric condition.