Whether you are looking for a permanent residence or want to enjoy the view from your weekend getaway, a house on a hill is an attractive option. Designed with a focus on sustainable design, these homes have been constructed to blend in with the natural landscape they’re positioned on.
Stack House is a newly built 2,207-square-foot home from Los Angeles-based architecture firm FreelandBuck that uses subtle rotation to create seamless indoor-outdoor spaces at every floor of the building, offering unobstructed views of the San Gabriel mountains. Working with difficult site constraints, the design takes advantage of a steep slope to build a structure that embeds itself into the landscape.
Hilltop House wraps around a hill, allowing each room to spill out onto a large patio with massive glass pocket doors. Using angled roofs to emphasize the stepping quality of the home, these windows allow for expansive northwest views and create a harmonious relationship between interior and outdoor spaces.
Mountain Chalet is a modern take on the traditional mountain chalet. Developed by Viereck Architects, the chalet is located in Styria, Austria and features living spaces that are open to the surrounding environment and framed by panoramic windows.
Golden View House in Anchorage, Alaska is another example of a contemporary home that was built to blend in with its surroundings. Developed by Workshop AD, the residence’s platform stretches across the hillside like a traditional treehouse and incorporates walnut panels, natural stone, and concrete in both the exterior and interior spaces.
The angular shape of the box-shaped home reflects the sloped terrain and emphasizes the subtle rotation of each room, which can be accessed from all levels. The curved walls of the upper level expresses the different rooms and form a number of terraces, while the lower level is cantilevered off the edge of the hill to provide an enclosed backyard for entertaining.
This hillside retreat is built with a focus on sustainability, with solar panels and passive heating and cooling systems. The interior and exterior space is organized around a circular patio that provides a connection to the landscape, allowing for natural light to illuminate the building’s interior spaces.
When designing a home on a hill, architects strive to work with difficult site constraints and establish a close dialogue with the environment. Holodeck architects used a series of terraces and sliding windows to achieve this goal, creating a home that feels closer to the surroundings than traditional hillside houses.
Stack House, by LA and NY-based architecture firm FreelandBuck, is an excellent example of how to create an elevated home that blends in with its surroundings while providing uninterrupted views. The home’s four floors of boxes are stacked atop each other to follow the sloped terrain, resulting in subtle rotation that reveals the different rooms in each level and offers seamless indoor-outdoor spaces at every floor. hill house condo