This house design is part of a suite of five designs - quick sketches that can be likened to a musical theme and variations. The theme, the constant, is the site at the edge of a glade and a vineyard with sweeping views west across Napa Valley. The site includes the sun and fog, the view, the vineyards and woods, the moss, the creek and the field stones. The variations, the five houses, are propositions about how one might dwell on the site. They ask questions of the site: what does the land support; what will compliment it, cultivate it, or sustain it; how do we find our place between earth and sky? The material palettes and forms vary, but each works in tandem with climate and site energies to provide comfort, to join us with natural cycles and to help us live lightly on the earth.

The Meander House investigates the potential of the site to accommodate an informal but strong vocabulary of tectonic forms. Snaking along the northern edge of a clearing, this house weaves in and out of the existing trees while nestling into the slope. The long, thin form finds its place between the expansive view to the vineyard and the dappled green light of the woods. Angular cut-outs in a folded plate skin allow slices of light through the walls and roof and return our view to the sky.

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The house meanders back into the landscape. It nestles into the hill, winds around the trees and opens out to the vineyard.