The homeowner wishes to have a small stone home built on his site that he purchased last year in Lafayette, California. My impression, based on conversations with my client, is that the home should be a rustic modern vernacular stone farmhouse built into the hillside using simple building methods, as the client has a very tight budget that will severely limit the home's scope and size. To compensate for this, I'll design the home in a manner where much of the actual physical labor can be done by both the homeowner and me.

Since the site encompasses a step hillside in the area where the home is to be built and due to height restrictions, retaining walls are a necessity. Therefore, my initial parti is to design the home primarily in section where I'll lower the home to fit nicely into the stepping down retaining walls, concrete slabs extended between the walls, and I plan to top off the home with a one-directional shed roof that follows the natural slope. The retaining walls and stepped grading are likely to be the most expensive components of the structure, so it makes perfect sense that they should become the home itself rather than in addition to the home as was the case with the Marine house. In essence, the home lives within its foundation rather than sitting on top of it.