ARCHITECT - THRESHOLD STUDIO
ENGINEER - HELLER & PARK
LANDSCAPE - A. MORAN
ORIENTATION - SOUTH-SOUTHWEST
The house is set nine feet below the ridge, so that from the road there is nothing to see but olive trees.
You arrive on the north side, where the wall is solid basalt and the door is the only opening. There is no view yet. You cross a court of gravel and water, turn once, and the valley arrives all at once through eleven metres of glass. The sequence is deliberate and it takes about forty seconds.
The living floor runs east to west so that the light moves along it rather than across it. In December the sun reaches the far wall of the kitchen at four in the afternoon. The bedrooms sit a half level down, cut into the slope, cool in August without mechanical help.
The spring that waters the olive terraces also fills the pool, which is why it is the temperature it is. Two owners have asked us to heat it. We have declined both times, politely.
What the house is made of
ALL FINISHES LEFT UNSEALED
Eleven acres on the south side of the valley.
See it at four in the afternoon.
That is when the light reaches the far kitchen wall. We hold the house empty for the whole afternoon and there is no one else on the property.