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buildings that flow with the land No blasting, no logging, no remodelling of contours took place at our site. Native spe- cies were allowed to grow, lawn was avoided, existing trees were used to provide shade. The septic field is where drainage, soils and grade made it logical. A lot of money was saved and the buildings look like they have always been there. They flow with the land. Ten kilometres south of Penticton is a new subdivision called Heritage Hills, occupying a steep hillside of rock outcrops and bluffs. To accommodate cookie-cutter houses the de- veloper blasted it to smithereens and pushed the debris into building pads. The wounds will not heal in a hundred years. I admit that æsthetic values are personal, but thriftiness and practicality should be objective. Why do revenue-motivated developers and builders not see the business sense of working with the land, instead of against it? Maybe the answer lies in...
commonsense engineering It took me 30 years of practising architecture and many mistakes to realize that there are things that work and things that don’t, and that no amount of artistic arguments will make them work. While form still follows function, the unlimited availability of build- ing products and promises of their perfor- mance often made me forget that form also has to follow physics. On this house I took no chances: generously vented shed roofs, BIG roof overhangs (especially south!), rectangular floor plates, simple shapes, NO heated spaces under terraces (or reverse), no roof intersections, no complications whatso- ever. Money saved was diverted to things of value: wonderful Italian tiles, in-floor heat- ing, state-of-the-art glazing, exposed glulam structure.
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