Cliffside Villa, Big Sur

Designed from the wind inward

The bluff gives salt wind, fog and a postcard view in the same hour. We buried the bedrooms into the slope, lifted the living room into the light and wrapped both with a 2.4-metre overhang that shades August sun and sheds winter storms.

Structure is board-marked concrete and salt-tolerant timber; interiors are stone, oak and linen — materials that silver gracefully instead of peeling. A ground-source loop and 14 kW of roof solar take the house close to net zero.

Planning was the real design problem: a visible coastal site with strict height limits. Our landscape-led approach — terraces that read as dry-stone field walls — cleared committee unanimously.