TerrainWe Redesign
the Ground
You Stand On
Private land reshaped into living architecture.
Scroll to see the work.
Ridgeline, Reclaimed
A 22% grade shedding water into the neighbor's foundation.
The clients had lived with a slope that collected runoff from three adjacent lots. Every winter, the garage flooded. The lawn was a liability document waiting to happen.
Four terraces, a dry creek, and a French drain that doubles as a path.
We graded three distinct terraces at 6%, 4%, and 2% — each one a room. The drainage infrastructure was buried under a decomposed-granite path that leads to the lower garden.
The yard that was always there, waiting.
Shot from the same drone position, fourteen months later. No flooding since installation. The neighbors asked for a referral.
We'd lived here seven years convinced the yard was just difficult. Terrain looked at it for twenty minutes and named every problem we'd been unable to articulate.
The Blank Half-Acre
Half an acre of builder sod with nowhere to be.
The clients knew something was wrong the moment they moved in. The yard had no reason to exist — flat, featureless, bounded by a six-foot cedar fence on three sides.
Borrowed topography and a canopy plan seeded over three years.
We introduced 18 inches of grade change using berms and a sunken seating court. Three oak trees anchored the spatial composition; everything else grew from their shade.
Three oak trees and the illusion of permanence.
The clients said it felt like they'd lived there for twenty years. That was the goal — a landscape with the weight of time.
The architects I work with are good at buildings. Terrain is the first exterior partner who thinks the way I think — in section, in sequence, in light.