As the landscape architect, Didier Design Studio was brought onto the project after the design of the house had been well advanced, but presented certain challenges in becoming integrated with the existing site and topography. Our first priority was to ground the house and negotiate a tight transition between upper and lower levels. In accomplishing this, we balanced the mass of the house with a large retaining wall, framing an intermediate landscape as a moment of compression before opening to broad views of the lake and mountains beyond. Expressing the landscape as three distinct zones, the design forms a continuous thread unfolding a series of plant palettes and ecologies based on topography and water distribution, applying the logic of the region and inviting broader landscapes within to enhance a connection to place.