CHRISTOPHER ANDREWS ARCHITECT & TOWN PLANNER

AN INTEGRATED SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL DESIGN PROCESS PART II: 

UNDERSTANDING THE LANDSCAPE STRUCTURE OF THE SITE

View from the Road Looking North Towards the Old Oak

Under the Old Oak Looking North Towards Mt. St. Helena

We approach the design of sustainable buildings and environments as a social and ecological process. This process brings together our clients, often a family, to participate fully in the shaping of their own living environment. We begin by generating an environmental vision, inspired by their particular needs and the specific character of the site's landscape. This vision is continually revised, during the process of design and construction, as it responds organically to the developing physical and social structure of the land and it's inhabitants. The resulting environment is an intimate collaboration between those who will occupy it, those who build it, and the landscape in which it is situated.

The three basic understandings that inform all of our work are: 

• An understanding of the application of principles and practices of sustainable design and construction to a particular project 

• An understanding of the clients real needs

• An understanding of the landscape of the site

It starts with the existing landscape structure. The natural landscape is the generator of the built form.

The location for a house in Calistoga is a two-acre site on the northeast edge of the town  in Northern California's "Wine Country". It is flat, surrounded by vineyards and modest single-family houses, and a 360-degree panorama of the distant mountains and nearer hills that form the Napa Valley. On the rear portion of the site is a several hundred-year-old Valley Oak tree, seventy feet tall. This tree forms a kind of genius loci-a spot that captures the spirit of the place. It is the primary, spiritual center of the site.

The view north from under the Old Oak recalls a classic landscape archetype-that of prospect and refuge. We feel sheltered under the Oak, yet are still able to look out over and survey our location in the Valley. From under the Oak we look out north towards Mount St. Helena, and south down the valley to nearby Oat Hill to the east and to the distant Mayacamas and the coastal ranges to the west.

GO FORWARD TO PART III: EVERY PROJECT IS DRIVEN BY THE CLIENT'S VISION

GO BACK TO PART I: HOW DO WE CREATE PLACES THAT ARE WHOLE?

GO BACK TO THE INTRODUCTION/TABLE OF CONTENTS