Grasses, moss and wildflowers continue uninterrupted across the building's surface, returning the occupied land to living landscape. From above, the structure disappears entirely.
Into the hill
Chelsea, Quebec
The design begins with a single premise: a building that belongs to the land it occupies. The roof is a continuation of the meadow — a full living green roof blanketed in grasses, moss and wildflowers that slopes down from the ridge and disappears at grade. From the surrounding landscape, the structure reads as a natural fold in the terrain, not an object imposed upon it. A triangular sleeping volume is embedded low into the slope, its roof rising sharply toward two large skylights that pull daylight and open sky directly into the space below. A second volume sits adjacent — a social zone that opens through generous glazing onto a sheltered outdoor terrace, extending the interior outward toward the view. Linebox designed HillSide as a sustainability-first rural cottage in Ontario — one where passive solar orientation, natural timber, and a living green roof work together as a single ecological system. From a distance, the building is barely there. Up close, it is everything.
The green roof is not a feature. It is the hill.
Design Insight - Windows
Light enters from above, landscape enters from below. The skylights open the sleeping wing to sky — clouds, stars, the shifting colour of the day. The living wing frames the lake directly, floor-to-ceiling glass holding the water and treeline like a still photograph that keeps changing.
Aging Naturally
Vertical timber cladding ties the walls to the surrounding treeline — warm, natural, and unassuming. Where the roof meets the ground, the building stops announcing itself. The skylights cut through the green roof like openings in the earth, glowing at dusk from within. The terrace and plunge pool sit at grade, folded into the slope as if they were always there.
Design Insight - Form
Two volumes, two ways of living. One pushes into the hill — low, sheltered, private. The other opens outward toward the landscape, glazed and generous. Where they meet, the house finds its balance.
HillSide is not a house placed on a hillside. It is a house that is the hillside.
