Mill Mountain is located in the mountain region of Southern Albemarle County. The owners wanted to create a unique home and garden that accommodates a growing family while acknowledging the landscape typology. On a physiographic scale the landform at Mill Mountain can be interpreted as one gesture - that of a bowl or basin with water pouring from its sides. Within this bowl a series of ridges and ravines punctuate the valley floor. These ridges and ravines create tension and accord while shaping the valley floor, mimicking a braided conduit through which streams meander. This merging and balancing of geomorphic landform, generated by erosion and weathering forces, is essential to understanding the Mill Mountain landscape and becomes the inspiration for the design of built form at the site.

The ecological communities at Mill Mountain (forest, riparian edge, and meadow) can be seen as separate but the function of each is inherently connected to the others and to the larger ecosystem in which they are situated. The richness of Mill Mountain’s ecology provides a distinct, multi-layered vernacular that influences design decisions. Designing in an ecologically-conscientious manner that recognizes the landscape and the architecture as a cohesive whole is our charge and is essential to the success of Mill Mountain as a place specific.