Shielded by a screen of Douglas fir and redwood, a contemporary home’s glass walls and earthly elements blur the line between indoors and outdoors.

Looks can be deceiving. Designed with clean-lines from honest materials like steel, reclaimed wood, concrete, and zinc, this Woodside home is seemingly simple.

But despite the structure’s copious use of clear glass, there is something that cannot easily be seen—the complexity of its siting and footprint. The 13 acre site had suffered from unsustainable alterations that caused significant erosion and steepened the natural slope. The design response was to extensively regrade the hill returning it to more natural grades. The T-plan residence is comprised of a two-story east-west core and single-story wings on the north and south sides. These wings tether the home to the earth and choreograph easy movement between inside and outside.

The subtle, elemental house nestles intimately into the hillside, at the same time opening out to a preserved heirloom orchard, the client’s own apiary, and spectacular views of the bay.

To bring the outdoors in, an elemental material palette was derived from the environs.

The board-formed concrete was mocked up more than a dozen times to achieve a color approximating the bark on the site’s oak trees. Throughout the home, radiant heated floors are covered with blue stone and white oak, the mass of which was determined through energy modeling to help regulate interior temperature. Reclaimed sinker cypress cladding was chosen because of its incredible durability and deeply rich patina as it is wood fossilized from years at the bottom of swamps. Every steel surface, such as the structural posts, stair railings, and the fireplace surround have been acid-blackened for visual richness. The alignment of the cypress boards, the intricacy of the fine steel-bar stair rail, the hidden rainwater leaders, and the careful finishing of wood, steel, and concrete speak to the meticulous construction of the house.