This house for a couple frequently visited by their children and grandchildren sits on a heavily wooded (oak) 9.75 acre site near the eastern edge of Fayetteville in the Ozark Mountains. The 23’ wide house is oriented with its 94’ length running roughly northeast to southwest, allowing tree-filtered light to angle in to the primary walls in the morning and late afternoons. Sitting on a sloping terrain between two draws, the program is distributed on three levels at the northwest end, with the middle, main level extending continuously to the southeast minimizing the foot print. The owner required that the primary public spaces and the master bedroom area to be on the entry level to accommodate wheelchair access. The public program including the kitchen, dining and living areas are defined zones within one continuous transparent space opening vertically toward the southwest end of the structure, where the living area seemingly continues as a porch contained by extensions of the flanking long walls and roof. The living space is defined by the surrounding tree canopies rather than the window walls comprising its internal limit, thus creating a rich inside/outside ambiguity. In winter, the defoliated condition allows filtered views of distant Ozark Plateau horizons.
Recently a tree house was constructed for the grandchildren within view of the main house.  Appropriately scaled, the tree house follows the same ideas of the house while exploring playful interactions between interior/exterior, sequence/structure and threshold.