5 beautiful modern homes built on a slope

April Kennedy April Kennedy
Villa Amanzi, Original Vision Original Vision Modern Houses
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Building a new home on a sloping plot is certainly not a task for the faint-hearted, but the payoffs can be immense when it’s done well. In the past, sloping sites were often leveled to create a flat base upon which to work. While this made things easier for builders, it usually meant that the construction process caused a great deal of damage to the landscape.

Thankfully, these days the trend is to build the home to shape the landscape. This brings up all sorts of opportunities for creating some unique and creative living spaces with of course, a lovely uplifting view. Let’s check out some of the options.

1. A design that makes the most of the views

This beautiful modern industrial home by Gian Salis Architects has a retaining wall and living areas spread over two layers. The walls are made from glass so the occupants are completely immersed in the spectacular views.

Raw materials

The interior has raw concrete walls, polished concrete floors and timber doors. The unvarnished natural materials subtly evoke the feel of the great outdoors and certainly add to the nature-friendly, down to earth feel of the living room.

2. A home with multiple volumes

The great visual weight of this large family home has been broken up into a series of volumes at varying levels. This serves to soften the impact of such a large mass and give the home a less geometric, more scattered feel.

Split-level interior

Inside the home, the various volumes connect to create a series of split level living spaces. This makes this large home feel quite cosy and warm. It also creates the opportunity for some nice contrasts between the big, open glassed areas and the small cocoon-like nooks in the home.

3. Stacked rectangular volumes

Casa PN, ZD+A ZD+A Modern Houses

This luxurious home was designed as a series of rectangular volumes stacked at various angles. In structural terms this makes things easy because the home is quite simply constructed of a series of neat, rectangular volumes. At the same time it also nestles quite beautifully into the sloping terrain.

High ceilings

Casa PN, ZD+A ZD+A Eclectic style garden

The intersection volumes of each mass create some interesting contrasts with high ceilings and private interior courtyards. These courtyards almost feel like a part of the interior life of the home.

4. Sweeping horizontal lines

A home with strong horizontal lines has a deep connection to the surrounding landscape—this is of course why it is the preferred shape for many high end resorts. In this luxurious home by P+O architects, we can also see how the sloping terrain can be used quite neatly for a built-in garage too.

Broad living room

A strong horizontally designed home has a sprawling, relaxing ambience. Here in the living room we can see how that translates well into a large open plan living room design.

5. Spectacular cascading architectural design

This stunning cliffside home by Hong Kong architects Original Design architects never fails to amaze us. It takes all the advantages of a sloping block and amps it up to a fabulous height. Multiple levels, a cliffside pool and a stunning locale complete the picture.

A home nestled within the side of the mountain

This is a home where there are few boundaries between indoor and outdoor life. The natural surroundings are spectacular and the architecture provides the perfect counterpoint.

For more inspiring architecture, have a look at The narrow home full of ingenious design ideas.

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