The site is a hilltop lot, with a rock outcrop, in the firestorm area of the Oakland Hills. Designed before rebuilding began, with only foundation remnants of neighboring houses, the found conditions of the burned land was the context for the house. The ancestry of the design is twofold: The tradition of the Case Study Houses of the fifties, buildings simply assembled from industrially produced materials, on the one hand;  and an interest in site specificity, in the unique characteristics of a particular place, a focus of thinking in the nineties, on the other. I have thought of this idea of site specificity as 'geological architecture': the continuation of the geographic evolution of a site through building; the turning a site into a state of mind. The house mirrors the form of the ground, rolling down to the street. The front facade meets the slope perpendicularly, leaning over the hollow carport. A projecting curve of the roof announces and protects the entry, embracing the rocks, sheltering the south facing garden from the street. This creates a shielded private outdoor world between house and rocks. A reflective wall opens the house onto this garden. This wall mirrors the texture of the rocks with richly patterned corrugated aluminum, dissolved with sliding glass, dividing and reflecting house and garden. Behind this glass and aluminum mirrored veil between garden and shelter, a curved wall continues the rockscape into the house, setting up the fluid geometry of the interior. This wall, which supports a gallery above, contains the program elements of fireplace, kitchen and storage, and leads to the stair. As a wall of services, it divides the main level into living, dining, cooking and family spaces. On the west, facing the Golden Gate, the house is sliced to form a triangular court outside the dining room, looking through the corner of the property to sundown. Half a level above, over the carport, are a bedroom, studio and bathroom. Half a level above, overlooking the two story living area, the master suite leads to a deck which peels out and looks back at the rocks. A dressing room, bathroom and laundry are attached. The roof is supported on steel bar joists spanned with plywood. The floors are maple, with terrazzo inset for the kitchen and dining areas. The fireplace is cement plaster, the cabinets, maple.