256 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



A hilltop site is chosen, usually, for the view. It is often difficult 

 of access. It is exposed to the weather, to the cold, to the sun. There 

 is likely to be difficulty as to water supply. There may be lack of space 

 for the units surrounding the house. There may be a lack of near and 

 intimate views. There may be even a lack of foreground for the 

 very important views for which the site was chosen, making the view 

 merely a panorama, a great expanse, but not a pictorial composition. 

 And from a hilltop site it is difficult to screen out any neighboring ugly 

 thing, if such there be : the house dominates the whole landscape, 

 from it we see what there is to be seen whether it is good or bad. A 

 hilltop site, therefore, at least a site on a narrow hilltop, is likely to 

 sacrifice in some degree a number of the desirable attributes of a home 

 site for the sake of view and openness and perhaps coolness, and for 

 the importance of the house as an object in the landscape. 



A hillside site, typical of the Italian villa, gives both shelter and 

 view, although the view is on one side only. If the hillside be steep, 

 there is, again, lack of space for the immediate surroundings of the house. 

 Such a site is likely to produce an axial arrangement, with the main 

 axis across the contours, that is, running up and down the hill ; 

 and with the long dimension of the house parallel to the contours. The 

 orientation, in this case, will be fixed by the location ; consequently we 

 must have in mind what the inevitable orientation will be when we 

 choose our location, and this orientation will determine the sun, view, 

 and breeze which are afforded the house. The terraces which are very 

 likely to be called for on such a site may run down from the house, or 

 up from the house, or perhaps both. The more effective arrangement 

 commonly is that running down from the house, because, seen from a 

 distance, the terraces make an architectural base for the house, and 

 their level surfaces can be seen to some extent from the house terrace. 

 On hillside sites, or on sites on the top of a slope, the house may be 

 built in the form of an "L" or three sides of a square, or it may con- 

 sist of a main mass with two wings at forty-five degrees ; the convex 

 side fitting the convex contours of the hillside, and the concave shield- 

 ing the entrance turn or forecourt. The forecourt would thus lie 

 between the house and the hill, and in steep situations its wall oppo- 

 site the house might be a retaining wall, holding the slope of the hill. 



