{"id":286407,"date":"2025-10-08T11:36:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T11:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/286407\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T11:36:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T11:36:15","slug":"formas-house-on-a-hill-is-a-sculptural-cedar-clad-box-in-ny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/286407\/","title":{"rendered":"FORMA’s ‘house on a hill’ is a sculptural, cedar-clad box in NY"},"content":{"rendered":"

A house on a hill: Born from Constraints<\/p>\n

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The House on a Hill by architecture studio FORMA sits in Hillsdale, New York<\/strong><\/a>, a black volume poised at the crest of a soft, wooded slope. Conceived during the pandemic, the project embodies a distinctly contemporary form of domesticity<\/strong><\/a>, informed by self-sufficiency and adaptability.<\/p>\n

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FORMA founders Miroslava Brooks and Daniel Markiewicz \u2014 longtime friends, collaborators, and first-time homebuilders \u2014 purchased the nine-acre parcel in 2020. What began as a shared escape from city life soon evolved into a five-year process of experimentation and perseverance. With costs escalating and labor scarce, they reworked their vision repeatedly, turning constraint into catalyst. Thus, the home is at once compact and generous home that navigates design ambition with practical reality.<\/p>\n

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image \u00a9 FORMA<\/p>\n

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FORMA Reimagines Scale and Structure<\/p>\n

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With its earlier versions of its House on a Hill, the architects at FORMA envisioned a larger, two-story house. As budgets tightened, the team distilled the concept to its essence \u2014 a three-bedroom, three-bath dwelling organized around a 700-square-foot footprint. Its double-height living and dining space occupies the upper floor, suspended above a modest base to frame broad views toward the Catskills and Berkshires.<\/p>\n

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This vertical organization balances efficiency with openness. The lower level anchors the house to the hillside, while the elevated main space captures light from multiple orientations. Each level feels distinct yet continuous, connected by controlled shifts in volume and view.<\/p>\n

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all images \u00a9 Devon Banks<\/a> (unless otherwise stated)<\/p>\n

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A Dialogue with the Landscape of upstate new york<\/p>\n

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Positioned to take full advantage of the natural clearing, FORMA\u2019s House on a Hill reveals a deliberate choreography of approach and outlook. From the west, its dark cedar siding and vertical windows emphasize gravity and enclosure. Moving around to the east, the structure lifts on angled supports, its geometry lightening as it opens toward the pond below.<\/p>\n

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This careful manipulation of form and posture situates the house between object and environment \u2014 architectural enough to assert itself, but deferential to its rural context. The shifting elevations invite changing perceptions, a dialogue between stillness and motion as the viewer moves through the clearing.<\/p>\n

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FORMA\u2019s House on a Hill sits on a gentle rise in Hillsdale, New York<\/p>\n

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a cedar-clad exterior<\/p>\n

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The exterior, clad in dark-stained cedar, reads as a singular sculptural gesture. Inside, lighter tones and warm finishes offer a counterpoint. The double-height living space features a custom millwork wall that integrates a fireplace, seating, and storage, creating a continuous architectural element that organizes daily life.<\/p>\n

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FORMA\u2019s design strategy prioritizes tactile contrast and clarity. The covered ground-level deck, left untreated, exposes the raw texture of cedar, reinforcing the building\u2019s connection to its material origins. Every decision, from its orientation, to its layout, to its finish, reflects the architects\u2019 pursuit of maximum spatial quality within restricted limits.<\/p>\n

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the double-height living and dining space opens wide to the Hudson Valley views<\/p>\n

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a compact, 700-square-foot footprint supports a vertical three-bedroom layout<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A house on a hill: Born from Constraints \u00a0 The House on a Hill by architecture studio FORMA…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":286408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[51508,33003,648,1032,1033,171,25017,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-286407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-architecture-in-new-york","9":"tag-architecture-in-the-us","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-residential-architecture-and-interiors","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115338346493256989","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}