The concept of Understory House is inseparable from its site—a second-growth forest in the foothills of the Catskills. The house is a single-story structure, shaped by the clients’ desire to inhabit the mid-canopy without having to use stairs. From the uphill approach, the house reads as a low, quiet form nestled into the slope.

Both roof and floor are folded into a simple form. Within this platform, subtle articulations emerge—interior and exterior thresholds layered to enhance spatial depth and human interaction.

Materially, the house is conceived as a double-layered C—dark and muted on the outside; warm and tactile within, lined in maple that wraps the spaces of daily life. A folded hard shell, a soft core—an architectural response to rugged surroundings.

Perched lightly on slender steel columns, the house barely touches the ground, a suspended atmosphere above the forest understory.