The program is organized in two staggered bars; small exterior courtyards carved out of the building volume create an amorphous footprint whose ambiguous perimeter is normalized by the continuous copper roof ribbon, which gradually rises and ultimately terminates in a dramatic cantilever over the large south-facing Vista Terrace. The courtyards – one covered, the other two open to the sky – function as sheltered outdoor rooms that provide protection against the area’s strong and ever-changing winds. On the inside, rooms are interconnected to create a continuous spatial meander that traces the site’s topography: the program is distributed on five individual floor plates, each one of them separated from the next by several steps, creating a progression through the house that leads from the entry at the lowest elevation to a small observatory at the top. The Topo House is built around a palette of sustainable and highly durable materials to endure the continuous onslaught of the Midwest’s severe weather conditions and extreme temperature fluctuations. Copper, concrete, and anodized aluminum dominate the exterior palette, allowing the house to age gracefully over time. The local climate, with its cold winters and hot, humid summers, demanded a careful mix of active and passive design strategies to ensure proper interior conditioning. The house, heated and cooled by a geothermal ground-source heat pump, is elongated along the north-south axis to take advantage of the summer’s prevailing western winds. The shaded courtyards facilitate a high degree of natural cross-ventilation, thus minimizing required cooling loads throughout the warmer months.