In this episode of Design Vault, Doug speaks with Peter Vanderpool, registered architect of Vanderpool Architecture. Peter is a practicing architect, licensed in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

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Guilford Court is a luxury home in a suburban area of McLean, Virginia. The lot is angular and located on a cul-de-sac with narrow street frontage. It's also quite steep, rising 20 feet as it extends back from the street.

Peter uses three separate virtual axes to inform the floor plan and programmatic organization of the house. The garage, located on the south side of the property, is clad in wood, while the private portion of the house, which resembles a kind of modern Tudor facade, is enclosed in fiber cement siding. The middle semipublic spaces are enclosed in a dark brick veneer.

The landscape also reflects the same three axis grid with sculpted geometry that level out the site.