Hocking Hills, Ohio
The Cliffs
A custom home concept for Ohio's Hocking Hills that cantilevers about two-thirds of the house over a wooded valley instead of grading the slope flat.
The project
The Cliffs is a custom home concept for a Hocking Hills property with roughly 100 feet of elevation change. Instead of cutting a level pad, it sets the house on a steel frame and extends about two-thirds of it out over the valley.
A steep site with 100 feet of fall
The property drops steeply through the woods toward a valley. On a slope like that, a typical house needs a flat pad, and a flat pad means extensive grading of the hillside.
The Cliffs starts from the opposite position: leave the hill in place and let the structure do the work. Every major decision in the concept follows from reducing how much of the ground the house has to disturb.
The slope stays.
The house reaches over it.
Cantilevering the house over the valley
The structure is a reverse-pyramid steel frame that touches the ground at only a few points. From there, the house extends outward, with roughly two-thirds of it projecting beyond the hillside.
That approach concentrates the technical effort where the cantilever meets the enclosure. Thermally broken structural connections keep the steel from carrying cold through the envelope. HVAC, drainage and footings are planned in the concept to limit soil disturbance and long-term impact on the site.
A quiet ranch front, a dramatic valley side
From the approach, the house presents as an unassuming single-story ranch. The drama is saved for the inside, where the rooms open out over the valley.
A U-shaped courtyard opens toward the view and gives the house a private outdoor room. Floor-to-ceiling glass places the living spaces among the tree canopy rather than looking down at the forest floor. Interior rooms line up with exterior terraces, so the landscape becomes part of the plan and section, not only the view through the glass.
Materials that recede into the forest
The exterior is meant to sit back in its setting. Dark structural elements and rain-screen cladding help the building blend with the shadows of the woods. Roof overhangs are placed for energy efficiency.
The result reads less like a typical Ohio cabin and more like a modern house built for a specific slope.
A retreat that can also be rented
The owners' input shaped the concept throughout, including a program that works as both a personal retreat and a marketable rental. That dual use is a real design test, because the house has to work equally well for its owners and for guests.
Nino was lead architect on Arcfluence's concept design. Like the firm's other work, it treats a site constraint as the starting point for the design rather than a problem to engineer away at the end. The concept took second place in the 2025 AIA Ohio People's Choice Awards.