Building on a slope with a boulder in the way

The access survey comes first

Before we quote anything we walk the route from the nearest point a vehicle can reach to where the cabin will stand, photograph every constraint and measure the tightest gap. Panels are then designed to pass it — a cabin that would ship as three sections on flat ground ships as six here, with the joints engineered rather than improvised.

The carry is priced as its own line. On a typical Glacis or Bel Ombre plot it is a meaningful part of the cost and hiding it inside materials helps nobody.

Boulders stay where they are

Moving granite on these islands is expensive, noisy, often refused and usually unnecessary. We design around boulders and, more often, with them: as a wall, as a backdrop, as the block the basin is carved from, or as shade.

Blasting or breaking is a last resort and needs permission. We will tell you honestly when a design requires it, before you fall in love with the drawing.

Water on a steep site

The thing that damages hillside installations here is not the sea, it is rainwater running down the slope in a heavy shower and finding the back of your terrace. Cut-off drains above the platform, a route for surface water around rather than under the cabin, and a plant enclosure that is never at the bottom of a fall.

We design the drainage into the first drawing. It is invisible when it works and obvious when it does not.

In short

• Route surveyed and photographed before a price is given
• Panels sized to the tightest gap on the actual path
• Boulders designed with, not removed
• Cut-off drains above the platform on every sloping site