This stair leads to our apple orchard, located in the upper field, north of our house. This pathway makes its presence known in the courtyard by cutting between the garage and utility room to the north, finding shelter under a sloping roof form held up by columns and extending to the south with a dry creek bed that collects roof water runoff.

Since the stair sits between two larger forms and is mostly unroofed, the sky becomes framed and featured in the ascent.

Emerging from the stairs, this axial pathway continues through a gap in the native prairie grasses and into a type of room for the apple trees, framed by the grasses on one side and the woods on the other.

View back toward the house from the apple trees

Back on the south side, this same axis extends out from the dry creek bed, alongside the garden and terminates at the chicken coop.

So the stair mediates the upper and lower fields, drawing those separate areas into one continuous experience through this axis. And at the same time, allows that experience of both fields to be connected and accessible from the main movement axis of the home. These two lines intersect in the courtyard, which makes it a central hub. The courtyard gathering the larger site into itself, unifying the home with its setting.