Utile helped a family build a modern home in the Boston suburbs to suit their lifestyle and as a model for sustainable living. With geothermal heating, rainwater capture, “smart” framing and passive site strategies, the family’s home becomes a teaching project for themselves and their children. Given the long, narrow site and the clients request to have the house on one floor, siting the building was a challenge.  The entry sequence is carefully choreographed to have guests arrive at the main living spaces from an elevated position.  This allows them the ability to survey the space they are about to enter while simultaneously obscuring the vista beyond.  The sequence of spaces then descends gently down through the living spaces and out to an outdoor room in the form of a wood patio flush with grade.