Ania Burlinska

Millions of years ago, the fiery volcanoes of Sonoma Valley spewed hot magma across the landscape. As the lava cooled, the eruption’s gases became trapped, forming porous cavities instead of crystallizing into dense stone. In 2017, fire transformed this landscape again, revealing the ancient igneous rocks still strewn across the burnt, yet strangely beautiful and resilient, landscape.

One well-crafted detail can tell a story of a place and bring character to a project of any scale. Taking inspiration from this small home’s enormous backyard conifer trees, we developed a perforated steel guardrail motif for the new central stair based on the lifecycle of a pinecone. We developed a computer script to set up parameters for the organic growth of the pattern –setting in motion the transition from a tightly closed cone to an open shape– just as a pinecone grows and thrives by hurling its seeds into the wind.