An innovative design process produced a building that combines two project elements into a “living” whole, designed to play host to a diversity of flora and fauna. The challenge was to create a roof-level ecosystem: untamed nature blending with the texture of its residential perimeter. The answer is fluidity, creating links between volumes and voids, drawing contour lines to keep discontinuities to a minimum. The building becomes a piece of extruded terrain, an elevated landscape where a sheltered native habitat – the urban canopy – can freely evolve, protected by humanity. It is a process of natural development that will take time. The building’s appearance is subject to the laws of nature.