Architecture is situational. Better buildings have been able to extend their topographical reach, or be oriented beyond themselves. Near Far House involves itself in the ability, or counter-positioning of a structure, to acknowledge a specific matrix of landscape engagements. Near Far House allows the imprint of the landscape field to impress itself upon specific architectural configurations. Each orientation of Near Far house is counter-positioned to create a specific engagement and contingency within the landscape to allow the enclosure to mediate between landscape and interior settings.

Willis began his private practice in 1993 following a six year association with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown where he was a project architect and involved with several internationally recognized projects: the Sainsbury Wing to the National Gallery of Art in London, England, Fan Pier High Rise Apartments in Boston, Massachusetts, Laguna Gloria Art Museum in Austin, Texas, the Philadelphia Philharmonic Hall, the Seattle Art Museum and private residential projects throughout the United States. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Brown University as an undergraduate and pursued a two year graduate program of Fine Arts at the University of Wisconsin, and received a Masters of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1985.

The family that commissioned this work are a husband wife lawyer team and their two daughters who had recently moved from Florida - a southern US coastal environment - to a Rocky Mountain perch located 8,000 feet above sea level. They remain far happier in this well designed, smaller home than their overly large home they left behind in Florida, USA.