The 3D home · The house

The House in the Cliff

The house in my homepage's 3D world began as a room on a rock. It now sits eight metres inside a sandstone cliff above the Pacific, on two floors, with a library, a pool court and separate ways in. Each change below started with a render that looked wrong, to me or to the agents building it.

Back to the build diary Read how it is built
Why

A room on a pedestal reads as a stage set. I wanted a home you could believe was cut into a La Jolla cliff.

What

Two floors carved from one continuous cliff, a glass front, a library and a pool court cut into the rock.

How

Before and after views, measured contacts on the reviewed routes, and another look at the result.

How the house grew

These are the house’s entries from the build diary, with the details and extra views that did not fit there. The house is geometry, not a picture: Blender scripts build the cliff, the rooms, the furniture and the planting, and smaller refresh scripts change one part of the house without rebuilding the rest.

June–July

The first room

A 3D view joins the paper desk, then becomes one room seen from inside and out.

  1. Day 28 House

    One room, seen from inside and out

    My note

    The first 3D version copied the desk into a small stage. At ordinary screen sizes, furniture disappeared, dropped cards floated, and the outside looked like a separate dollhouse.

    What changed

    The desk stage became a room in the cliff, with an onsen, a lounge chair and an ocean window, and inside and outside became two camera views of that one room. The 2D desk's record and discoveries carry into it.

    The June 3D view, a small floating stage with a low wooden table, a record player, a mug and a window, with no room around it Before · Jun 21 source
    The July 3D view, a room inside the cliff with a round onsen, a lounge chair, the record player, a Welcome to Sirui's cave note and an ocean window After · Jul 14 checkpoint
    Two eras of the homepage at 1440 × 1000 in the light theme, with Yellow Submarine stopped and no cards found, cropped to the scene. The cameras differ. Both frames were captured July 16; June's replays commit 588e36509 and July's shows the accepted checkpoint.

    Built with GPT-5.5/xhigh in June, then GPT-5.6 Sol/ultra All four frames Commit 1b07cea4c

September

Moving in

September's reviews turned the room into a two-floor home in a sandstone cliff.

  1. Day 89 House

    The cliff turns to sandstone

    My note · reviewing commit 564ca01fe

    Build the Pacific, the cliffs and the outside as real geometry, never a picture behind the room, and keep only the Realistic look in public.

    What changed

    The public 3D view keeps one Realistic look. The cliff has continuous fluting and erosion instead of detached relief chips, and sky, haze, moving water and a shoreline wash are drawn in the scene. No scenic image sits behind the home.

    Architectural and Illustrated stayed behind as experiments in the authoring lab, with a note on what a future attempt would have to change in form, materials and composition before they come back.

    The outside view before the change, a smooth pale cliff block with flat bands holding the open room, under an orange sky above a turquoise sea Before · Sep 12, 10 pm
    The same view after the change, a fluted and eroded sandstone headland with the room under a rock overhang, more headlands behind it and a blue sky After · Midnight
    The outside view at the scene's 4:00 pm, split from the review's comparison sheet.

    Review notes Commit 788508a82

  2. Day 89 House

    Two floors carved into one cliff

    My note · the left image is my own review screenshot

    A room on a freestanding pedestal reads as a stage, not a home in a cliff. Carve the cave into land that continues inland, with the beach at its foot and the ocean beyond.

    What changed

    The study, sleeping alcove and onsen moved to an upper gallery 2.6 m above the kitchen, lounge and gym, joined by fifteen closed risers. The cave is carved from one continuous mainland, the beach follows the shore beneath it, and the cutaway lifts only the local ceiling.

    Hiding the whole roof had erased the mountain behind the rooms, which is why only the local ceiling lifts. Walking began to follow the exported stair treads instead of an approximate equation.

    My night screenshot of the 3D home, the lit room sitting on a dark rock pedestal surrounded by water, with the caption One more idea at 1:16 am Before · my screenshot, 1:16 am
    The rebuilt exterior by day, a tall sandstone cliff with the two-floor cave room cut into it, gulls along the face and a pebbled beach and surf at its foot After · 3 am
    Not the same camera. My screenshot shows the house on its pedestal at night; the new view frames the whole shore and the two floors by day.

    Review notes Commit 5cd5432fc

October 1–12

Details that hold up close

Fingers, lamps and loading get the attention a close look asks for.

  1. Day 108 House

    A warmer home after dark

    The review found

    At night every room was lit evenly, the lamps were weakly placed, and the bath shirt read as skin.

    What changed

    A light field traced on the CPU now carries sky and lamp light through the house with one bounce, and four warm fixtures light it at night. The bath shirt became opaque teal fabric.

    The kitchen at night before the change, grey walls, the island and the cabinets all lit to the same flat brightness Before
    The same kitchen after the change, darker overall, with a warm wall lamp lighting the framed print and the island while the corners fall into shadow After · Oct 2
    The kitchen at 22:00 Pacific in the same camera, from the review's render sheet.

    Review notes Commit 780f1292f

October 24

A long day of fixes

The house moves eight metres into the rock, and the plants, the first-person view and the desk's coffee ring get their fixes.

  1. Day 130 House

    The house steps eight metres into the cliff

    My note

    The house belongs inside the cliff. The pool should read as a light court on real rock, with a dry walk from the living room, and upstairs should be a quiet private floor.

    What changed

    Only the house moved, eight metres landward; the coast stayed where it was. The pool now sits in a basin cut into the rock, without the deep girder and three exposed piers. My desk moved into a tall library, and the old upstairs office became a quiet room with two chaises.

    The setback has a cost I kept visible. From the pool, the cliff faces now enter its sideward ocean view, and the playful laundry line still crosses that camera. The excavated sandstone is still angular, and the bedroom is still a long walk from the library.

    The cutaway house before the retreat, its upper floor holding my desk, bookshelves and a bed above the double-height living room with its hanging fireplace Before
    The same overview after the retreat, the house set deeper under the sandstone, its upper floor now holding two chaises and a low table above the same living room After · Oct 24
    Comparable authored overviews at 1:20 pm on October 2 in clear weather, at 1440 × 1000 without the page controls. The camera moves eight metres with the house, so these are not pixel-registered views.
    The pool before the retreat, a long turquoise basin on a pale terrace with a glass rail and open sea beyond, and a laundry line with towels at its far end Before
    The pool after the retreat, a lighter terrace edge and retained sandstone beside the water, with rock faces now entering the view of the sea and the laundry line still in place After · Oct 24
    Comparable authored pool-court shots, with the camera following the house's move. The court belongs to the rock now, but its sideward view of the ocean is narrower, and the laundry still crosses it.

    Built with Codex Review notes Commit 162685ac8

  2. Day 130 House

    Plants placed on purpose

    My note

    I wanted the view to lead, the plants to feel deliberately placed, the bathroom finishes to feel considered, and the library to have a warm hearth.

    What changed

    The freestanding olive left the doorway to the glass front. A stone bed at the north window now holds a fan of Strelitzia, small ferns sit on the vanity stone, and a pothos trails from the library shelves. The library gained a recessed stone hearth.

    The bathrooms gained a narrow limestone border, larger stone cuts in the dry zone and finer ones in the shower, and a concealed light under each vanity. These renders are Blender previews of the source, not the browser, so they show placement and form rather than the page's night lighting.

    The living room's north window before the change, a freestanding olive's grey trunk and angular leaves crowding the foreground in front of two orange lounge chairs Before
    The same window after the change, the olive gone and a white stone planter holding a tall fan of Strelitzia leaves beside the lounge chairs and a brass floor lamp After · Oct 24
    The north window of the living room in the same Blender room camera, in afternoon light. These are Blender previews of the source, not browser captures.
    The bedroom bathroom before the change, a pale tiled floor in even squares, a timber vanity with a basin, and a glass shower with teal wall panels Before
    The same bathroom after the change, the floor framed by a limestone border with larger stone cuts, a small fern on the vanity and finer cuts in the shower floor After · Oct 24
    The bedroom's bathroom in the same Blender room camera, afternoon light.

    Review notes Commit 162685ac8

October 24, evening

The walk-through

I checked the home on my laptop and on a 4K PC with an RTX 3080, then sent these notes. The work continues; finished entries gain their before and after here.

  1. Day 130 House

    Blend the house into the cliff

    In progress

    My note ·

    Moving the house left spaces that looked like carved holes. The pool and patio could cantilever a little beyond the cliff.

  2. Day 130 House

    A cleaner entrance and a private living room

    In progress

    My note ·

    The entrance geometry felt rough, and the onsen arrival exposed too much of my living space.

What is still open

The October 24–26 walk-through is still guiding the work. Three problems from the retreat remain open because they need new geometry and another review:

  • The bedroom is still a long walk from the library, across a five-metre bridge. A stair beside the library needs its own chamber, new floor openings and fresh checks that people and P can still get through.
  • The excavated sandstone is angular. Matching its colour to the cliff does not make it look eroded. Softer cliff transitions mean real new geometry that still holds up the pool and the terrace.
  • The laundry line still crosses the pool view. Moving it means moving its posts, its cloth and the wind that moves it together, and it stays where it is until a matched view shows the move is better.
How these comparisons were made
  • Browser frames. Each caption names its view and capture conditions. The retreat's camera moves eight metres with the house, so those views stand side by side rather than pretending to line up pixel for pixel.
  • Blender previews. The plants and the bathroom are Eevee previews of the source file in the same room camera, before and after. They show placement and form, not the browser's night lighting.
  • Review screenshots. The September pedestal image is my own screenshot from a review, so it is not the camera of the frame beside it.
  • Custody. Entries link their retained review notes and commits. This house page draws its images from docs/evidence/ and artwork/coastal-home/reviews/. In the full diary, the coffee-ring and Connect originals were laptop-local; their WebP derivatives are retained here.
  • Credit. Sirui Tao set the direction and reviewed the world. AI coding agents built and checked it; an entry names a model only when the commit or review records it. Claude drafted this diary from those records, and Codex checked its claims and rendered pages for the October 26 continuation.

Sources and credits

  • Christopher Alexander and colleagues, A Pattern Language (Oxford University Press, 1977): the Intimacy Gradient, Six-Foot Balcony and Half-Open Wall patterns behind the glass front, the terrace and the screens.
  • Jay Appleton, The Experience of Landscape (1975): prospect and refuge, why a cave mouth with a view feels good to sit in.
  • Richard Kelly, “Lighting as an Integral Part of Architecture” (1952): the three kinds of light the house’s lamps are layered by.
Open the evidence folder
House revision ↗ Retreat evidence ↗ Two floors ↗ House builder ↗ Diary images ↗