Set in Fort William, this project stages a civic dialogue between a town cradled between Cow Hill and Loch Linnhe. Rather than retreating from the mountain’s mass or the loch’s exposure, the building engages in a sectional drama – stepping down the slope and carving into it – so that moving through the building becomes a microcosm of climbing the hill itself. The design choreographs arrival as ritual: three distinct routes from the train station, High Street, and A82 each offer different narratives of compression, framed views, and shifting light before culminating in a central atrium. A rainscreen slate cladding system responds directly to prevailing southwesterly winds, while the sun path diagram dictates a southeast-facing public facade. Internally, constructed light differentiates the collective gathering spaces from more private functions, ensuring that every surface, gap, and material choice becomes an acoustic and phenomenological decision – an architecture that begins long before the visible and ends long after the echo fades.