Western Window Systems

The Annex

Once a crowded property with an aging bungalow and a commercial storefront, this live/work complex accommodates the architect's growing family and practice. The expansion to the recently remodeled bungalow includes a new family room, exterior courtyard and deck, an attic conversion and stair hall. The storefront building, with its several bootleg additions, previously took up half of the site, exceeding the allowable floor area for the property and leaving little open space. In order to make space for the new yard and the 620 square feet of additions to the house, over 600 square feet of the storefront was demolished. To keep costs down, the architect did all of the construction with the help of a two-man crew over the course of almost 5 years. After the initial bungalow remodel, the attic was converted to a habitable floor consisting of a new bedroom and den. In order to provide access to these new rooms, a compact stair hall was added to the side of the house which leaves a minimal footprint. The ascent up the new spiral staircase is flooded in natural light from the skylight above while connecting to the new exterior deck below. A spacious family room was added between the house and storefront, connecting the two and forming the new courtyard. The new roof deck, built atop the family room addition, is also accessed by the new stair hall. The family room and stair hall are clad in the same materials as the original house remodel; torched cedar, clear cedar and white plaster. The expansion transitions the original house to the new yard and existing storefront, making one integral with the other. It maintains a separate identity from the original house and storefront while obscuring the boundaries of inside and outside.

Thumb House

It can be challenging enough to find the right frame for a painting. The spaces of the Thumb House actively engage the surrounding landscape. Where the warm wood façade of the house recedes within a zinc wrapper, a wide outdoor room opens toward the lake, framing a panoramic view of water and sky. White-stained wood lines the inside of the outdoor room, transitioning smoothly into the white interior of the house at a glass wall. The logic of cutting into walls to reveal the tree canopy extends throughout the interior living spaces of the two-bedroom house while preserving privacy. Beneath high, continuous landscape windows, low walls define dining and lounge zones with a varied material palette-including tile, soapstone, birch, and walnut.A thumb-like extension disrupts the rectangular geometry of the house to form a secluded study, where a window dips down over the desk to present an intimate view through a field of tree trunks to the lake. Wood shutters can be opened to bring in some air, expanding the rooms in spring and summer.

Sea View Villas

Red Rocks

Clinging to the side of Camelback Mountain in [Phoenix](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/phoenix), Arizona, a Spanish Colonial Revival style house has been transformed by architecture firm The Ranch Mine into the 'Red Rocks' residence, a dwelling that creates and elevates a variety of experiences with both the natural and man-made environment. When the homeowners approached Claire and Cavin Costello of The Ranch Mine to redesign their mountainside home, they were frustrated by the thick columns that interrupted the views, the heavy clay tile roofs and dark beams, and the floor plan that focused more on a ceremonial entry than the indoor/outdoor lifestyle they craved. It was clear very quickly to the design duo that although the Spanish Colonial Revival style can be beautiful in the right situations, the style of this home was repressing the potential of the site, or more simply put, the house was style over substance. The first move to remedy this situation was to strip back the additive design features, leaving a simple, 2 story stucco box. Inside the box, The Ranch Mine rearranged the floor plan to prioritize the connection between the living spaces of the house and the primary views, including new steel, glass, and wood stairs to a different location to allow for a view from the rear of the house through the front and to the valley beyond. An additional ensuite bedroom was added via a second-story addition clad in unhoned, unfilled vein-cut Veracruz limestone that cantilevers out over the mountain to preserve the maximum amount of outdoor living area and disturb no more space than the existing house footprint. Rather than mimic the red sedimentary sandstone of Camelback Mountain, limestone was chosen to make the addition appear like the calcite veins that often appear in the red rocks marking their moment in time.

Tetra House

Tetra House is a single-family residence located in the lively neighborhood of South [Austin](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/austin). The project is unique in the client / tenant also being the builder, allowing the design process to be tightly integrated and informed by the construction process and details. The house is designed to be inward-looking, centered around a small, intimate courtyard containing a pool and a gravel garden with Japanese maple trees. The design pulls from a range of inspirations, from the constructivist paintings of El Lissitzky to Mexican Modernism from the 50s and 60s. The house is envisioned as a series of volumes and surfaces that are layered and intersecting, but never quite coinciding.

Glendessary Lane

In approaching this project, we desired a modest and respectful impact to the land, with an emphasis on intuitive functionality and aesthetic clarity. The house's parti is programmatically divided into a sort of public bar; consisting of the kitchen, dining and living room and a more private bar; containing the family room, bathrooms, and bedrooms. The "public bar" is flanked on both ends with large sliding doors to achieve a powerful connection with the land anywhere you are in this section. The family room is a potent space in that incorporates the flexibility to be the most intimate and quiet space while also opening up to the community beyond. The master bedroom has the visual and visceral connection to the outdoors due to one entire wall comprising bi-folding doors that open onto a serene yard with fire and water elements. In any project of consequence, there must be a collaboration of client, builder and designers-this project serves as a benchmark in my practice of the embodiment of this concept. While not being a particularly large house, the siting, scale & proportions, materials, details and craftsmanship are paramount.

House on Kings Road

Overlooking Coast Highway and Newport harbor beyond, this small house on Kings Road sits low and sheltered from the street while embracing views of the bay and Pacific horizon. A quiet retreat for an empty-nest couple seeking a more essential lifestyle, this home offers everything they need in a compact but well-articulated architectural experience. Essential and reductive, this house is a composition for modern living where the primary building materials of concrete, wood, steel and light resonate throughout in measured proportion. At once both solid and transparent, the home is outwardly quiet, while offering innovative spatial relationships that create varied living experiences inside. An undulating roof that optimizes the allowable heights above grade defines the primary living spaces and master bedroom suite upstairs where the couple spends most of their time. A generous skylight above the stairs and a glass entry bridge that crosses a central void help illuminate the lower floor bedrooms, gym, and office. Orienting the home on the lot was influenced by the steep topography, a restrictive height limit, and an easement that bisected the lot limiting the home's potential depth. The resulting compact footprint makes the most of the limited development area and invites opportunities for rooms to borrow space from each other, lending an air of spaciousness to the otherwise compact design. Tailored to serve the next chapter of their lives while also providing enough space for the entire family to visit, House on Kings Road offers these homeowners a perfect place to spend their golden years watching golden sunsets over the harbor.

Burlingame Residence

We eschewed the traditional suburban "box" at the center of the property and instead opted for an elongated courtyard home creating a series of discreet yard spaces that suits the locale's year-round, temperate climate. The center courtyard allows the kitchen to operate as the true hub of the home connected to both the indoors and outdoors. With vaulted ceilings and bridge to the master bedroom, this home has both a public and a private face.

Mondrian's Window

Designed for two artists-one also the architect-this rear addition to a one-bedroom house symbolizes architecture of linearity and sequence, where all of the rooms across the three stories have a sightline, progressively more expansive as one moves higher, overlooking a downward sloping garden and panoramas of the Bay to the North. At the ground level, the existing garage opens onto a new studio that opens onto the garden beyond. Connected by a spiral staircase in the studio, the second level comprises an existing street-facing parlor and previously windowless bedroom, which now opens onto a multi-use space for painting and yoga. The existing kitchen and dining room on the third floor open onto a live/work space that also doubles as an area in which to entertain. The view of the Bay increases as one ascends. Built on a lot narrower than the typical San Francisco 25-foot parcel, this three-story infill project is not visible from the street. Instead, the existing 1,900-square-foot residence forms the primary façade of the new 1,400-square-foot addition.

Trail House

The most recent addition to the 105-acre Enchantment Resort in [Sedona](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/sedona), Arizona was designed with the mountain biker, hiker, and nature lover in mind. The resort is set in Boynton Canyon, a red-rock box canyon nestled in the Coconino National Forest, providing a stunning base camp for outdoor adventures. To respond to the natural beauty of the site, Gluckman Tang Architects worked with the resort to create Trail House, a 4,000 SF activity center that serves as the gathering point for resort guests who are interested in hiking the trails, mountain biking, or otherwise soaking in the red rock vistas that are unique to Sedona. Trail House was designed as a series of spaces along a "trail", or main circulation spine. Strategically situated off a main pedestrian circulation path, the trail takes the form of a continuous indoor-outdoor wood trellis that draws guests inside to interact with the various features of Trail House. On either side of the trellis are a pair of brick-and-stucco-clad volumes that contain the building's program. To one side is a mountain bike pro-shop and outdoor-focused retail. Across the trellised hall is the sky-lit Map Room, an interpretive center that educates visitors about the canyon's local trails and unique flora, fauna, and history. Highlights of the Map Room include a four-foot-diameter topographic map table, custom maps printed on cork describing local trails, and a 10'x6' video wall that features footage of hiking and biking on local trails.

Winnwood Residence

The Winnwood Residence is a new 4,600 SF, single-story, single-family contemporary residence that gives the owner the sense of living in the outdoor landscape year-round. The owner is an interior designer who has a deep love for gardening. The house is surrounded on all four sides by extensively landscaped areas, one of the sides being a conservation park managed by the Texas Parks & Wildlife and the US Dept. of Interior. It was conceived as a solid black plaster mass, sitting within an enclosed garden, from which exterior voids were carved to create transition zones between the built and the natural. From within the house, all viewpoints to the exterior terminate upon lush landscaping. Large sliding glass doors open completely full width into integrated pockets in the walls on opposing ends of the house to allow natural ventilation to pass through the main living areas. The interior architecture is a simple, limpid space that is well-daylit through full-height windows and a large skylight. Rendered in smooth reflective interior plaster, the natural outdoor conditions lend subtle coloration to the surfaces. The exterior finish is black plaster upon which climbing Boston Ivy is expected to overtake over time; the shadow blackness of the exterior surfaces allows one to truly enjoy light, not shadow, filtering through the trees.

Spa Creek House

Fronting Spa Creek in Annapolis, Maryland this house is formally abstract, modestly scaled, and simply clad to resonate with the local maritime culture. Designed for a couple with a passion for art and sailing, the house becomes a canvas for both interests simultaneously. The house's preeminent focus is on its promenade, as well as visual and physical connections to the waterfront. In order to set the stage for this, the program elements are layered across the site with "private" support spaces towards the street and the more "public" living spaces closer to the water. The functional distinction is made diagrammatically legible through the massing strategy and amplified by material contrast. Support spaces live tightly packed within one of two platonic metal boxes and living spaces are housed within a stepped wood volume, which hovers over the living room and projects out to the water. The entry is punctuated by a raw steel canopy which links both wood and metal boxes. The contrast between these complimentary volumes is amplified by the subtle angle with which the wood box shifts to follow the property line, running along the southern edge of the lot. This allows the living spaces on both levels to open up expansively, rendering them spatially dynamic. Adding to this thrust towards the creek, the roof of the wood box steps up until the master bedroom achieves a lofty vertical proportion. Here the promenade terminates at a covered balcony with commanding views across the creek to Historic Annapolis.

Malibu Crest / Studio Bracket

Major Addition and Remodel to 1949 International Style Home. Original structure was built in 1949 and was the first home/building constructed in the Malibu Knolls region of Malibu. The house sits atop a bluff with views of the Malibu Pier, Surf Rider Beach, Malibu Lagoon to the south and the Santa Monica Mountains to the north. It was important to the owners to maintain the lines of the original house, while also increasing the square footage and taking full advantage of the landscape and panoramic ocean and mountain views.

Cherry Hills Residence

The existing main floor layout of the home supported the client’s desire for an open plan, while a new second floor allowed the creation of additional bedrooms, a central laundry, and a master suite with a covered deck over the garage. Replacing the aging second floor also refreshed the dark, worn exterior and created higher ceilings throughout the main level, improving proportions and enhancing the open floor plan. The design balances the old country club estate aesthetic with a refined rural vernacular, introducing larger windows with thin dark aluminum frames to bring natural light and transparency. Board and batten siding adds warmth and nostalgia, while reclaimed horizontal boards provide contrast and a nod to the property’s rural history. Heavy timber stairs with leather tread inlays anchor the entry, complemented by delicate metal spindle railings that maintain openness toward the living areas. Raw, brushed metal finishes and glimpses of concrete surfaces continue through the interior, while two kitchen islands arranged perpendicular to the back wall frame the workspace and connect to the dining, family, and breakfast areas for a full 180-degree exposure to the surroundings. Two large fifteen-foot sliding openings lead to a covered patio, further extending the living space and enhancing the connection between interior and exterior.

Aqua Verde Residence / Clark Richardson Architects

The existing two-story brick and stucco home was enclosed by heavy masonry porches at the front and rear, limiting views of the lake and creating disconnected interior spaces. The clients sought to unify the interior and exterior, improve flow, and fully embrace the rear terrace, pool, and views, bringing a modern sensibility influenced by Japanese heritage and contemporary design. Clark Richardson Architects addressed two major challenges: the kitchen was at the front and disconnected from the main living areas, and second-floor load-bearing walls fragmented the first-floor spaces. The solution relocated the kitchen to a prominent corner, creating a central hub, while steel beams redistributed second-floor loads to the exterior, opening the living areas into a single, cohesive space. Visitors enter a sitting room with hill views that flows into the dining area, where a custom wire-brushed cypress wood element defines the space while maintaining openness. The wood soffit extends through a transparent rear wall to the reconstructed terrace, which is stepped down to preserve sightlines and covered for year-round use. A double corner slider connects the new kitchen, dining, and breakfast areas to the terrace, while a central island and black plaster hood create visual balance with the sitting room fireplace. Skylights bring light into the deep floorplate, balancing natural illumination throughout the main level. By removing structural obstructions and reconfiguring the layout, the renovation merges interior and exterior into an expansive, flowing living space that maximizes light, functionality, and breathtaking views.

Rutherford Residence

G+G House

Lake Barcroft, a 135-acre lake in Falls Church, Virginia, is home to about 1,040 residences—225 of which share direct lakefront access. Though only ten miles from Washington, D.C., the community offers a serene escape from the urban core. Set on one of the last undeveloped waterfront lots, the new house is carefully woven into a steep, wooded hillside, designed to honor and preserve the natural landscape. Mature trees, environmental regulations, and Resource Protection Area setbacks dictated the home’s placement, resulting in a design that harmonizes with its surroundings. Respecting the area’s mid-century ranch vernacular, the entry level sits nearly a story below the road, maintaining a low, horizontal profile, while modern materials—FSC mahogany, Shou Sugi Ban siding, concrete, weathering steel, terne-coated stainless steel, and fiber cement panels—create a contemporary yet contextually sensitive palette. Inside, the architecture serves as a frame for the lake, revealed through an open, descending sequence that culminates in a double-height living space with panoramic views. Natural materials flow seamlessly from exterior to interior, reinforcing the connection between the built form and landscape. Durable, polished concrete floors accommodate the easy transition from outdoor lake activities, while large sliding openings extend living spaces to terraces, a lawn, and a lakeside path. A cantilevered open tower, reminiscent of a treehouse, offers a quiet perch above the water. Designed with both sensitivity to its neighborhood and deep reverence for the lake, the house provides a tranquil, immersive experience that celebrates its natural setting.

Concrete Box House / Robertson Design

The design of The Concrete Box house was begun with three fairly simple concepts as goals: a carefully choreographed entry sequence, material clarity, and a sculptural presence. The building is composed of three elements- a concrete box, a wooden box, and the low concrete wall that encloses the entry courtyard. Fenestration on the front is limited, which adds to the sculptural nature of the building. To enter the building one slips between the two overlapping concrete walls in the front and then passes through the sanctuary-like entry courtyard before arriving at the front door. The door opens into an entry hall that has a low ceiling and is a touch dark. From here one passes through an opening in the concrete box to enter the brightly lit, tall volume of the main space. While passing through the opening, one experiences the thickness and solidity of the concrete walls. The abundant natural light and expansive views into the front courtyard and rear garden surprise as they are initially difficult to reconcile with the blank façade. The first floor is basically a single space where slight level changes delineate function between dining, kitchen, and living. There is an office hidden behind sliding walls that allow the owners to work in this space during the day and then literally close the office at times when work is to be forgotten. The simple and bright white rooms of the second floor stand in marked contrast to the downstairs with its wood and concrete walls.

Beachitos Pre-Fab

Between the busy Coast Highway and the coastal waves, a couple built a home on an irregular-shaped lot, taking advantage of the city’s duplex zoning to create a residence that could serve them now and into the future. Seeking a modern, efficient solution, they embraced a prefabricated approach using the BONE Structure system, with a 5' by 5' grid of light-gauge steel columns and beams fastened with ¼" screws. Despite challenges posed by angled property lines and the desire to preserve ocean views, the system was tailored to produce two facing “L” shapes around a central courtyard, bringing light deep into the building. The lower floor accommodates two garages, a smaller two-bedroom unit, and the entry and art studio for the owner’s unit, while the upper floor includes a master suite with gym overlooking the ocean, a great room, storage, and two guest bedrooms above the garages. Outdoor decks and ground-level spaces enhance light, air, and visual connection to the site. Once the core steel frame was erected, SIP panels were applied to walls and roof, followed by windows, doors, and dense spray foam insulation for water, air, and thermal protection. Exterior finishes of smooth plaster and ironwood siding articulate the building’s form and organization. The resulting home combines a unique prefabricated structural system, energy-efficient envelope, generous interior and exterior spaces, and thoughtful design responding to the site, the ocean, and the couple’s vision for a forward-looking, flexible way of living.

Tucson Hillside House

Set on a prominent ridge in the foothills of the Tucson Mountains, this 250 square meter (2,700 square foot) home is a lens through which the clients - recent transplants to Arizona - can experience the magic of the Sonoran Desert. The architects, Victor Sidy and Nick Mancusi devised the plan as two rectangular blocks intersecting at an oblique angle, positioned just below the ridgeline of the hill. The first block runs parallel to the contours of the land and serves to house the carport, workshop, and study functions. The second block - containing the main house - is oriented on axis with the view of a prominent butte nearby and at an angle to the hill slope, allowing the structure to be anchored deeply into the bedrock on the south (bedroom) end, and to cantilever over the desert on the north (living room) end. The entire complex is sited to preserve a stand of saguaro cacti and rock outcrops unique to the area. The builder, Repp+Mclain, took great care to excavate and build on the site with surgical precision, allowing the native desert to gently meet the house. The two rectangular blocks are connected to each other by a shaded walkway and linear water feature. This choreographed outdoor transition from the car court to the home is a touch-point to the desert that happens multiple times each day. Halfway along that transition is a concrete bench built against the slope of the earth, situated at the place where the clients said during their early site visits: "This is the view we want to look at for the rest of our lives."

Westgate Residence

Our concept for this 7500sf single-family residence was derived from the site/context, the client's desire for an indoor/outdoor living experience afforded by the southern California climate, and inspiration from noted artist Richard Serra's 1975 Delineator. This unusually large, lush, and secluded flag lot set deeply back from the main street was largely unnoticed due to the existing home that blocked any potential experience that the expanse of the site offered. Taking inspiration from the tension created between perpendicular planes in Serra's Delineator, our solution was to create a centralized outdoor living space defined by the adjacent tectonic forms and horizontal surfaces allowing for a more direct connection across the property and between interior and exterior spaces. In one direction, the concrete of the driveway, the stone of the covered patio, the grass, and the surface of the "IKB"-inspired pool together act as a continuous surface supporting the outdoor experience. Perpendicular to those surfaces floats the mass of the second floor which gently rests on the main living spaces and a pool/guest house. This outdoor space becomes both a place as well as a window through the building.

Lakeway Residences

The Lakeway Residence is a contemporary luxury home in Lakeway, Texas, nestled within the rolling Central Texas Hill Country and designed to harmonize with its natural surroundings. Positioned on a gently sloping site oriented toward distant views, the four-bedroom, four-bath home features a double courtyard layout that frames outdoor spaces to the north and south, optimizing passive solar gain and prevailing breezes for an efficient, sustainable design. The north courtyard creates a welcoming drive court and defined entry sequence, while the south courtyard opens to a spacious pool deck ideal for entertaining and outdoor living. Inside, an open floor plan connects the living, dining, and kitchen areas under tall ceilings and abundant glazing, blurring the boundaries between indoor and outdoor space. The material palette is elegant yet understated, combining smooth stucco, dark-stained cedar, and bronze-finished windows to complement the natural landscape. The gourmet kitchen includes two-tone gray cabinetry, a marble island, and a butler’s pantry, while the adjacent master suite offers a private retreat with large corner windows framing expansive hillside views, a spa-like bath with a freestanding tub, and a generous walk-in closet. The upper level contains a family room, two bedrooms, and a balcony overlooking the pool. Thoughtful details—such as the integration of natural light, cross-ventilation, and a quiet material palette—create a refined, modern aesthetic that celebrates simplicity, comfort, and sustainability in equal measure.

Casa Abierta

The Owners are from Costa Rica. After the second meeting, their second child was born. At the third meeting, their house was filled with family and friends, a common occurrence in their home. The suburban box did not at all fit their lifestyle. It was closed, dark, and divided into very small rooms. They said that there was not one space in which they felt comfortable. They wanted a house of openness and light, where their children could be free to explore and play independently, still within view of their parents. The solution was to create a courtyard house, with large sliding glass doors to bring the inside out and outside in. The existing house was completely opened up, and a cathedral ceiling created in the living room. Programmatically, two new wings were added : kitchen/dining and master suite. Ipe hardwood from the deck continues into the central space, creating warmth and texture at the heart of the house.

Ziering Residence

A curved sweep of living spaces and a projecting wing of bedrooms embrace a panorama of ocean and mountains. Located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of [Los Angeles](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/los-angeles), this residence overlooks the Pacific Ocean and has a backdrop of the Santa Monica mountains. A curved sweep of living spaces and a projecting wing of bedrooms embrace a panorama of these unique ocean and mountain views. Strict viewshed restrictions for maintaining views for neighboring residences resulted in a low slung profile that never exceeds more than fifteen feet. The front façade follows the arc of the street and is further accentuated by a gently rising roof line that anchors the house to the specificity of its site. The street façade of the Ziering Residence is clad in 1x2 Ipe wood rain screen to offer a quiet, unobtrusive face to the neighborhood with strategic slot windows that give glimpses of what lies beyond. The front door and pivoting wall panels transform this façade when opened, presenting views of the interior, the courtyard and the ocean beyond. The courtyard side of the house is an exercise in transparency. Sliding glass panels open up the entire house to the outdoors. A deep overhang offers an interstitial covered area for al fresco living. An open floor plan with the living, dining, parlor and kitchen laid out along a curve with the master suite turning the corner creates a sense of intimacy within the relatively generous accommodations. Finally, the lower level has the family room and kid's bedrooms, which present a contrasting world of calm and solitude with a sunken courtyard extending the private domain to the exterior. What appeared as a closed world opens to reveal a picture of contemporary Southern Californian domesticity.

North Fork Bay House

Perched with direct access to Great Peconic Bay, this prefabricated beach house serves as a weekend retreat for a young Brooklyn family of four and a seasonal residence for the client’s Florida-based parents. Prefabricated modules sit atop a site-built steel frame, offering expansive bay views upon arrival via the long, tree-lined gravel drive. Though outside a FEMA-designated flood zone, the raised design addresses potential future flooding while creating shaded outdoor space below for parking, lounging, and woodworking, including the grandfather’s sailboat project. Entry is via an open-riser exterior stair leading to a courtyard deck framed by trees, with sunlight flowing into the house. Full-height sliding glass doors connect the open-plan communal space to a large bayside deck and the beach. The family’s two young daughters enjoy a bunkroom with custom Baltic birch beds and integrated toy cubbies, while parents and grandparents have their own custom-built bed platforms with side tables, headboards, and natural maple wardrobes. Interior materials evoke a relaxed beach aesthetic while ensuring durability and easy cleaning, including large-format tile floors, subway tile bathrooms with glass mosaic accents, Caesarstone countertops, Corian backsplashes, maple cabinets, Baltic birch millwork, and stainless steel appliances. Exterior materials withstand the coastal climate, with Kynar-coated corrugated aluminum siding resisting salt air, and warm cedar for siding, railings, the outdoor shower enclosure, and brise-soleil, complemented by Ipe decking.

Seattle's bustling University District

Sea Level

For his beachfront home in Malibu, architect Richard Landry, president of Landry Design Group, designed a residence that allows the ocean to take center stage while the architecture serves as an elegant, artful backdrop. Rebuilt from the studs up, the home unfolds as a procession toward the water—beginning with a subtle, clean-lined entry façade and culminating in a dramatic openness on the beach side. The approach sets the tone with colorful powder-coated steel plates embedded in the driveway, contrasting with granite pavers and hinting at the vibrant interiors. The tall, narrow structure features a minimalist white exterior accented by a single horizontal band and bursts of hidden LED lighting. Inside, a long entry gallery glows with programmable LED hues, leading to a sculptural stair whose glass treads and mirrored risers create the illusion of floating light. Each of the home’s three levels offers a distinct character while maintaining visual and material continuity through an interior collaboration with designer James Magni. The main floor flows openly from kitchen to dining to living spaces, each framing expansive ocean views, while the second floor houses bedrooms, including Landry’s serene, open master suite overlooking the water. The third floor is dedicated to leisure, featuring a retractable glass-walled bar, dining and lounge terraces, and panoramic vistas framed by a horizontal structural band echoing the façade. Throughout, the interplay of light, reflection, and color animates the minimalist design, allowing the shifting tones of the Malibu sky and sea to define the home’s ever-changing atmosphere.

Stanford Mid-Century Modern Remodel Addition

The Roger Lee-designed house from 1962 was purchased by the current homeowners in almost original condition, as the previous owners elected to defer most maintenance projects over the years. The clients were able to see beyond the dated materials and finishes, single-paned glass, and uninsulated walls and they approached Klopf Architecture to help them expand and update the entire home, one the family could settle into and enjoy for years to come. It was important that the new designs were aligned with Lee's original intent not only because of the client's appreciation for mid-century modern architecture but also because the house was deemed historical. The Stanford Real Estate Office requires a stringent design review that safeguards the integrity of the community, which Klopf Architecture was happy to oblige going into their updated designs. As with many original mid-century modern homes, the house was scaled to the 1960s lifestyle where rooms were smaller and openings to views were limited and tightly framed. The original conditions defined the direction the family of four would take in updating the house and making it comfortable for their modern lifestyle.

Echo Canyon Residence / Kendle Design Collaborative

On this unique wedge-shaped lot in Echo Canyon, this 3,900 square foot house is composed of varying geometric volumes and angles that are softened by curved elements. Together, this composition captures serene garden views with the magnificent backdrop of Camelback Mountain in full detail. This house is a study in layering opacity and transparency. First, a curving block wall interspersed with sandblasted glass panels and gate conceals a quaint courtyard full of yuccas, agaves, and an ironwood tree that filters dappled light along the walkway up to the house. Once inside, the art-filled walls of the foyer and halls lead to an open great room with an entire facade composed of 14-foot-tall glazing that captures a phenomenal view of the mountains. A narrow linear skylight grazes another side of the great room to offer ample natural daylight while a sequence of shadows is established by the roof structure piercing through. The Douglas fir ceiling extends from the interior out to unify the spaces and is interrupted by only a few linear slots which house the room's lighting and mechanical fixtures. Above the covered terrace, around the oculus allows for a sunspot to glide across the surface of the patio and yard which accommodate various places for friends and family to gather and marvel at the spectacular view towards the Praying Monk. Beyond, a yard for grandchildren and dogs to play in is backdropped by a natural desert palette and a rust-colored wall. Sandblasted glass panels make another appearance in the block walls which define the backyard and screen the street and guest parking areas. In the evening, a linear fire pit warms the backyard, where patios and lawns serve as extensions of the living space through sliding glass doors. Flowing through the house, the play of opacity and transparency heightens the relationship to nature and the mountains while distilling a zen-like quality.

Courtyards House

Situated in a nondescript subdivision on Tucson's eastside, Courtyards House is a desert minimalist reinvention of residential suburban inhabitation. Conceived as a series of interlocking interior and exterior volumes, the living spaces of the home contain, or are contained by six individual courtyards. Spatial boundaries are defined, yet fluid, with light, views and access flowing from one part of the home to the next. Each courtyard is distinctly xeriscaped with southern Arizona specimens, providing moments of focus and release - foreground and middle ground lend themselves to background and the distant mountain views beyond. The courtyards, and the boundaries they define, also serve a programmatic role: to "zone" the house for the clients' eleven rescue cats. Feline accommodation extends to the design of cabinetry, which incorporates a variety of hiding and play spaces. Courtyards House also serves as a gallery for the clients' collection of paintings and photographs by Tucson artists. In many cases, the colors and compositions of the individual art pieces are complimented by the adjacent xeriscapes, or through the home's architectural play of light-and-shadow. The white interior and exterior walls act as a canvas for registering temporal atmospheres - the subtleties and contrasts imbued by the desert sky throughout the day and night.

Admiral House / Molina Designs

The project is situated in Los Angeles, just a few miles from Venice Beach, within a neighborhood that has experienced significant growth over the past decade due to its prime location between the Pacific Ocean and the city center. The area is traditionally characterized by diverse single-family homes with pitched roofs, reflecting the classic Southern California residential style, yet recent urban developments—often “box-type” or cube-shaped houses—have introduced visual and morphological contrasts that disrupt the cohesive character of the neighborhood. In response, the project seeks to offer a contemporary yet contextually sensitive contribution, harmonizing with surrounding residences through materials, façade articulation, a sloping roof, and a porch element, all designed to align with the area’s established vernacular. The main façade adopts a pentagon form, a shape culturally associated with the archetype of a house, making the building’s purpose immediately legible from the street. The design balances privacy and openness: side façades are closed to protect the most private areas, while two central patios flanking the staircase allow natural light and ventilation to permeate the interior, creating a seamless connection between indoor spaces and the external environment. This approach ensures the home respects the traditional morphology of the neighborhood while introducing a contemporary, functional, and visually coherent presence.

P.F. Chang's at Kierland Commons

James River House / ARCHITECTUREFIRM

The James River House was designed as a place for three young boys. It is a place where they can grow and learn from their surroundings - experience mud, moths, flowing water, and the changing light of the seasons; a place that would allow for many gatherings of all the people who love them. Three volumes hover above a bluff alongside a bend in the James River, arranged loosely and lightly on the land like a scattered group of stones around a campfire. As a visitor slips between the volumes, the house opens up to light and river views and the fully enveloping woods. The quiet yet open interior is built around a large and flexible gathering space that can be intimate, expansive, interior, or exterior. Flanked by sleeping quarters, this central living area is at once hearth, tree house, and dining hall and is the nexus of activity for the family and the three boys who fill the house with light and motion.

Photographer's Studio

The Photographer's Studio strikes a balance between a voluminous working space, the City of Austin's zoning regulations, and a shared appreciation for expressive form. This project began with a simple need for a studio in the corner of the photographer's backyard. Zoning setbacks and tree protection rules quickly eliminated the option to build a separate structure, resulting in a building addition that juxtaposes a typical Austin house with a fresh new form. The den serves as a bright, biophilic transition connecting the existing dining room to the photography studio. A wooded screen floats over a stone threshold marking the extents of the original house while adding a pop of natural color. To maximize the use of space and the need for function, a new laundry room and full bathroom are tucked behind the den's back wall. The building's dyed stucco skin is articulated by a composition of angled expansion joints. These angles are carried into the chamfered exterior deck to avoid interfering with the critical root zone of an adjacent pecan tree. The exterior materials of both the existing house and the studio are folded into the den pronouncing the dialog between original and new and enhancing the connection to the outside. Behind the stucco walls, a voluminous studio offers its artist the utility of a Swiss Army knife: tall ceilings for lighting and backdrops, a hoist for lifting heavy items, metal railing to clamp equipment, etc. The unexpected space plays with light through its carefully located skylights and a constellation of recessed fixtures. Even the articulated mezzanine springs from a utilitarian need - stepping back to allow maximal double-height space while remaining comfortable to access.

Windows to Our World

The Brickyard at Playa Vista

The Brickyard at Playa Vista offices are the latest addition to an expanding campus of technology and creative media office spaces in the heart of Los Angeles' Playa Vista community. The new development consists of two buildings containing a total of 425,300 square feet of office space. The distinctive building facades made of thin brick with white engobe finish create a visual gateway into the Playa Vista campus while also serving as an extension of the highly active recreational spaces of the adjacent Central Park at Playa Vista. Prominent retail spaces with inviting outdoor areas are positioned at the building's corner closest to the park and the Playa Vista residential neighborhood making them welcoming stopping places for visitors coming to and from the site. A 9,000 sf daycare will provide employees' families with convenient on-site childcare with unique access to the space and facilities of Central Park. The buildings complete the campus master plan, an urban vision that redefines the relationship between life, work, and play within the city.

Winnwood Residence

The Winnwood Residence is a new 4,600 SF, single-story, single-family contemporary residence that gives the owner the sense of living in the outdoor landscape year-round. The owner is an interior designer who has a deep love for gardening. The house is surrounded on all four sides by extensively landscaped areas, one of the sides being a conservation park managed by the Texas Parks & Wildlife and the US Dept. of Interior. It was conceived as a solid black plaster mass, sitting within an enclosed garden, from which exterior voids were carved to create transition zones between the built and the natural. From within the house, all viewpoints to the exterior terminate upon lush landscaping. Large sliding glass doors open completely full width into integrated pockets in the walls on opposing ends of the house to allow natural ventilation to pass through the main living areas. The interior architecture is a simple, limpid space that is well daylit through full-height windows and a large skylight. Rendered in smooth reflective interior plaster, the natural outdoor conditions lend subtle coloration upon the surfaces. The exterior finish is black plaster upon which climbing Boston Ivy is expected to overtake over time; the shadowy blackness of the exterior surfaces allows one to truly enjoy light, not shadow, filtering through the trees. The architecture elegantly and quietly achieves its sustainability objectives; proposes a new vocabulary of architecture that is decidedly un-local yet celebrates Texas living, and is very much about the landscape as it is about the interior.

Illinois Creek Ranch / El Dorado

Illinois Creek Ranch, situated on a historic farmstead in Wabaunsee County, Kansas, was designed for a family of five and their summer guests with the goal of fostering a deep connection to the landscape. The residence embraces a vernacular aesthetic while employing contemporary materials and nuanced detailing. Carefully sited just south of a hill crest, the home responds to topography, wind, sun, and seasonal patterns, with four simple rectangular wings featuring pitched roofs organized to optimize single- and multi-story programs. The wings block prevailing winds, enable passive cooling, and maximize solar gain, while the design draws on local vernacular—wood structures with limestone bases and corrugated metal roofs—blending seamlessly with the surrounding tallgrass prairie. Limestone chimneys and landscape walls were crafted by local stonemason Luke Koch, and 1×4 cedar siding and corrugated metal roofing unify the exterior. Two glass-enclosed atriums with planted flat roofs link the wings and provide circulation while emphasizing views of the landscape. Skylights and window placement frame the Midwestern sky and bring abundant daylighting indoors. The central, public wing houses kitchen, dining, living, and patio areas, with supporting mudroom, pantry, and powder room, while private wings accommodate the master suite, children’s rooms, and a guest suite above the garage. The choreography of movement through the house engages a variety of landscape experiences, balancing functionality with connection to the site. The result is a contemporary residence that respects its rural context while boldly asserting modern design sensibilities.

Garza Blanca Preserve Resort & Spa

Crest Apartments

Crest Apartments in Van Nuys transformed a vacant suburban lot into a 45,000-square-foot LEED Platinum permanent supportive housing center, providing 64 studio apartments for formerly homeless individuals, including 23 for veterans. Completed in 2016, the project combines residential units with supportive services and communal amenities, including social services offices, a shared kitchen, laundry, conference room, lounge, and an outdoor garden. The building’s sweeping arching form creates a sheltered courtyard beneath four residential floors, with low points connecting to surrounding single-family homes and commercial facades, while open-air corridors bring natural light, ventilation, and city views to all units. The integrated landscape design at ground level unifies the site with drought-tolerant native plantings, permeable pavers, and flexible spaces accommodating parking, fire lanes, and informal gathering areas. Sustainability features are extensive: over 90% of rainwater is captured and filtered through bioswales and infiltration trenches, permeable surfaces recharge groundwater, and irrigation demand is reduced by 73%. Large windows and open corridors support healthy living, and energy performance exceeds Title-24 2008 standards by 22.7%, while the project achieves LEED for Homes Platinum certification, demonstrating a successful blend of functional housing, community connectivity, and environmentally responsible design.

Mill Valley Guesthouse / Turnbull Griffin Haesloop Architects

Sited in an existing small level clearing at the top of a steeply sloping [Mill Valley](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/mill-valley) lot surrounded by mature cedar and redwood trees, this 640 square foot guest house is designed to serve multiple generations and functions; a guest room for visiting parents and friends, a media room, and a hangout space for teenage children. The porch and media room are situated on the more open side of the site and the guest room is tucked into the trees. The flat roof punctuated by round skylights extends the dappled light of the surrounding tree canopies over the expansive porch and indoor spaces. Wood siding lets the walls blend in with the trees while the porch ceiling and skylight pattern become a playful façade as seen from the house and backyard below. The porch, cool roof, closed cell insulation, LED lighting and a high efficiency boiler keep the energy loads minimal exceeding Title 24 by 33%.

Luana Garden Villas in Honua Kai Resort & Spa

Beach Lab

Steve Hoiles of Surfside Projects transformed a 1957 post-war bungalow in Encinitas into the 1,704-square-foot Beach Lab, a modern, sustainable coastal home that was ranked No. 17 on Dwell.com’s top 20 homes of 2017. Hoiles preserved the original structure, upgrading it to current codes, and created a vaulted-ceiling interior with exposed wood beams, an open floor plan connecting the kitchen, dining, and living areas, and large multi-slide glass doors that blur the line between indoor and outdoor living. A new angled cube volume replaced a termite- and mold-infested 1960s addition, while natural light, large overhangs, and thoughtful use of wood maintain a clean, coastal-modern aesthetic. The project added a master suite with ensuite bath and walk-in closet, reprogrammed a bedroom into a flexible office space, and introduced dual outdoor living areas to suit the cul-de-sac’s social dynamics. Landscaping draws inspiration from local surf campgrounds, using decomposed granite, permeable surfaces, drought-tolerant grasses, and a Bonsai tree near the deck to reflect both environmental sensitivity and the family’s heritage. Materials were carefully chosen for durability and character, including sandblasted Douglas Fir siding and marine-grade plywood kitchen doors, emphasizing pragmatic Modernism and maintaining a relaxed, beachy vibe. By creatively reprogramming and recycling the existing home instead of tearing it down, Hoiles achieved a sustainable, light-filled, and playful living environment that celebrates California indoor-outdoor lifestyle while respecting budget and materials efficiency.

Stingray Sushi Resaurant

Canyon House / HK Associates Inc

Emerging from the desert, Canyon House is equal parts land-form and mechanism for viewing. Stoic on the exterior - but more than an object in the landscape - Canyon House blurs the boundary between inside and out, imprinting the exterior environment onto the interior of the home: revealing life as a series of moments, vistas and reflections. Sited to frame the Catalina Mountains to the north and the [Tucson](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/tucson) Mountains to the southwest, the over-riding intent was for the clients to live "in the view" - sensory immersion being the driving concept and effect of the architecture. The manifestation of this immersive experience is the canyon-like living space at the center of the home. Flanked on the east and west by the service and bedroom wings, and looking north and south, "the canyon" is also defined by a horizontal datum. Below this seven foot datum, life is organized; above, the interior of the home reaches up to ephemera in the form of a "clerestory" surface. At the window walls, the panels above the datum afford mountain-top views, while the side wall clerestory captures oblique reflections that shift as the occupants move throughout the house. The effect is for distant panoramas to enter and wrap the interior of the home. Aural sensations within the canyon are likewise affected by an acoustic "cloud" that floats above, creating a serene environment for conversation and contemplation. The cloud collects and organizes artificial lights that become a constellation of stars, reflected in the clerestory, as day turns to night. Spatial thresholds from the canyon space to the wings of the home shift attention away from the big views, towards intimate moments and personal vignettes. Canyon House challenges perceptions through constructed ambiguities and reflected likenesses, attempting to reveal a reality beyond our senses.

Burton Residence / Marmol Radziner

This vacation home is set on the crest of a grassy knoll on a 160-acre site in Mendocino County. The goal was to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of the property by siting the retreat in a careful, simple, and unobtrusive manner. The 10-module home forms an L-shaped plan, framing views of a canopy of mature oak trees to the south and east. The road leading to the house climbs the hill and ends at the carport at the home's west end. A set of concrete stairs lead up a gentle grade from the carport to the entry deck, which runs along the north side of the home. The main volume is oriented east to west and arranged in an open plan. The living room, kitchen, and dining room collectively open southward onto a covered patio with an outdoor fireplace and pool area. From the main volume, the master bedroom extends to the north, following the edge of the hilltop and ending in a private deck that takes in the morning light from the east. Long Valley Ranch utilizes a number of sustainable strategies and materials. Passive solar heating and cooling are achieved through use of concrete flooring, covered decks, and natural through breezes. A 17-kW solar array offsets the electricity usage of the house, and a tankless hot water heater provides on-demand water heating. Sustainable materials are used throughout, including recycled denim insulation and low-VOC paint.

Paradise Bakery's

Taco Shop

Avocado Acres House / Surfside Projects + Lloyd Russell

The Bold roof profile of Avocado Acres (Aa) House personifies our design collaboration with Architect, Lloyd Russell to inject a dose of creativity + Mod Green Architecture into a coastal infill project. Aesthetic cues originated from the historical LA's Case Study Houses and Eichler's MCM gems. However, this new residence is all about addressing the conditions we face now by incorporating sustainable materials, energy efficiencies and environmental sensibilities. A sloping curved shed roof unifies the three pavilions that define the U-shape plan and courtyard space. Throughout the interior a constant engagement to the outdoors gives the home a grandeur that belies the home's small footprint. It 's single level living spaces, privacy from the street and functional layout for the inhabitants was the soul of the design objectives. Straight lines with an angular street front geometry sits in stark contrast to the unique curvilinear roof profile. A simple color palette of the open interior space complements the muscular concrete walls and extensive use of natural wood tones on the vaulted ceiling, flooring and cabinetry. Floor plan consists of three defined areas joined in a U shape where each volume programs directly to the outdoor courtyard. 9' tall sliding glass walls vanish into wall pockets and clerestory glazing that entirely wraps above the main living space provides plenty of natural light. A third party, non-biased rating system ( California GreenPoint Rated ) was used to confirm and to certify our best sustainable building practices.

Stack House

Stack House is a newly built 2,207­square­foot residence designed and developed by award­winning LA and NY­based architecture office FreelandBuck. Comprised of four stories notched into a sloping hillside, this vertical house uses the subtle rotation of each room to create seamless indoor­outdoor spaces on every floor, each with unique and unobstructed views of the San Gabriel mountains. Working with difficult site constraints is central to the design of this house; unlike conventional hillside homes that appear to have been placed atop the slope, this house is embedded into it, creating a much closer relationship to the landscape. The primary living spaces at the third level (dining, kitchen, living, den) are organized into a simple grid of four rooms. The walls of each room curve at the center in a series of tangent arcs that blend the individual spaces while carefully opening views through the house. A central stair connects the living spaces to a rear dining patio and yard that overlooks the house and mountains beyond. The upper fourth level features three bedrooms, with the master and en suite bathroom organized across the front of the house. A private two­car garage or workspace makes up the ground floor.

Greenbriar Residence

The Greenbriar Residence conceives of the house as a collection of stones clustered around a pool of water. Within the house, each stone volume contains a specific aspect of the program, providing spaces for living, dining, cooking, relaxing, playing, and sleeping. These separate volumes are linked through the movement of the home's occupants, wrapping around an interior courtyard and pool at the center of the site. Each of these volumes visually connect to the courtyard, framing various views of this interior landscape.

William M. Lowman Concert Hall

"William Lowman Concert Hall is a counter-trend in an age where building costs escalate for cultural heritage/arts and civic projects. Museum buildings are becoming more expensive than the art in them: what is amazing about this project is how skills can come to bear with technology to reverse the cost trend." - Nate Wittasek, ARUP, Project Code Consultant. The design for the William M. Lowman Concert Hall grew from the desire of the client to create a concert hall worthy of the talents of the students at the school, Idyllwild Arts-one of the country's top three High Schools for the Arts. The student body draws from dozens of countries and students go on to every major orchestra, school, and program in the world. Sander Architects proposed a site at the heart of campus to repurpose an unsightly parking lot, thereby creating a central campus quad and gathering space for the school community.

Greenbriar Residence / CONTENT Architecture

The Greenbriar Residence is designed as a series of stone-like volumes clustered around a central pool and courtyard, with each volume dedicated to a specific function such as living, dining, cooking, sleeping, or recreation. These distinct spaces are linked through the movement of the occupants, while visually framing the interior courtyard from multiple vantage points. Though the house presents a public façade to the street, its massing, orientation, and the sound of water provide privacy and tranquility, shielding the interior from traffic noise. The gray brick cladding lends both solidity and fluidity, while windows and roof separations create fissures that maintain the identity of each volume. Playful roof forms slope in multiple directions, altering the perception of the house from different viewpoints. Two lower stone volumes at the front define the entrance and ease the transition from street scale to the taller two-story volumes beyond, with a projecting wood ceiling guiding visitors toward the interior courtyard. Glass doors connect the courtyard to the kitchen and family room, while a staircase with a solid wood base that transitions to an open steel frame subtly separates and links spaces. Throughout the interior, window openings and double-height cuts help define each volume, creating a dynamic sequence of interconnected spaces that balance openness, intimacy, and movement.

Cardiff with A Side of Ranch

Teaching a vintage rancher new sustainable tricks... An up-cycled house and addition in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California embraces the architectural metaphor of "old meets new" with careful choices of color, geometry and material. Reprogramming of the original layout was executed by blowing out useless walls, making the previously segmented living area into an expansive, open happy place. Full-span sliding glass doors amplify natural light and allows a seamless connection between indoor and outdoor spaces. An all new 343 sqft pavilion features a tall-angled wood ceiling in the master bedroom with wrap around clerestory glass. The interior palette underlines the harmony of architectural and natural beauty, creating a modernist beach pad with prominent natural wood, pearl toned walls and visible expression of structural components. The existing 1957 front yard was funky, yet bullish with upside potential. An elbowed driveway was relocated, replaced with usable green space and a permeable grass driveway. Landscaping emphasizes low mow/drought tolerant/water wise native grasses, succulents and cacti. The overall effect to be able to conserve and create reflects both design and the quality of the trades involved. The project will be third-party certified to confirm our best green building practices by California Build It Green.

Ventana House

Nestled at the base of the Catalina Mountains adjacent to a protected peak, the Ventana House is a window into the desert. The two-story dwelling rises from its mountainside setting like a geological outcropping, a rugged exterior form shaped from within by openings that afford panoramic views. Like a geode, the light-filled and refined interior is a contrast and a surprise. The main living spaces of the home are located above the desert floor, connecting the home's inhabitants to the foreground of the saguaro forest and the distant horizon. The entry sequence into the home begins at a notched erosion in the exterior massing. Movement is oriented up a sculptural stair that occupies a double-height skylighted gallery. The threshold at this moment of vertical ascension is further defined by a bridge that passes overhead. Clad in steel perforated panels, the bridge filters light from above and offers glimpses of experiences to come.

Split Box House

The Split Box House, for a busy working couple and their three children, is located near Emory University and the CDC in [Atlanta](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/atlanta), Georgia. The clients wanted a house that is a quiet, restrained, escape from the excessively noisy digital world that overly stimulates their daily lives and is a reaction to the surrounding banal spec homes each a louder spectacle than the next. Simple and clean in its form the house started as a twenty-two foot wide extruded box. That width was chosen based on the distance a reasonable-sized wood truss can span. This ensured that no interior support walls were required allowing for an uncomplicated open floor plan. Arranged in an efficient pattern to eliminate waste, the primary exterior cladding of the box is a low-maintenance grey cement panel. The panels, attached as an open joint ventilated rain-screen system, help manage moisture intrusion and reduce energy consumption. Cut to the desired length based on the space requirements of the family, the box is subsequently split into public and private volumes allowing for a clear delineation between functions. The private portion is rotated ninety degrees around the sky-lit stair hall to maximize views to the serene woods behind the house. A complimentary warm ipe wood, alluding to the softer interiors of the house, clads the cuts. The exposed roofs are covered with vegetation to reduce stormwater runoff, mitigate energy consumption and improve air quality. Comprised of the bedrooms upstairs and the guesthouse on the main level, the private functions bridge across a covered breezeway creating an outdoor room with a view corridor to the woods and access to the main and guest house entrances.

Dogpatch Cottage

This historic Pelton Cottage survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires only to be almost completely destroyed by a fire in 2013. Into this near blank slate, we designed a "house within a house", creating a two-story volume and light shelf to bounce southern daylight between levels of the residence. This strategy allowed us to keep the traditional center room of a railroad Victorian while still maintaining an open view from the front living room to the kitchen at the rear.

Allston Residence

Situated in the historic Houston Heights district, the Allston Residence harmonizes contemporary design with the traditional character of its bungalow-lined surroundings. Classic elements such as a pitched roof, horizontal siding, and a covered porch pay homage to neighborhood vernacular, while subtle formal shifts—a folded and tapered second-floor façade, varied cladding scales, and recessed outdoor spaces—establish a distinctly modern identity. Native grasses, herbs, and citrus trees surround the home, softening its geometry and grounding it in the landscape. The design thoughtfully adheres to local historic district guidelines: a recessed front porch meets the 50% façade coverage requirement, while inset green spaces along the north and south sides address the 40-foot maximum wall length rule and bring daylight and views deep into the interior. Inside, the ground floor is organized into two parallel bars—one enclosing private functions, the other forming an open sequence of kitchen, bar, dining, and living spaces that flow seamlessly between front and rear porches, encouraging social interaction for a young family that loves to entertain. A restrained use of color on the exterior—green accents tracing window trim and soffits—transitions to richer hues inside. Vibrant color planes emerge as one moves deeper into the home: violet walls animate the stairwell, while skylight wells in yellow and blue infuse upper rooms with shifting tones of reflected light. Through its play of light, color, and contextual sensitivity, the Allston Residence reinterprets historic typologies for modern family life while maintaining a dialogue with the architectural rhythm of Houston Heights.

Ziering Residence

The Ziering Residence is located in the Pacific Palisades, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and with a backdrop of the Santa Monica Mountains. Strict viewshed restrictions for maintaining views of neighboring residences resulted in a low-slung profile that never exceeds more than fifteen feet. The front façade follows the arc of the street and is further accentuated by a gently rising roofline that anchors the house to the specificity of its site. The street façade clad in 1x2 Ipe wood rainscreen offers a quiet, unobtrusive face to the neighborhood with strategic slot windows that give glimpses of what lies beyond. The front door and pivoting wall panels transform this façade when opened, presenting views of the interior, the courtyard, and the ocean beyond. What appeared as a closed world opens to reveal a picture of contemporary southern Californian domesticity. The courtyard side of the house is an exercise in transparency. Sliding glass panels open up the entire house to the outdoors. A deep overhang offers an interstitial covered area for al-fresco living. An open floor plan with the living, dining, parlor, and kitchen laid out along a curve with the master suite turning the corner creates a sense of intimacy within the relatively generous accommodations. Finally, the lower level has the family room and kid's bedrooms- presenting a contrasting world of calm and solitude with a sunken courtyard extending the private domain to the exterior.

Dining Out for Post-COVID World

Diamond Head Mountain House / Rob Paulus Architects

This house for an astronomer in the [Tucson](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/tucson) Mountains takes full advantage of its sloping site to create a dramatic living arrangement in a harsh yet beautiful environment. Working with a minimal footprint, the stacked scheme utilizes strategic view openings as well as a vertical progression of spaces to proceed from enclosed and earthbound to lofty and skyward. An observatory on top of the hill with remote viewing inside the house completes the scheme. Passive solar orientation creates large openings to north views with shaded glazing at south vistas that include Kitt Peak and the [Tucson](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/tucson) Mountains. Operable shade panels made from saguaro ribs control morning sunlight at the lower and upper floor east bedrooms while a small western aperture frames the colorful sunsets prominent in the Southwest. Efficiency in mechanical, enclosure and glazing systems further insure the comfort and livability of the residence. Two exterior living spaces take on unique individual characters: the south deck floats high above the desert landscape while the north patio places inhabitants directly on the desert floor to look up at nearby Diamond Head Mountain. Simple geometries, tight detailing and rusted corrugated metal are contrasted with the varied color and texture of the Sonoran Desert.

Rear Window House

Rear Window House, the private family residence of Edward Ogosta, AIA, is a discreet yet decidedly modern addition and remodel to a 1944 bungalow in an area abundant with intact dwellings of the same era. Key to the serene, minimal design was a sensitivity to context to lessen the addition's impact on the neighborhood. Through careful sequencing of new spaces, and strategically located apertures, the home opens itself up to become deeply integrated with the rear garden. All exterior and interior finishes are unified to create a seamless architectural experience using a restricted material palette of glass, aluminum, wood, asphalt shingles, and concrete. Existing interiors were updated to be simple and bright, via new skylights, bleached oak floors, and white walls. The project culminates in the master bedroom's expansive rear window, which is framed by aluminum-clad plate steel and cantilevers above a small pond. The design demonstrates how a thoughtful, strategic intervention can breathe new life into an older home, serve the needs of the contemporary family, and maintain neighborhood scale. While the existing house served admirably as a compact starter home for decades, the architect's growing family necessitated building a master suite extension into the backyard. Guided by a philosophy of making the most impact with the least number of moves, Ogosta started with the removal of a large, centrally located tree to liberate space for the simple rectangular volume. To strengthen the connection between old and new, the addition maintains the traditional pitched roof slope prevailing in the original home and throughout the neighborhood, but with a geometric twist to create a more open, airy feeling inside. The new volume is entirely skinned with asphalt roofing shingles, anchoring the building to the vernacular materiality of the area.

Aqua Verde Residence

The existing two-story brick and stucco home had heavy masonry porches front and rear, disconnected interior spaces, and minimal visual connection to the lake views. Clark Richardson Architects were tasked with improving flow, unifying indoor and outdoor spaces, and integrating modern design sensibilities informed by the clients’ backgrounds. The kitchen was relocated to a prominent corner, creating a central hub, while steel beams allowed second-floor load-bearing walls to be redistributed to exterior walls. This opened the main level into a single, flowing living space facing the lake, with a more private media room tucked away. Visitors enter into a sitting room with direct views to the hills, which flows into the dining area featuring a custom wire-brushed and stained cypress wood design element extending from floor to ceiling. The wood soffit continues to the rear terrace, where structural obstructions were minimized to preserve sightlines, the terrace was covered for year-round use, and stepped outdoor seating maintains clear views from the interior. These interventions transformed the home, combining interior and exterior spaces into one expansive, cohesive environment that maximizes the stunning views.

Amagansett Addition

The client, a bachelor with a home perched on a bluff above Amagansett Beach, needed more space to host friends and family during the summer, prompting the design of a 5,000-square-foot modular guest house addition that preserves the existing residence while enhancing connections to the expansive ocean views. A large auto court was introduced for guest arrival, complemented by a new site-built garage cantilevered from the bluff, where a hydraulically operated glass door and full-height glazing maintain sightlines to the water. Cedar trellises guide visitors from the gravel court to the guest house entry, while screen walls create privacy for the original home. The entry acts as a bridge between old and new, allowing the client to separate the main house when desired, and pocketing glass doors preserve views across the property. The addition includes a site-built squash court and glass-lined corridors leading to a generous living area designed for poolside entertaining, with folding glass doors along the south façade opening fully to the deck and ocean beyond. Exterior stairs from the pool deck lead to a full roof deck featuring a turf bocce court, oversized fire pit, and custom stainless-steel hot tub, offering even broader views. The lower level contains a gym and five guest suites facing the garden, each with sliding glass doors, built-in Baltic birch beds, and ensuite baths. A garden bridge extends the experience into the wooded hillside, ending at a quiet deck with a fire pit and hammock for secluded stargazing.

Photographer's Studio

The Photographer’s Studio balances a spacious working environment with Austin’s zoning rules and a shared appreciation for expressive architecture. What began as a simple plan for a small backyard studio was reshaped by setback and tree-protection requirements, resulting in an addition that contrasts the original Austin home with a distinct new form. A bright, nature-connected den links the dining room to the studio, featuring a wood screen floating above a stone threshold that marks the limits of the original structure. Behind the den’s back wall, a compact laundry room and full bathroom maximize functionality. The building’s dyed stucco exterior is defined by angled expansion joints that continue into the chamfered deck, carefully shaped to avoid the root zone of a nearby pecan tree. Materials from both the old house and the new studio fold into the den, strengthening the dialogue between past and present and enhancing the indoor-outdoor connection. Inside, the studio provides a versatile, high-ceilinged workspace equipped with a hoist, metal railing for clamping gear, and flexible lighting supported by skylights and recessed fixtures. The articulated mezzanine rises from practical needs, stepping back to preserve double-height space while remaining easy to access. The resulting design emerges from the interplay between zoning height limits and the owners’ vision, forming an unexpected structure that subtly rises above the original house—reserved yet impossible to overlook.

Oak Street Residence

This single-story homeisdesignedas a courtyard home, wrapping around a leaning Australian Tea Tree that holds a significant place in the owner's heart. The kitchen, gallery-like hallway, master suite and small temple look out onto this courtyard which faces south and fills the entire home with light. The owner's prodigious art collection informed the design of each space, with clerestories throughout helping define spaces and balance the natural light. A display wall at the entry creates a transition between inside and out and helps create a defined dining room within an open plan. This wall begins the procession down the spine of the house, the entirety of which has polished concrete floors. Two small cottages were taken down to make room for the new home and old growth redwood boards from these original structures was carefully removed, sanded down and reused as accents throughout the new home. In-slab radiant heat and environmentally sensitive materials throughout complement the design aesthetic. The 2,500 square foot house with four bedrooms and 4½ baths was completed in 2019.

Lake Manitouwabing Residence / MJMA

A Toronto family commissioned a new four-season residence on a west-facing peninsula to replace their 1930s home, aiming to maximize outdoor living and entertaining. The modern structure is designed to cascade and hover over the landscape, blending with its surroundings while maintaining a quiet presence from the water. An interlocking plan organizes indoor spaces around a central outdoor living area, creating a sheltered microclimate for year-round use. The rectangular plan carves terraces, courtyards, a levitating lake deck, and a screened porch, while flat roofs, inspired by mid-century precedents, float outward to frame the Canadian shield horizon. The design divides the home into three east-west program bars, with public living on the southwest and private areas on the northeast, framing the outdoor space in between. A central courtyard features a clefted rock, anchoring the project to its site, while a clerestory “sharkfin” roof captures morning light. The residence sits low on the land, stepping with the grade, backed by pines, and oriented to collect warmth, light, and lake views throughout the day. Passive design strategies include deep overhangs, large south- and west-facing glazing, heavily insulated north and east façades, operable windows for cross ventilation, and concrete radiant floor heating. Sustainable systems such as a high-efficiency boiler, HRV, and wood stove reduce energy use, while R-35 roofs and low-E glazing optimize performance. The design reuses site clearing, protects existing trees, and emphasizes natural materials, large operable openings, and sheltered outdoor spaces to encourage health, wellness, and social engagement. Fluid indoor-outdoor connections, abundant light, and a humble, contextual form create a home that harmonizes with the site, extends outdoor living through the seasons, and responds to both client needs and the natural environment.

Tetra House

Tetra House is a single-family residence located in the lively neighborhood of South Austin. The project is unique in the client/tenant also being the builder, allowing the design process to be tightly integrated and informed by the construction process and details. The house is designed to be inward-looking, centered around a small, intimate courtyard containing a pool and a gravel garden with Japanese maple trees. The design pulls from a range of inspirations, from the constructivist paintings of El Lissitzky to Mexican Modernism from the 50s and 60s. The house is envisioned as a series of volumes and surfaces that are layered and intersecting, but never quite coinciding. This has the effect of both minimizing the presence of the house along the streetscape and creating a series of strategic vantage points within and around the house. As the client comes from a family of builders, his desire to utilize a longstanding craft within their company/family led to the use of poured-in-place concrete walls as one of the primary elements of the house. Additionally, as one of the primary inspirations came from Mexican Modernism, this informed the strong emphasis on poured-in-place concrete and the courtyard house typology - central elements to that style.

Manini`owali 3

Situated on 1.5 acres of raw volcanic land within an exclusive resort community in Hawaii, the custom 9,100 square foot home serves as an oasis from the unforgiving Hawaiian sun. The contemporary residence is designed to capture amazing views of the Kua Bay and Maui's Haleakala Mountain to the west, Hualalai Mountain to the east, and a sacred cinder cone, Pu\`uKuili, to the south. The client desired a porous home, where their beloved dog could run around, yet remain enclosed within the compound. The private and public zones of the home are organized around a series of courtyards and ponds. The courtyards create visual transparency through the main living spaces, bringing the outside in, and help in cooling the interior spaces. A simple yet durable material palette of split-face Andesite stone imported from Bali, Indonesia, stained rift-cut White Oak wood, and rendered cement plaster are carefully detailed. The gable roof forms and zinc metal roofing are reminiscent of the Big Island ranch home vernacular.

Camp Frio

A multi-family compound rises from a remote, grassy valley on the bank of the Frio River deep in the Texas Hill Country. The goal for this project was to create shelters with an environmental experience unique to its place where Summer madness gives way to Winter stillness. Where city life and digital stimulation are replaced by the experience of feeling a cool breeze or snuggling up to a warm fire. Structures consist of a main house, meditation room over art studio/garage, and two guest studio cottages. Main house and cottages are linked by a slightly elevated walkway which enables barefoot kids to run back and forth over the tall grass and creepie crawlers. Much like "Dogtrot" shelters from the past, a "breezeway" book ended by concealed multi-slide doors, bisects the main house enabling alfresco dining most of the year; alternatively, the space is zoned and can be enclosed for heating. Screened porches, front and back, envelope cozy living chambers. Secondary sleeping spaces occupy an attic that spans the rear porch of the main house while cottages feature open "kid's" lofts. Structures were detailed for simplicity of construction with readily available, local materials and fashioned by local tradesmen. Reporting after their first weekend in camp, the Owner enthusiastically announced that spaces "are cozy... but ample and gracious; dark and moody.... but bright and airy."

Choice Auto & Truck

RoadRunner Residence

The RoadRunner Residence aims to inject new life into a classic design. The flat-roofed single story home completed in 2014 looks as if it is floating, nestled comfortably within the trees of the Texas hill country. Having lived in Chicago for quite some time, the clients had the opportunity to visit and fall in love with the Farnsworth House by Mies Van der Rohe. When they eventually moved to [Austin](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/austin), they wanted to bring a piece of that beauty with them. They then decided to build a home that would be reminiscent of the classic design of the Farnsworth House, but being located in the Wild Basin preserve, perched on a hillside to maximize the connection to the beautiful rolling landscape that surrounds it. The façade facing the preserve is mostly glass with minimal interruptions, and provides some of the most stunning views of Texas. White stucco highlights dancing shadows of the surrounding tree canopies. The residence maintains a strong connection to the surrounding environment, providing a large living space that opens directly to a wide deck for relaxing with friends and family surrounded by the wilderness.

Quonset Project

Architect + Developer Brett Farrow has re-purposed a defunct auto repair shop and converted it into a new design and entertainment venue. Located in the Southern California beach town of [Carlsbad](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/carlsbad), the approximately 8,347 sf project includes a design studio, cocktail bar, restaurant, café, and wine tasting room. The Quonset Project, named after and inspired by the existing WWII era Quonset hut on the site, was initially conceived to be a new mixed-use development. But, the buildings' unique character, patinas, large volumes and readymade courtyard space inspired a different approach. The core vision for the project was to create a place that had activity, creativity and life from sunrise to midnight every day. To achieve this effect tenants were selected based on how they would contribute to this goal. The result is a destination that has brought much needed vitality to the area. The chain link and cyclone wire fences that originally ringed the site were dropped in order to de-privatize the space and offer to the public a short cut to the adjacent train station to the rear. The existing structures were then configured to open onto a shared courtyard passage space with a simple, spare landscape concept that transformed the former driveway and parking lot into a year round dining and gathering space. The landscape palate consists of three mature olive trees, craned into position, left in their boxes, and clad with redwood and metal. The existing structures themselves were primarily pre-fabricated and included the previously mentioned Quonset hut, a Butler Building and an open sided carport. Building on this industrial legacy the layers of haphazard additions were peeled back to reveal natural and fundamental building materials which were then exposed and expressed as part of the new design. Western red cedar siding, zincalume panels and large sectional garage doors were used throughout the remodeled spaces.

O-asis House

Nestled on the north side of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, a previously neglected horse property site has been transformed into 'O-asis,' a solar-powered home by Phoenix-based firm The Ranch Mine. The smart home, shaped as an ‘O,’ harmonizes modern living with sunlight, music, and the native desert environment, sitting just 12.5 feet tall and partially enclosed by a rusted steel rattlesnake fence. Its white stucco exterior features recessed Ipe wood niches, and its strong horizontal form frames the dramatic desert landscape. The pool extends from the circular plan, oriented toward southern mountain views, and is capped with a built-in fire pit bench, creating a place to relax under sun or stars. The surrounding landscape showcases elevated native Sonoran desert plants to encourage biodiversity while topography is shaped to connect natural drainage and habitats and provide privacy. A central courtyard, a time-tested desert strategy, brings indirect natural light, fresh air, and evolving plant displays into the home. Pocketing glass doors on either side of the living space enable seamless indoor/outdoor flow and natural ventilation, transforming the main areas into covered open-air spaces in seconds. Inside, walnut slats backed with acoustic felt enhance sound quality for the homeowner, a pianist who can record music and have it play throughout the day, complementing the dynamic courtyard. Nearly all home systems—including lights, speakers, blinds, locks, and cameras—are wirelessly controlled, creating a fully integrated, responsive living environment.

Vista Drive Pavilion

The Vista Drive Pavilion, inspired by artist Robert Kelly, is a striking interplay of solids and voids with varying levels of transparency. The charcoal trapezoid structure is topped with a distinctive five-ridge metal roof, under which public spaces remain open and inviting while private rooms are intimate and comforting. Interior ceilings follow the rooflines, creating unique spatial configurations that refract natural light, lower over private areas and taller over public zones, connecting the interior visually and physically to surrounding gardens. White walls and white oak floors establish a restrained modern palette, while the dark central kitchen anchors the plan as the heart of the home, with spaces radiating outward in a dynamic play of solids and voids. In the evening, the blackened exterior recedes into darkness, leaving a floating silhouette punctuated by portals of light. The south-facing roof integrates a 14 kW photovoltaic system, designed to maximize efficiency while blending seamlessly with the dark metal. A high-performing envelope uses Zip-R continuous exterior insulation to achieve R-27 walls with R-6 continuous insulation, giving the house a sense of floating lightness, enabling flush-integrated downspouts and gutters, and supporting its highly insulated, modern design.

Canyon House

Emerging from the desert, **canyon house **is equal parts landform and a mechanism for viewing. Stoic on the exterior, **canyon house **blurs the boundary between inside and outby imprinting the exterior environment onto the interior of the home. Sited to frame the Catalina Mountains to the north and the Tucson Mountains to the southwest, the overriding intent was for the clients to live 'in the view' with sensory immersion being the driving concept and effect of the architecture. Conceptually, **canyon house **is ordered around an immersive experience that recalls the proto-cinematic effects of 18th and 19th century cycloramas. The manifestation of the immersive experience is the canyon-like living space at the center of the home. Flanked on the east and west by the service and bedroom wings, and looking north and south, 'the canyon' is also defined by a horizontal datum. Below this seven-foot datum, life is organized; above, the interior of the home reaches up to ephemera in the form of a 'clerestory' surface. At the window walls, the panels above the datum afford mountain-top views, while the side wall clerestory captures oblique reflections that shift as the occupants move throughout the house. The effect is for distant panoramas to enter and wrap the interior of the home. Thresholds from the canyon to the wings of the home shift attention away from the sweeping vistas, towards intimate spaces and individual moments. **canyon house **engages perceptions through constructed ambiguities between inside and outside, captured in reflected likenesses that augment the senses.

The Sanctuary House

The clients of The Sanctuary, recent empty-nesters planning ahead to retirement, hoped to downsize and simplify in the design of their new Palo Alto home. When the clients purchased the property, an old wooden fence across the front yard and the original house closed off the site from the street. Behind this rough and aged presentation, however, was an urban refuge of lush vegetation throughout the deep lot. This sense of discovery served as the original inspiration for the design of the house and directed both architect and client to its culmination. The proximity of the downtown [Palo Alto](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/palo-alto) area by foot and bike was fundamental to the clients' decision to purchase this lot, and their belief in the building to a higher density in an urban setting leads to the inclusion of a second-story apartment. The couple fell in love with the overgrown garden and its obvious potential, approaching Ground Studio to help them enhance the landscape; retaining scenes of serenity and surprise while creating more of a cohesive and modern feel. Through their collaboration with the landscape team, the clients connected with Feldman Architecture, bringing with them a desire to design a long-lasting modern house that fit comfortably into the surrounding neighborhood while featuring its unique and charming landscape.

The Addison

Escobar Renovation / Chen + Suchart Studio

The Escobar Renovation in Phoenix’s historic F.Q. Story neighborhood revitalizes a 1930s English Tudor-style home while respecting its architectural heritage. Originally a 1,100-square-foot home divided into small, enclosed spaces, the renovation reimagines the interior to meet contemporary living needs. Walls in the main public areas were removed to create a unified living, dining, and kitchen space, with vaulted ceilings over the living room and original ceiling heights maintained in the dining and kitchen areas. The space flows seamlessly to the backyard through operable sliding glass doors, blurring the line between interior and exterior. A 400-square-foot addition introduces a master bedroom and bathroom, clad in charcoal standing seam metal that continues from wall to roof, establishing a unified materiality. Full-height glazing and a cantilevered patio connect the addition to the existing home, while the gabled form of the addition engages in a dialogue with the Tudor language without mimicking it. Skylights in the master bathroom provide natural light while maintaining privacy, and the design reinterprets traditional iconography in a modern context. Overall, the project balances historic preservation with contemporary functionality, creating an expansive, light-filled environment that respects the character of the 1930s home while introducing a distinctly modern architectural language.

Trail House

The most recent addition to the 105-acre Enchantment Resort in Sedona, Arizona was designed with the mountain biker, hiker, and nature lover in mind. The resort is set in Boynton Canyon, a red-rock box canyon nestled in the Coconino National Forest, providing a stunning base camp for outdoor adventures. To respond to the natural beauty of the site, Gluckman Tang Architects worked with the resort to create Trail House, a 4,000 SF activity center that serves as the gathering point for resort guests who are interested in hiking the trails, mountain biking, or otherwise soaking in the red rock vistas that are unique to Sedona.

Franzen House

This new house, located in Mohican Hills Maryland is constructed on a steeply sloping, wooded site. Distant views of the Potomac River are afforded in the late fall, winter and early spring. A simple rectangular volume, the house is revealed as a two-story structure seen from the street. This extends an additional two stories on the opposite elevation to take advantage of the steep grade, resulting in a four-story volume facing the Potomac River. The house is anchored into the earth with two concrete end walls, extending all four stories. Wood framed walls clad In Shou Sugi Ban with minimal fenestration connect the two concrete walls at the front of the house. On the woodland side, the four-story infill is mostly glass. This is articulated in the fenestration and the exterior material choices. A series of decks and balconies extend from the glass façade to provide outdoor living experiences at each of the four levels on the wooded side. The street side remains relatively solid, with mostly service and utility core elements dedicated to that side. Corten panels and a wood fence define a private front yard. Access to the house is provided with a bridge extending from the street. The end of the bridge provides a platform with a panoramic vista towards the woods and a moment to pause before proceeding towards the front door. The path to the front door and vertical movement connecting the four levels are carefully orchestrated with selected landscape views and visual connections into a double height living space, that organizes the composition. The project is modulated as a series of experiences that lead you away from the street and ultimately into a tranquil environment to enjoy the serene, wooded landscape.

Cornish House

Brett Farrow Architect’s residence in Encinitas, Southern California, occupies a small, irregular 2,727-square-foot trapezoidal lot, designed to maximize panoramic ocean views. The two-bedroom home features a reverse floor plan, placing living, dining, and kitchen areas on the upper level to capture vistas, while bedrooms below open onto private courtyard gardens. The trapezoidal site shaped both the plan and elevations, including a 1:12-sloped roofline and butt-glazed corner windows that visually extend interior space to the outdoors. Large overhangs and exposed structural wood beams stretch ceiling lines while controlling western sunlight and welcoming morning light through a ribbon window framing eastern tree and hill views. Materials emphasize simplicity and durability, with Western Red Cedar board-and-batten exterior cladding contrasted by dark metal windows, and interior finishes that reveal the structure itself. Bi-folding doors connect bedrooms and dining areas to exterior decks and gardens, while a double-sided low fireplace organizes the split-level living and dining spaces and provides warmth. The entry features a custom gate, low concrete walls, and a water feature that buffers street noise and enhances the garden’s contemplative quality. Despite the dense neighborhood, the home maintains privacy, openness, and a strong connection to the coastal environment, thoughtfully responding to site constraints, climate, and views while creating a serene and functional living experience.

Star Apartments

The six-story, 95,000 sf Star Apartments expands upon the client's model of providing permanent supportive housing within the downtown core of Los Angeles. The building is organized around three principal spatial zones, stacked one upon the other: a commercial/retail zone at street level; a second level for community programs; and four terraced floors of residences above. The building design facilitates a recovery process for homeless residents based on positive re-socialization, healthy interpersonal relations, and wellness. The client and design team led numerous community design sessions with residents as well as property management and resident services staff to attain feedback that directly impacted the design. The project seeks to not only improve the quality of life for residents but to inspire a sense of pride, independence, and dignity. The welcoming first floor includes the new headquarters of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) Housing for Health Division and a medical clinic with five exam rooms operated by the DHS. Offices for supportive services and the property manager are situated on this floor along with 25 indoor parking spaces. Wrap-around storefront glazing brings in natural light to the ground floor spaces.

Aston Hotels & Resorts

Split Box House

The Split Box House, for a busy working couple and their three children, is located near Emory University and the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia. The clients wanted a house that is a quiet, restrained, escape from the excessively noisy digital world that overly stimulates their daily lives and is a reaction to the surrounding banal spec homes each a louder spectacle than the next. Simple and clean in its form the house started as a twenty-two foot wide extruded box. That width was chosen based on the distance a reasonable-sized wood truss can span. This ensured that no interior support walls were required allowing for an uncomplicated open floor plan. Arranged in an efficient pattern to eliminate waste, the primary exterior cladding of the box is a low-maintenance grey cement panel. The panels, attached as an open joint ventilated rain-screen system, help manage moisture intrusion and reduce energy consumption. Cut to the desired length based on the space requirements of the family, the box is subsequently split into public and private volumes allowing for a clear delineation between functions. The private portion is rotated ninety degrees around the sky-lit stair hall to maximize views of the serene woods behind the house. A complimentary warm ipe wood, alluding to the softer interiors of the house, clads the cuts. The exposed roofs are covered with vegetation to reduce stormwater runoff, mitigate energy consumption, and improve air quality. Comprised of the bedrooms upstairs and the guesthouse on the main level, the private functions bridge across a covered breezeway creating an outdoor room with a view corridor to the woods and access to the main and guest house entrances.

Park Hyatt Aviara luxury resort

Contemporary River House

This sleek riverfront house was designed to serve as a second home. The objective was to create a streamlined, minimalist space that included an open living area, modestly sized master suite, and thoughtful storage options. Visitors approach the property via a long drive that leads into an enclosed parking courtyard. Here, the waterfront is deliberately obscured, creating a slow reveal that delivers its payoff inside, where a 17-foot glass wall frames a striking river views. Large window panels along the southeast corner fold back accordion-style, exposing the interior to the outdoors. The porch is covered by the roof's 16-foot overhang, which triples the home's living space and facilitates entertaining. Guests can wander from the porch to the pool area, where the raised wall that surrounds it eliminates the need for standard fencing and allows the pool area to blend into the landscape. The pool house was sited to align with the waterfront and includes a separate guest quarters with a changing room, bath, bedroom and outdoor shower. When viewed from the river, the black Boral siding gives the impression that the house is receding into the landscape.

Church Street Residence

The vision for the Church Street Residence was a bold, Modernist, infill within an existing wall of non-descript urban "streetscape" punctuated by the Church Street spires, in response to the energy and bustle of the road and street cars below, a white "living cube" lifted above the sidewalk was conceived.

Element in Marina del Rey

STAAB Residence

Set within a neighborhood of larger homes on one-acre lots, this project intentionally distances itself from the immediate context, instead framing distant views of the McDowell Mountains to the north and the valley to the south and southwest. The design organizes the house around a protected courtyard and pool area on the lower level, contrasting with expansive upper-level vistas. The residence is composed of sand-blasted 12-8-16 masonry walls, solid and minimally pierced to ensure privacy and filter out neighboring development, supporting a stainless steel and glass-clad floating volume above. Strategic openings in the masonry at the entry courtyard and guest bedroom provide light and air, while a weathering steel-clad garage volume shields the backyard from neighbors. Entry is framed by a monolithic field of desert grasses and a portal formed by masonry walls, guiding visitors through a contemplative garden that transitions focus from the immediate neighborhood to the distant mountains. Inside, the main living spaces flow as a single, uninterrupted volume, opening seamlessly to the pool and backyard through disappearing sliding glass panels. The entry garden is visually integrated into the interior experience via open stair design, reinforcing the connection between private landscape, distant views, and the architectural composition.

Preston Hollow Residence

The Preston Hollow residence was designed for a couple looking to create a home that would accommodate their growing art collection while maximizing the natural beauty of its surroundings. Located on an unusual lot of just over 1 acre in the Preston Hollow neighborhood of Dallas, the home is strategically sited to offer expansive views from the primary living spaces, drawing the eye to the horizon. A series of exterior and interior planes were used to frame these views, blurring the boundaries between indoor and outdoor spaces. Positioned toward the back of the lot, the house creates a private courtyard with a lawn and pool terrace at its center, while also offering long, sweeping views from the front, making the landscape feel vast and open. Designed by Bodron+Fruit, the home provides privacy on an exposed corner lot, buffered by the surrounding landscape. The architecture and interiors are unified by a rich yet subdued palette, with natural materials like marble, limestone, and white oak complementing the owner’s art collection. Furniture selections emphasize clean lines, comfort, and varying textures. Architectural details such as a decorative pivoting metal gate and custom door hardware add finishing touches to the design. To mitigate the Texas heat, the west side of the home features solid light-colored limestone, while the south and east facades incorporate large glass expanses with deep overhangs to optimize natural light and minimize heat gain. Motorized shading is used to control sunlight when necessary. The home also incorporates sustainable features, including 26 solar panels that reduce energy consumption and even return power to the grid. Stormwater from the roof is collected in a 10,000-gallon underground cistern for irrigation, and the house utilizes geothermal heating and cooling along with foam insulation to reduce its environmental impact.

Ventana House

Nestled at the base of the Catalina mountains adjacent to a protected peak, the Ventana House is a window on the desert. The two-story dwelling rises from its mountainside setting like a geological outcropping, a rugged exterior form shaped from within by openings that afford panoramic views. Like a geode, the light-filled and refined interior is a contrast and a surprise. The main living spaces of the home are located above the desert floor, connecting the home's inhabitants to a foreground of saguaro forest and the distant horizon. The entry sequence into the home begins at a notched erosion in the exterior massing. Movement is reoriented up a sculptural stair that occupies a double-height skylighted gallery. The threshold at this moment of vertical ascension is further defined by a bridge that passes overhead. Clad in steel perforated panels, the bridge filters light from above and offers glimpses of experiences to come. Upon arrival at the main living space of the home, the form of the interior volume adjusts again, marked by a sloped ceiling that echoes the silhouettes of the distant foothills. Clad in alder panels, the ceiling becomes an organizing datum, mapping activities and interactions below: dining, cooking, conversing, and relaxing. Minimally detailed cabinet elements further inform inhabitation, acting as a subtle backdrop to the main feature: daily life in a desert oasis. The initial conception of the home was shaped during an early visit to the native site with the clients. The picturesque natural character of the site was unmistakable. Less obvious was the opportunity for the prospect, which revealed itself upon us climbing a large mesquite tree to gain access to potential views. It was from this perch that the sequence and organization of the home became clear. The heart of the home as realized - the kitchen - occupies the prospect of the mesquite that we'd climbed together.

North Adams House

This new house in Arlington, Virginia is located on a small corner lot amid houses of varying architectural styles built at different times over the last century. Zoning requirements provided an opportunity to design a site plan that simultaneously respects the setback requirements of the neighborhood and diminishes the line between public and private space on the corner of this suburban intersection. Material transparency paired with a low garden brings a connection to suburban street life that the other houses on the street do not achieve. As a corner parcel, the structure is surrounded by green space on all sides between the sidewalks and roads. Floor-to-ceiling glass in the main living area affords views of the garden and provides windows to observe the busy pedestrian activity found at this intersection. Two motorized screens of varying opacity extend from ceiling pockets to modulate solar gain and privacy as desired.

Inverse House

Inverse House is a bold renovation of a dwelling situated along the 14th hole of Austin Country Club's golf course, reimagining the traditional two-story home by flipping the relationship between public and private spaces. In this design, the common living areas, including the kitchen and dining rooms, are elevated to the second floor to take advantage of sweeping views of the golf course, while private family spaces are tucked below. The project also reinterprets the home's key architectural features as their opposites: the gable roof is inverted to form a butterfly shape, the kitchen and dining areas swap places with the private owners' suite, and what was once interior space is transformed into an outdoor patio. These inversions reshape the once-dark, segmented interior into an open, light-filled plan. The design responds to a homeowners' association requirement for opaque stone walls on two sides by creating a series of thoughtful moves that sculpt light and space. Clerestory windows were added to the inverted roof, bringing sunlight deep into the home, while light wells and interior circulation spaces pull away from the exterior walls, connecting the interior with the outdoors. A large window at the street level family room and skylights above allow light to penetrate and wash down the walls. The owners' suite features a private patio, enhancing both light and privacy. Natural materials, such as Texas limestone, white oak, and stained maple, ground the design, complemented by metal panels, glass, and brass hardware that will patina over time. On the exterior, light limestone walls define the existing structure, while dark metal panels and glass give rise to new geometries, integrating the home with its surroundings while offering a fresh, dynamic perspective.

Amagansett Addition / Resolution 4 Architecture

The client, a bachelor, sought to enhance his existing home overlooking Amagansett Beach to better accommodate his large family and friends during the summer. The original house, with its stunning panoramic ocean views from the pool deck, remained intact while a 5,000 square-foot modular guest house addition was designed to integrate seamlessly with the site. A new auto court was created for guest entry, and a cantilevered garage with a large hydraulically-operated glass door was built off the bluff, maintaining ocean views from the court. Cedar trellises guide guests to the guest house, and screen walls provide privacy at the main house entry. The guest house's entry area bridges the existing and new structures, offering the flexibility to close off the main house for privacy. Inside, the addition features a site-built squash court, glass corridors leading to a spacious living area designed for large gatherings, and folding glass doors that open the entire south façade to outdoor decks and uninterrupted ocean views. A roof deck, accessible from exterior stairs, offers even more views and includes a turf-covered bocce court, fire pit, and custom hot tub. The lower level contains a home gym and five guest bedroom suites, each with sliding glass doors leading to the garden and private access. The bedrooms feature built-in Baltic birch beds and ensuite bathrooms. A garden bridge leads to a secluded deck on a wooded hilltop, complete with a fire pit and hammock for stargazing, providing an intimate retreat for guests.

The Cresta

The Cresta is a 5,300 sq foot single-family residence designed and constructed entirely out of cast in place concrete on a 5,000 sq ft lot in the Lower Hermosa region of La Jolla, CA . The house's three stories, one below and two above grade, are accented by floor to ceiling glass and large open expanses to the outdoors. Beginning as solid form the final product still maintains that form instead through roof planes and vertical walls that create both interior and exterior volumes. Due to the unordinary small property in an area with typical properties three to four times the size every square foot was important. The exterior room was a key element in creating a home that otherwise would have felt small feel larger and more private that it is. While this space creates a void the buildings overall form is kept intact. All four corners remain with walls and roof planes to define the original box of the residence. Adjacent to the front of the structure a reflecting and swimming pool has been integrated into the overall design of the project for thermal cooling and create the perception of floating. Due to the large expanses of operable glass, the thermal mass of the concrete, sun shading and the insulating effect of the pool the 6.5kw solar array on the roof accomplishes supplying nearly 100% of the homes required power.

Koloa Landing Resort & Villas

White Oak Music Hall

White Oak Music Hall will reopen a converted warehouse space as Raven Tower Pavilion SCHAUM/SHIEH, Houston and New Yorkbased architects, have designed a dynamic cluster of music venues in Houston consisting of The White Oak Music Hall, The Lawn, and Raven Tower Pavilion. The project is a sevenacre assemblage of new and adapted buildings, open-air structures, landscaped areas, and paved and decked surfaces along the Little White Oak Bayou. Pieced together from one large main site and a collection of smaller lots, the project is a unique example of urban infill, feathered into the fabric of the neighborhood on both sides of the bayou floodway and offering views of the Houston skyline. Owned and operated by a diverse and local group of live music fans and professionals, the venues offer a new state-of-the-art, transit-oriented cultural hub for the Near Northside neighborhood and for the city.

Canyon Lodge at Mammoth Mountain's Lincoln Bar

Telegraph Hill Periscope

After raising their family in the suburbs, the owners purchased "Periscope" as their empty nester city spot. Set on an urban alley on the south slope of Telegraph Hill, the 835-square-foot house lacked the space they needed. They also craved an open floor plan which the Victorian-era layout lacked. Over the years the home had become engulfed by taller and denser buildings blocking natural light and views. The challenge was not only to gain light but also to recapture the breathtaking views. The home is comprised of two levels, a Lower and an Upper Level. The Master Bedroom Suite is located at the rear of the Lower Level to maximize privacy and quiet. It's partially sunken to gain ceiling height. To expand the depth of the Lower Level, the adjacent Courtyard is treated like a room, with walls but on the ceiling. The dark stained wood boards of the rear façade turn and extend along the side and rear property lines. At the Upper Level, the living spaces have been relocated to the rear of the house to capture light and partial views through a new wall of glass. A new staircase connects the levels. This vertical spine (periscope) projects up onto the roof to access a new Sunroom-Roof Deck. These rooftop spaces fully capture the spectacular views while blurring the line between interior and exterior space. The transformed 1,655-square-foot home offers a thoroughly livable modern enclave within one of San Francisco's most historic neighborhoods.

Lichen House

The Lichen House works in concert with nature's mechanisms, not to mimic them blindly, but to expand our understanding and experience of them through architecture. The site's prevalent lichen communities establish an ethos of fostering symbiotic, rather than dominant, relationships between the built and unbuilt worlds. The lichen's ability to freely seek out and extend its net towards sustainable conditions also inspires a fluidity of movement and gesture in the architecture. Integral to the concept and design of the Lichen House is a porous and breathable building envelope accepting, filtering, and processing external conditions much like the lichen that inspires the design. The site's abundant lichen only thrives under specific advantageous environmental conditions, morphing its orientation, porosity and geometry to suit its site--a practical and functional metaphor for our own building performance goals. Beginning with the strategic solar orientation and geometry, the Lichen House owes its form to passive thermal tactics - the maximization of daylight and expansive southern views protected by a deep overhanging shade trellis. The lichen trellis filters the high summer sun and allows solar heat gain in the winter when the sun is low in the sky. Inspired by the breathable filter of the lichen's net, a south facing unconditioned hallway space with a series of operable windows along the private wing of the home serves as an interstitial buffer zone. This buffer zone simultaneously protects the sleeping quarters from direct southern exposure, dampening heat loss and heat gain while also promoting natural airflow -effectively minimizing the conditioned floor area and required heating/cooling loads of the house.

The Lichen House

The precise relationship between lichen and its host provides inspiration for an architecture specifically tailored to its site ‐‐ both as a response to it and as an augmentation of its best attributes. The Lichen House works in concert with nature's mechanisms, not to mimic them blindly, but to expand our understanding and experience of them through architecture. The **Lichen House** nestles within the fog and oaks in the hills above California's Sonoma Valley. The free‐ranging branches of the site's mature live and coastal oak trees support veils of draping Ramalina Lichen that filter sunlight, capture moisture and nutrients for their hosts, and remove pollutants from the air through photosynthesis. A hypersensitive organism, Lichen retreats or dies in adverse or contaminated environments but quickly expands its net with conditions advantageous for growth. It is a bellwether for the environmental health of this unique microclimate. Beginning with its strategic solar orientation and geometry, the Lichen House owes its form to passive thermal tactics ‐ the maximization of daylight and expansive southern views protected by a deep overhanging shade trellis. The undulating metal fin trellis is both a formal reference to the surrounding lichen's geometry as well as a spatial reference by recreating the filtered dappled light of the lace lichen's net. It filters the high summer sun and allows solar heat gain in the winter when the sun is low in the sky.

Muse La Jolla

Canopy House / Rob Paulus Architects

_ _This renovation for a physician and author opens the house up in plan and section to embrace the lush landscape of its desert site while improving the flow and experience of the property. New forms are crisp and clean to contrast with the heavy and rounded vocabulary of the existing building. Using a reductive approach on the interior, walls are taken down to provide better function, circulation and views. On the exterior, an existing trellis porch is transformed into an outdoor living room and kitchen with a new raised canopy. This 20 x 40 foot rectangle of wood and steel lifts up and over the existing house to provide more light and views to the lush courtyard oasis and big, blue sky of the Sonoran Desert. A natural material and color palette dominates the new scheme with an emphasis on Douglas Fir wood that was influenced by the clients desire to create nature inspired spaces. This warm wood is used on all interior cabinetry but also appears on the exterior as the underside of the roof plane that hovers over the outdoor living area. The existing closed in house is transformed to engage the outdoors while creating calming interior space in a decidedly modern overhaul.

White Oak Music Hall

SCHAUM/SHIEH, [Houston](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/houston) and New York based architects, have designed a dynamic cluster of music venues in Houston consisting of The White Oak Music Hall, The Lawn, and Raven Tower Pavilion. The project is a seven acre assemblage of new and adapted buildings, open-air structures, landscaped areas, and paved and decked surfaces along the Little White Oak Bayou. Pieced together from one large main site and a collection of smaller lots, the project is a unique example of urban infill, feathered into the fabric of the neighborhood on both sides of the bayou floodway and offering views of the Houston skyline. Owned and operated by a diverse and local group of live music fans and professionals, the venues offer a new state-of-the-art, transit ­oriented cultural hub for the Near Northside neighborhood and for the city. White Oak Music Hall (WOMH) is the anchor of the project. Completed in 2017, the building houses two performance halls: WOMH Downstairs and WOMH Upstairs. With a 1200­person capacity, WOMH Downstairs is the main hall and the heart of the building, containing two levels lined with cedar slats that are spaced to acoustically tune the room and provide pockets for ambient lighting. WOMH Upstairs' 200­person capacity provides a more intimate setting for up-and-coming acts. Windows behind the stage allow audience members to peek at the skyline while watching a show. Throughout the building, the material palette is matter-of-fact and elemental: steel bar, concrete bar, wood bar. The aesthetic is deliberately direct: the circulation is painted in immersive bright colors that pop in contrast to the dark performance and tech rooms and mark the different zones of the building. Like the industrial buildings that have traditionally housed rock and roll venues, the building is built for vigorous use; the materials selected and detailed to sturdily meet and wear with the rough handling expected.

Bridge House

The Bridge House in Los Angeles was designed by Dan Brunn Architecture as a literal bridge, spanning nearly 20-meters over a natural stream that runs through the site. With approximately 400 square meters of floor area, the home is a dynamic spatial choreography of light and volume with windows and exterior spaces carefully designed to maximize indoor to outdoor connections. Countertops throughout the Bridge House are finished with Caesarstone. Low maintenance, each slab features a unique concrete texture that contrasts subtly and beautifully with the white walls and pale cedar board materials that surround. The refined quality of the home's material palette reflects the architect's minimalist aesthetic and 'less is more' philosophy. To afford guests optimal views of nature, Dan Brunn Architecture collaborated closely with Western Window Systems. Window configurations and openings are deliberate, creating vertical slots lined up precisely with surrounding trees. Floor-to-ceiling fixed windows in the kitchen and dining areas are located where the home crosses over the creek while three multi-slide doors opening to a courtyard act as an alfresco link between the home's public spaces (living room, dining room, kitchen and den) and its private bedrooms. By facing most of the glass away from direct sunlight and employing thermally broken aluminium and dual-pane low E-glass throughout, the team was also able to reduce the home's energy consumption.

The Window Backsplash Eichler

When the young couple purchased the home in the fall of 2019, they immediately hired Karina Marshall to redesign the main living space, including the kitchen, living room, dining room, and family room. There was an immediate alignment of aesthetics, evident in the accidentally matching outfits worn by the client and designer in the very first meeting. The aim was to bring the home back to its Eichler roots while modernizing the space. Wood, white, and black served as the clean palette for the new design that centered on a window backsplash that became an instant icon and top client-requested feature for BLAINE + Marshall Eichler designs. The brief was to redesign a kitchen, living room, dining room, and family room and bring the Eichler back to its roots.

Model Infill House

This house is located in Houston’s Near Northside, one of the city’s last intact nineteenth-century working-class neighborhoods, about a mile north of downtown. Designed as a prototype for future infill in this rapidly gentrifying area, the project embraces the ethos of adapting old urban fabric rather than replacing it. A detached 500-square-foot studio at the front of the lot serves as an architectural office and could be converted into a rental unit, while an adjacent carport with storage faces the street. The 1,500-square-foot main living area extends toward the rear, connected to the studio by a dog trot porch. The long, narrow plan creates an east-facing garden as the primary outdoor space, with walls composed of rows of operable aluminum casement windows to provide cross ventilation. Dark green walls and roof blend with vegetation while standing out among the neighborhood’s pastel-colored houses. The design respects the scale of surrounding homes while speaking in a contemporary voice, drawing on Texas Gulf Coast vernacular forms such as the shotgun house layout, dog trot porch, pier-and-beam foundation, steep-pitched gable roofs, and beveled East Texas yellow pine siding. Covered and open outdoor spaces allow year-round use in Houston’s subtropical climate. The house intentionally combines traditional and modern references, creating a subtle ambiguity in appearance through unconventional material combinations. The project follows the precedent set by Houston’s cultural patrons Dominique and John de Menil, whose architectural commissions, like the Menil Collection building, harmonize modernity with neighborhood context. Designed and built with sensitivity to its urban and historical context, the house demonstrates a contemporary yet respectful approach to infill housing.

MacArthur Annex / Baran Studio Architecture

Rooted in the experimental spirit of Archigram and Superstudio, this project explores adaptable, mobile architectural systems inspired by ideas like Plug-In City and Continuous Monument, which proposed that architecture could be playful, flexible, and not always dependent on architects. Building on robotic studies of how structures might evolve across different contexts, the project occupies a site beside a freeway and near mass transit, combining an existing structure with 33 reused shipping containers treated as Duchampian ready-mades. These containers serve as modular components that can be rearranged according to the needs of developers, residents, neighbors, and the city, forming a system that adapts to topography, light, sound, circulation, views, and programmatic demands. The stacked containers create an open framework that supports community growth, offering a base structure while occupants customize their spaces according to individual needs. This has resulted in a vibrant mix of uses, from a record shop and gallery to makers, designers, acupuncturists, and restaurateurs, producing a lively and sometimes chaotic texture. Located next to the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, the project omits car parking in favor of bikes and walkability, aligning with the dense Longfellow neighborhood. Abundant local shipping containers enable construction; their shells are modified for light, ventilation, and views while retaining structural integrity, and units are oriented to maximize daylight with treated glazing to reduce heat gain. An existing retail building on the site was reused for food and beverage spaces. The project ultimately creates an affordable, flexible economic model for small local businesses, filling a gap between shared workspaces and high-rent commercial units.

O-asis House

Nestled on the north side of the Phoenix mountain preserve sits a once neglected and underutilized site in a horse property neighborhood, now transformed into a secluded native habitat and respite from city life. 'Oasis' is a new, solar-powered home designed to integrate modern life with the timeless beauty of music, sunlight, and desert flora and fauna. 'Oasis' sits low in the desert at just 12.5 feet tall, partially surrounded by a rusted steel rattlesnake fence and finished in white stucco with recessed niches of wood. Its strong horizontal form was designed as a datum for highlighting the dramatic shapes of the desert landscape. The pool breaks from the 'O' shaped plan, drawing you out into the desert towards the mountain views to the south, and is capped by a built-in fire pit bench. The landscape is an elevated native Sonoran desert plant palate designed to encourage biodiversity for native flora and fauna within a landscape that is always evolving from season to season. Topography was finessed and exaggerated to connect natural drainage areas and habitats while providing strategic screening and privacy.

Big Fir Vineyard

Big Fir Vineyard is a single-family residence nestled in the hills of a designated wine grape-growing region in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The home is carefully sited to both take in and integrate with the surrounding landscape, following the slope of the land and the linear pattern of newly planted grapevines. The main axis of the house aligns with the vineyard’s 45-degree orientation, creating varied views of the cascading rows below, while indoor-outdoor connections visually extend the interior spaces. The main bedroom is positioned at the steepest slope, with an operable window at the foot of a custom bed framing views of the vines, giving the sensation of sleeping outdoors. Two notches in the floor plan define functional areas: one forms the entry vestibule and living area centered on a three-sided wood-burning fireplace, and the other separates the kitchen and dining while providing additional interior and exterior seating. Clerestory windows and translucent panels filter intense summer light, while board-and-batten cedar siding screens the home, offers privacy, and complements the agrarian setting. Materials were chosen to echo the surrounding landscape, including tinted concrete floors matching the local soil, cedar beams, plaster walls, and dark soapstone countertops. Multiple patios step down the slope with wood screens and colored concrete retaining walls, and the outdoor pavilion with a large fireplace creates a gathering space among the vines. Big Fir’s layered design balances independence and integration, connecting each space to the vineyard and landscape while maintaining a cohesive and harmonious home.

Los Altos Poolhouse / Framestudio

Originally built in 1966, this [Los Altos](https://www.archdaily.com/tag/los-altos) home is a single-level ranch style structure, ubiquitous in suburban neighborhoods throughout the United States. Inspired by hotel spas frequented while working overseas, the client tasked Framestudio to design an extension to the house that would accommodate a swim spa and home gym. The challenge was that the scope of work was restricted to the addition only. Nothing else was to be touched. Inspired by international historic preservation standards, Framestudio approached the existing home as if it were of subject to strict guidelines and unable to be significantly modified. The team established a visual language for the extension that contrasted with the existing home, creating a clear division between old and new. Inspired by modernist extensions to centuries old historic buildings in Europe, the Framestudio team created a dramatic angular glass volume, which we clad in weathered cedar, playing off the imagery of yard fences commonly found in suburban North America. The vertical cedar rainscreen, contrasting against the horizontality of the ranch house, serves as both cladding and privacy screen for the openings that face the neighboring home. The northern facing windows fill the space with natural light, eliminating the need for artificial lighting during the day. The operable skylights and exterior pocket doors allow the space to be ventilated naturally on warm days. The exterior lap siding of the home was preserved inside the new space, and paired with new marine-grade plywood cladding, adding a rich textural visual experience. Linear LED lighting was recessed along the perimeter to wash the walls with illumination and highlight the plywood grain.

Geode ADU

Geode ADU is a small (640 square feet) recently completed accessory dwelling unit that supplements and contrasts an existing mid-century modern Eichler house in Burlingame, CA. The client's brief requested a design for a writing studio and guest unit, as a 'place apart' from the main house and also an inspiring work of architecture -- both in its exterior form and materials, and in its interior spatial character. The design response evolved as a very particular three-dimensional form, with a polygonal plan and a section inflected to both slope and view. Helping to further shape the design were an unusually-shaped lot with significant topography which impacts the buildable footprint; strict zoning constraints regarding setbacks, size and height; the client's desire to maintain privacy from the street and neighboring properties; and a seemingly just out-of-reach easterly view toward the San Francisco Bay and beyond to the East Bay Hills, including Mount Diablo, on the opposite side of the existing Eichler house. The resulting form reinterprets the butterfly roof -- whereby one wing of the roof follows the adjacent slope to the west, while the other wing lifts a portion of the building off the ground, angled up toward the view to the East. When considered two-dimensionally, the butterfly roof can be seen as an inversion of the central gable of the existing Eichler house; but the more complex three-dimensional composition also suggests the ADU form can be understood as a positive projection of the negative space volume that is the atrium/courtyard at the center of the Eichler house. Geode ADU creates both an enveloping wrapper around its highly tailored inward-focused space, and an extension out toward the Eichler's rear yard patio. The resulting architectural form combines a certain sculptural autonomy with site-specificity, capitalizing on the spatial and experiential opportunities at hand.

THE SANCTUARY

The clients of The Sanctuary, recent empty-nesters planning ahead to retirement, hoped to downsize and simplify the design of their new Palo Alto home. When the clients purchased the property, an old wooden fence across the front yard and the original house closed off the site from the street. Behind this rough and aged presentation, however, was an urban refuge of lush vegetation throughout the deep lot. This sense of discovery served as the original inspiration for the design of the house and directed both architect and client to its culmination. The proximity of the downtown Palo Alto area by foot and bike was fundamental to the clients' decision to purchase this lot, and their belief in building to a higher density in an urban setting led to the inclusion of a second-story apartment. The couple fell in love with the overgrown garden and its obvious potential, approachingGround Studio Landscape to help them enhance the landscape; retaining scenes of serenity and surprise while creating more of a cohesive and modern feel. Through their collaboration with Ground Studio Landscape, the clients connected with our firm, bringing with them a desire to design a long-lasting modern house that fit comfortably into the surrounding neighborhood while featuring its unique and charming landscape.

Mohican Hills House

Mohican Hills, a small community in Glen Echo, Maryland near Washington, DC, is known for its high concentration of contemporary and mid-century modern homes. This new house is sited on a steep, sloping lot along the ridge, oriented to capture distant views of the Potomac River while preserving mature trees and an existing clearing. The linear composition of spaces is organized around a two-story living area with an open floor plan, integrating a high-ceilinged volume with adjacent intimate spaces. A first-floor office can convert into a fifth bedroom, while a three-story entry volume separates the master suite from subsidiary bedrooms. Expanses of glass provide daylighting and views into the wooded landscape, with solar-sensitive shades mitigating heat gain. A concrete slab throughout the main floor supports passive solar energy, stained dark to maximize heat absorption and storage. The house employs energy-efficient appliances, high-performance HVAC, insulated walls and ceilings, and a ventilated envelope to reduce fossil fuel use. Large operable windows and doors allow natural ventilation and direct outdoor access. Thermally modified, sustainably sourced wood siding offers a durable, non-toxic alternative to exotic hardwoods, reinforcing the home’s environmentally conscious design.

Paul Martin's American Grill

Five House

Five House is an accessory dwelling to a 1,643 square foot main residence. The project sought to embrace the existing historic mid-century modern main residence on the property and provide direct engagement between the entertaining decks, linear pool, and the new accessory structure. A thorough discovery and programming phase allowed the design team to understand specific aesthetic goals and function requirements of the compact footprint. Simplicity of form, complementary proportions, and planning efficiency were primary objectives for the design concept. The dwelling is designed on a strict five-foot planning grid, which not only reinforces the primary design objectives, but is also how its name was derived: Five House.

Hewn House / Matt Fajkus Architecture

The “Hewn House” in East Austin reinterprets the traditional cabin typology, balancing warmth and familiarity with a vacation-like retreat. Its design begins with classic cabin elements—a gable roof, wood-clad exterior, prominent fireplace, and indoor-outdoor connections—but is sculpted into a clean-lined, faceted form responsive to the urban infill site. Existing trees guided the geometry, providing natural shade and allowing the home to tuck discreetly into its leafy surroundings. Inside, natural light and coziness are prioritized: sliding glass doors connect the main living spaces to the backyard, clerestory windows frame tree canopy views, and cedar tongue-and-groove ceilings reinforce the indoor-outdoor bond. Earthy iron spot bricks around the fireplace create a material link between interior and exterior, while standing-seam roofing and dark gray stucco offer a contemporary counterpoint to the warm cedar. Sheltered outdoor spaces—from front porch to private patios—extend daily life outdoors, and a freestanding guest house is subtly connected via a private courtyard defined by a tall steel planter, completing the balance of privacy, openness, and connection to nature.

Indoor-Outdoor Living in Multi-Family Developments

Franklin Mountain House / hazelbaker rush

The Franklin Mountains rise 2,500 feet above the Rio Grande valley at the northern edge of El Paso, forming a rugged peninsula of wilderness within the urban landscape. Perched 800 feet above the city in the foothills, the home site overlooks a small canyon with unobstructed views of downtown El Paso and Juarez. The steep terrain is transformed into terraced gardens that slow water flow and create a cultivated oasis, enriched with native succulents, cacti, grasses, and aromatic herbs, forming a sustainable ecosystem for the family. The three-story home engages directly with the landscape at every level: utilitarian spaces occupy the ground floor, entertaining areas on the second, and private bedrooms and family spaces on the third. The eastern peaks delay morning sunlight, while the southern slope opens to a deep arroyo where golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, deer, rabbits, and even ring-tailed cats animate daily life. Sunsets transform the outdoor living room into a theater of color, overlooking the illuminated Juarez valley. The home’s massing draws inspiration from an abandoned quartz mine on site, with angular crystals scattered among weathered stones informing the design. A white lime stucco volume for private areas balances atop a basalt grey stone base built in the traditional rubble wall style, appearing to float from a distance. Materials both inside and out celebrate El Paso’s vernacular craft—stone masonry, smooth stucco, steelwork referencing the railroad, and leather accents recalling the region’s cowboy history—with black steel door handles and cabinet pulls softened by small leather details. Conventional, natural materials are employed in subtle, unconventional ways, elevating and refining the local craft while harmonizing the home with its dramatic mountain setting.

Hudson River House / Resolution 4 Architecture

After decades in Manhattan, a couple nearing retirement sought a compact home that could match the sweeping views of the Hudson River. The Hudson River House is elevated on thin steel columns to enhance vistas, with storage and a recreational area below, while the open, airy living space floats among the trees. The kitchen features a long island and low cabinetry to maintain sightlines, and the master suite incorporates built-in wardrobes and a bed with a lift-concealed TV, allowing uninterrupted views through floor-to-ceiling windows. The bath is open to the bedroom, and the home office, adjacent to the guest room, also maximizes the river panorama. A covered central deck with a firepit and drop-down screens transforms into a seasonal outdoor room, while the guest room uses a murphy bed for flexible use. Below, a lap pool and deck offer both exercise and shade. A winding gravel drive frames the approach, revealing the Hudson through the carport. The light-reflective façade, metal paneling, and slatted ipe volume convey a hovering presence, and clerestory windows balance daylight with privacy. Operable windows enable cross ventilation, and solar panels cover the roof. An elevator ensures long-term accessibility, while durable exterior materials minimize maintenance. Inside, white oak and light grey tones create a subtle backdrop for the owners’ pottery collection. With its simple form, extensive glazing, and muted palette, the house prioritizes the landscape, creating a home that feels both intimate and expansive.

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