Nate Berg is an assistant editor at Planetizen, an urban-planning-news website. He'd never written about buildings, so he was a bit intimidated to pen a piece about the Rimrock Ranch house designed by architect Lloyd Russell in the Southern California desert. In the end, he focused on the ways in which the home reflects the ideology of owner Jim Austin as it blends into its surroundings. As for the house itself, "it sure is pretty," Berg says.