The courtyard divides the "bi-nuclear" house into adult areas and children's areas, including a playroom.
"I wanted to preserve the canopy, the sales space, the garage door, everything," Judin tells FvF. "It wasn’t until later that I realized there was also still space for a garden."
The screened-in porch.
The rusting steel is an important part of the house’s patina, Campbell says. “We appreciate materials in the raw,” he adds. “The tables aren’t stained; the steel isn’t painted. The materials are what they are.”
The house may appear conventional at a glance, but a closer look shows how Oostenbruggen has pushed the boundaries of the traditional gabled typology. It has an asymmetrical roof, with slate shingles that extend down the eastern side to close it off completely.
Two hours north of New York City, an unusual barn emerges from a hill just off a country road. Its black siding and bright-red window frames hint at the imaginative playground inside. This space, with its rope-railed catwalk and indoor tent, is just one element of the multifaceted getaway architecture and design firm BarlisWedlick Architects designed for fund manager Ian Hague.
A skylight illuminates the neutral master bathroom, letting bathers contemplate the clouds. The faucets and tub are by Brizo, and the sinks are SlabHaus.
Architects Gerard Damiani and Debbie Battistone turned a budget buy into a condensed cabin getaway.
A custom ladder made of bent steel with oak treads leads to the sleeping loft, while a white oak panel swings opens to reveal an inset window. Longtime collaborator Jeffrey Kramer crafted the home’s wood elements.
For Gabriel Ramirez and his partner Sarah Mason Williams, following the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. The architects love Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, and they made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house “was very crisp and clean,” he says. “This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi.”
Tanya, Chris, Jackson, and Zeke spend much of their day outside.
Uninspired by the loft options in downtown Portland, Oregon, the Andréns opted to design and build their own freestanding version in the hills just minutes from the city.
At the end of a dirt road in Bissel Cove, Rhode Island, this 1940s bungalow is surrounded by tall trees and a small horse farm. "It’s very enchanting and quiet—in the best way," note the residents, who own East Surf Co., a surf wax company.
“We really wanted to capture the ruinous quality of this old building rather than do something overtly new,” says Greg Blee, founding partner at Blee Halligan Architects. Before construction could begin, however, he and Halligan had to patch the remaining walls using stones found in the nearby river. Wherever a wall had collapsed, the designers inserted framing to create windows and doors. For the roof, they turned to the original tiles. “My father’s terrible at throwing things away,” Blee says. “We took the tiles off 30 years ago, as it was too dangerous to have them up there. They’ve been sitting in the fields ever since, and this was our last chance to use them.”
For H. Keith Wagner's Hilltop residence, moss is the green ground cover alternative to water-guzzling grass.
Organized around a central courtyard, the home’s three modules are oriented to maximize views of downtown Marfa; 20-foot-deep piers drilled below each concrete footing root the structure to the site and help stabilize it against West Texas winds, which can reach 120 miles per hour.
Cabin Nordmarka, 2006.
Set in the lush Wisconsin forest, this neatly stacked cabin was built vertically in order to minimize the amount of grading and landscaping necessary for construction. Photo by: Narayan Mahon
The homeowners wanted a simple, unfussy space. The walls throughout the home are painted in Dulux Swan White. Built-in cabinets are custom made in Tasmanian oak. The hanging pendants are from About Space and the wood-burning stove is a Morsø 7642 model.
Large gum trees offer a natural barrier for the house. Harkness designed the house's footprint in order to minimize the effect on tree roots. “The retained trees offer a sense of layering and age that new vegetation won’t be able to for a long time,” Harkness says.
“At first we thought we might not need that much space, but then we started thinking long term. We look at this house as the home of our lifetime.” —Guido Chiavelli
The positioning of the home’s roof allowed for a double-height, north-facing wall with four matching windows and an accompanying skylight. “The house refers to rural houses: a sloping roof, completely coated by stone and with no eaves,” Vanotti says.
Setsumasa and Hideaki toss on the rain fly. The solar panel in the foreground supplies daytime electricity.
The Stradwick House by Space Division is clad in brick on the base, and a cedar rainscreen covers the top level.
Thanks to a prefab in-law unit, an octogenarian modernist lives independently on a peaceful, verdant site in Northern California.
The almost-entirely tallowwood kitchen is custom. Muuto pendant lights, bar stools by Alvar Aalto for Artek, a Vola faucet, and a ceiling fan by Beacon Lighting finish the room.
Jim Olson's #cabin at Longbranch Washington #olsonkundig
In 2015, Vipp introduced a 592-square-foot prefab unit called Shelter. It's equipped with a freestanding island from the brand's kitchen line.
On Vashon Island, about 20 miles southwest of Seattle, architect Seth Grizzle designed a 440-square-foot multiuse structure for his clients Bill and Ruth True.
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