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The 700-square-foot Oyster House prototype achieves more with less: less energy, less building material, and less building area. Photo by Timothy Bell.
The Anonymous office on the third floor holds a display of Storey’s beloved hand-made basswood and foam-core models.
Delivering a modern look, concrete serves as a long-lasting, hardwearing material.
Concrete Collaborative demonstrated their polished concrete tiles, decked out in vibrant aquamarine colors.
A spacious deck was created as part of the addition. A cantilevered concrete bench stretches out to the rear garden and complements the adjacent concrete wall.
Inspired by an old technique that Le Corbusier experimented with in the 1930s, Gregory Katz has imprinted Lot Four Two Four’s name on the exterior wall at the entrance, using laser-cut Perspex on concrete. Read more about this South African concrete abode here.
Yumi (left) and Maya (right) cheese around on the steps leading into the front door. Inside, there is ample space for removing and leaving one's shoes, another Japanese element.
At Sea Ranch, a half-century-old enclave of rugged modernist houses on the Northern California coast, a new home captures the spirit of its surroundings. The client, a couple, were guided by the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. Lovers of Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, the architects 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." Together, the Cor-Ten steel and board-form concrete give the exterior a weathered look.
Designers Christopher Robertson and Vivi Nguyen-Robertson conceived their house as an unfolding sequence of simple geometric forms: a low concrete wall, a concrete cube, and a boxclad in Siberian larch.
The entire house is made from slabs of prefabricated, formaldehyde-free compressed straw.
The couple entertain friends on one of several lanais that Steely added. The chaises are from Target.
Tsutsui continued the Oregon pine from the floor to the steel-reinforced cantilevered staircase, which appears to float above the floor.
Nakada works from an Alvar Aalto table in the living and dining area, adjacent to the kitchen. He saved on some elements, such as the plywood cabinetry, and splurged on others, such as the Finn Juhl chairs and Vilhelm Lauritzen lamp. A skylight beneath the angled roof allows in a sliver of constantly changing light.