Architect Don Erickson's father commissioned him to design the home in the early 1950s, leading to Erickson's departure from the fellowship with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin East. As one of Erickson's first commissions, the property also kickstarted a decades-long career designing other homes and buildings near Chicago.
A timber staircase accesses the loft-like office and is wider at the bottom, where it doubles as shelving.
The linear quality of the stepped ceiling is best experienced from the loft area, where the home office is situated.
Now, the furniture grouping comfortably occupies the living room. A sectional from Gus Modern sits with a custom steel coffee table and a Paulistano armchair.
Fallingwater is located in the southwest mountains of Pennsylvania, known as the Laurel Highlands. Its color palette is derived from the surrounding nature: ochre, inspired by the rhododendrons, and Wright’s signature Cherokee red. He initially wanted the parapets to be donned in gold leaf, but the owners rejected the idea.
GO Logic specializes in combining traditional craft with specialized sustainability techniques for building the modern home.
The prefab can be customized and configured to the client’s liking, and it can even be outfitted with renewable energy systems such as rooftop solar panels.
Located three miles down a dirt road, the remote property is surrounded by cactus, juniper, mesquite, scrub oak, Joshua trees, and dramatic piles of boulders.
Los Angeles–based writer Leslie Longworth knew she’d found the perfect retreat when she spotted a five-acre lot in Pioneertown. Immersed in the rugged beauty of Joshua Tree with a dirt road for access, it was an ideal creative space. Seeking a low-impact build, she hired prefab company Cover to draft, construct, and install a custom home. The prefab came complete with fixtures, finishes, Wolf Sub-Zero appliances, and a state-of-the-art radiant heating and cooling system. In order to design around endangered Joshua trees, boulders, and the view, Cover used a combination of 3D mapping via drone imagery and handheld photos.
An exploded box. The contents, in Melissa's words, "fit together almost like a Swiss watch."
One of the "Boxes for Living," featuring the ladder-accessible loft that doubles as a bedroom.
An apartment's bedroom space and box. "How much do people pay to try to get distressed brick in their room nowadays?" asks Melissa. "We wanted to highlight that and not break it up."
After: "We wanted to restore the missing components back to their 1890s original form, while inserting additive elements that would transform a schoolhouse with classrooms into a building for apartments and modern day living," says Brian Rome, the principal of Rome Office.
The home’s front facade is wrapped with translucent glass panels.
Located at 1811 Bel Air Road, Case Study House #16 was designed by Craig Ellwood in 1953. The residence has been meticulously maintained over the years by its two owners, and today it’s the only surviving Case Study design by Ellwood.
Instead of installing rooftop solar panels, Alqadi and his friend and partner in the venture, Hillary Flur, built a “solar tree” to provide energy.
Remarkable for its walls of triple-glazed glass, Snorre Stinessen Architecture’s Ejford Cabin straddles two stone ridges on northern Norway’s Hallvardøy Island. Perched on a concrete slab, it intentionally capitalizes upon passive solar conditions and features thick insulation to minimize energy output.
The grounds contain large, open areas for gathering and entertaining, surrounded by a grove of live oak trees for privacy and seclusion.
A luxurious rural retreat that doesn’t skimp on comfort, JR’s Hut is an off-grid glamping destination with spectacular views of the 7,000-acre Kimo Estate in Australia.
The domes are built from bioceramic—a sturdy, recyclable material that offsets CO2—and they can be serve as single-family units, granny flats, or large-scale communities.
Entirely prefabricated at Modscape’s factory in Brooklyn, the self-sufficient Tintaldra Cabin features six-panel construction with heavy insulation as well as low-E and double-glazed windows.
Set amidst the mow eastern mountains of Pueblo Eden, this contemporary home was constructed in four months with a prefab steel-frame system clad in low-maintenance sheet metal.
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.”
Located in Long Beach's Los Cerritos/Virginia Country Club neighborhood, the duplex occupies a 7,306-square-foot lot.
Surrounded by 1.2 acres of flat land, the contemporary residence is designed to frame a unique, long view of Los Angeles—as well as the mountains beyond.
Dawnsknoll’s exterior sidings are cement panels and Resysta wood. The house’s front gate and garage are made from recycled wood.
The floor plan includes an unconstructed building comprising an additional bedroom and bathroom.
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