Matthew Clark

The exterior of the home is clad in Norway spruce. All of the windows are from Velfac, with the sliders from Schuco.

Set in Cadaqués, Casa Rumeu has a traditional stone facade and a surprising, hexagonal plan—with no right angles in sight.

mino

The muted grey coloured ceramic cladding enjoys a quiet synergy with its surroundings as it mirrors the silvery bark of the bare trees in winter.

An outdoor breezeway between the storage shed and the main house is ideal for outdoor dining.

Architect Ana Smud’s residence in the Vicente López suburb of Buenos Aires is surrounded by gardens and wrapped in timber, concrete, and glass.

The studio opens out to a large verandah, which features a six-foot-long vintage French trough sink. The creative couple use it for soaking willow prior to weaving and washing out cyanotype prints. “We had an epic search for the right sleepers for the verandah,” says Miriam. “Eventually, we found some Jarrah sleepers. Our daughter is called Jarrah and it’s an Australian timber, so it felt right.”

The cozy living area features a refurbished Børge Mogensen chair and a Recover sofa from Bolia. The coffee table was sourced from Jotex.

Firebrick lines both the wall and floor so that the fire can be lit right on the ground for an ultra-cozy night in.

Almost every room in the extension has direct access to the outside so the relationship with the grounds is immediate. In addition, carefully considered windows frame views of the surrounding landscape—especially the large window facing the valley in the first-floor living space. “It’s incredibly joyful to see how the views, smells, and emotion of being in the extension changes throughout the different seasons,” says architect Je Ahn. “It’s very tranquil and a retreat in the true sense of the word.”

The studio is wrapped in corrugated Cor-Ten steel, while the ends are composed of charred reclaimed cedar.

Whether it’s cross-country skiing in the winter or trail running in the summer, the 330-foot home’s minimalist design encourages Catherine to be outside in the surrounding landscape throughout the year.

Three of the house’s walls are finished in cork on the lower level, and the upper portion of all the walls is clad in poplar bark from lumber cut in the Appalachian Mountains. The bark would typically have been a waste product in the timber-harvesting process.

The Linns’ home, which Andrew Linn and Jack Becker completed for Andrew and his wife last year, declares its commitment to natural materials with a patchwork of wood products on its exterior. The sassafras cladding the lower portion of the house’s east face peels away from the building to become a freestanding fence enclosing a small, private outdoor space in the middle of the alley.

The architects created a Japanese pagoda-style home to take advantage of the location.

HUTCH Design used organic materials and earthy tones to transform this former concrete pig shed outside of London.

Greg Knapp and Robyn Traynor worked with architect Peter Braithwaite to design a nature retreat for their family on a slice of Canadian wilderness. It has two shed-roofed structures joined by a boardwalk elevated above a pre-existing walking path on the couple’s land.

This rugged holiday home in Outer Hebrides, designed by Izat Arundell, was created with stone sourced from its small isle.

The overall home is constructed with larch timber, a British wood, and features a central ridge beam that gives it a butterfly-shaped roof. Shou sugi ban was done on the wood to give it a charred finish.

U.K. design firm Koto was founded by Johnathon and Zoe Little and Theo Dales in 2017 to provide nature-inspired spaces that enhance an overall sense of well-being. Their prefab residences, turnkey cabins, and now, a sauna designed in collaboration with Out of the Valley (which has one of its own), aim to better connect people to their natural environments with sleek, minimalist interiors that keep an emphasis on the outdoors.

Thanks to Kabina’s clever system of interlocking joints, all you need is a rubber hammer to assemble it.

Dwellings Winner: Casa Ter by Mesura Mesura designed a retreat for a family of five in the Catalonian countryside, utilizing regional and artisanal building techniques and local materials for a sustainable home that blends with the landscape.

In the British countryside, Stirling Prize nominee Michael Dillon builds a tiny office as an exercise in low-carbon, low-cost construction.