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.
Douglas fir walls and beams extend to the exterior of a weekend house near Golden, British Columbia. Designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Bohlin Grauman Miller Architects, it was designed for an active family that likes to hit the slopes. A chalet-like pitched roof emphasizes its cabin feel.
Lewis draws back the curtains to reveal her “No Ordinary Kitchen.” True to her style, she chose a muted material palette to create a comforting and relaxed kitchen environment, from the white oak floors to the polished marble countertop on the island. Oil-rubbed bronze cabinet hardware provides a pop of contrast while stainless steel appliances by Signature Kitchen Suite make a sleek aesthetic statement.
The exterior of the new, two-story home in East Austin, Texas was designed with a minimal palette, bronze windows, and steel details in order to blend into the existing cityscape.
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.”
One of the main goals of the construction was to do as little harm as possible to the existing environment, which includes waterways that salmon depend upon. Herrin and his team created a garden roof that covers the full extent of the home to meet this objective. “This helps control storm water runoff and also replaces lost insect habitat—insects being a critical food source for juvenile salmon,” he says.
“The liberal use of wood roots the structure in the landscape and provides the owners with an experience strongly connected with location,” Herrin says. The exterior’s Western red cedar shingle siding has a semi-transparent stain, half Fieldstone and half Burnt Hickory from Cabot.
With his son, William, watching, architect Noah Walker tries out the floor-to-ceiling Schüco glass doors he integrated into a guesthouse he designed off an existing barn for Nathan Frankel, an amateur violinist, in Beverly Hills, California. The new portion features an open living-dining area. See more glass houses we love!
Architectural designer Sebastian Mariscal and project manager Jeff Svitak created a house in Venice, California, for Michael and Tamami Sylvester. Known as Dwell Home Venice for its role as an exemplification of modern architecture, the house is an homage to indoor-outdoor living. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.