K'era Morgan
A 12-foot-wide sliding pocket wall opens the living/dining area to a spacious terrace.
“The walls consist of a stick-framed stud wall with prefabricated structural insulated panels attached to it, made off-site in a facility to our design and specifications,” explains Gibson. “The roof structure consists of trusses built off-site.”
Naturally rusted steel sheathes the cabins that Malek Alqadi built on a 1954 homestead outside Joshua Tree National Park. "I loved the idea of stitching the existing structure back together, reinforcing it, and giving it life again without compromising the beautiful setting it’s in," he says.
The Phoenix home of designers and builders Sarah Swartz Wessel and Ethan Wessel sits amid desert-friendly trees and plants. The couple bought the property in 1998 and worked on the house for a decade. Juxtaposed with limestone floors, wood-beamed ceilings, and walls of hand-troweled plaster and board-formed concrete, glass is strategically placed throughout the 4,000-square-foot expanse to frame slivers of landscape and sky or open wide to reveal gardens of various sizes, which the couple also designed.
Not only was extra living space necessary for the growing family of four, but the existing house also failed to take advantage of the striking views that drew the couple to the site. The homeowners tapped architect Malcolm Davis of San Francisco–based Malcolm Davis Architecture to redesign and expand the dwelling without damaging the many established oak trees.
On an undulating stretch of California coastline, a hidden guesthouse runs free of the grid. "The house is elemental," says project architect Dan Weber of Santa Barbara–based firm Anacapa, who collaborated on the project with designer Steve Willson. "We endeavored to make it out of materials that would wear and take on a patina over time, so they could feel like part of the landscape." Unfinished steel, board-formed concrete, and glass continue inside, where rich black walnut—used for ceilings, cabinetry, and furniture—provides an inviting contrast. "On a foggy day, you want that feeling of warmth around you," says Margaret. Brass fixtures complement the deep-hued wood.
Luciano Kruk perforates a concrete volume with glass walls to fashion a simple yet elegant vacation home in the province of Buenos Aires. On a quiet lot populated with aged pinewood, Luciano Kruk designed a modest vacation home for three sisters and their families. The 807-square-foot, two-level home is ensconced in its forest setting. The firm employed board-formed concrete inside and out to connect the building with its environment. "Pine planks were used to set the formwork so that the partitions, as well as the slabs, would preserve the texture of the wood veins in an attempt to establish a harmonious dialogue with the bark of the local trees," said the firm.
The recently completed home—dubbed the Hawthorn House—was created for a couple who asked Edition Office directors Kim Bridgland and Aaron Roberts to apply rural design sensibilities to a more suburban context.
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