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Castillero and Reed took inspiration from Norwegian design, keeping things cozy but minimalist with OSB cladding and a monochromatic palette.

Durable VCT tiles were used for the floor. Though this material is typically used in a checkered pattern (you’ll find them in grocery stores, for instance) but all in one finish, it makes for a sophisticated, lightly flecked look.

“I envision people writing their books, music, refuelling their creative flow,” says Castillero. He should know about its energizing power more than anyone, really: it brought him back to his love of architecture, after all. “It’s truly my new happy place.”

Located in Ojochal, Costa Rica, at the edge of a large tropical rain forest, the multi-disciplinary firm of A-01 (A Company / A Foundation) designed a prefabricated home that would respond to its local environment by exclusively using passive climate control.

“Where we let loose was on the window,” Matt says. “It’s an aluminium window frame, which is bushfire compliant and easy to install, but the way that we detailed it was about hiding the frame so that the eye is drawn into the space.”

“The idea was to create this total openness and informality and almost undomesticated domestic space,” says Leven. The concrete is textured by its forms on the outside but smooth where it cuts into the building—“almost as though you sliced into it with a knife,” adds the designer.

For a concrete guesthouse in Stone Ridge, New York, LevenBetts designed an onsen-inspired bathroom with a steam room and a hinoki tub.

A custom sink by Vola in the kitchen has a twin on the outside for washing vegetables from the roof garden before bringing them indoors. The shelves are made of wood from trees felled on-site. The main house, visible in the background, was the designers’ first residential commission.

The sunken living room is just one of many grade changes inside the structure. “We were adamant that we didn’t want something domestic,” says Andrew. “We wanted something surprising, that was hyper-animated, and that, when you moved through it, changed all the time.” The sofa, designed by the couple and Levenbetts, is upholstered in cotton velvet. The Habibi side tables are by Philipp Mainzer for e15, the fireplace tools by Fort Standard, and the doors by Fleetwood.