Strikingly Angular Homes

The house is a simple cement and steel box with elements that fold outwards to create privacy screens where needed. A perforated aluminum fence unravels from the building down toward the street. The material was selected to deter local graffiti artists from leaving their mark. Instead, a recycled brick wall serves as an appropriate canvas for street art.

Omer Arbel, the creative director at industrial design firm Bocci, was given three parameters when he began designing a home for his colleague Randy Bishop: Create a “profound” connection between the internal and external spaces; build only one level; and, most crucially, utilize a wealth of 100-year-old beams salvaged from a series of warehouses owned by Bishop’s ancestors.

Suzanne and Brooks Kelley at the back of their 1,100-square-foot guest cottage.

The wood-frame residence and studio are clad in vertical cedar siding—back then, a daring competitor to clapboard—instead of concrete to save costs. The effect is equally seamless, however: “If you drive by it fast enough,” Charles Gwathmey once said, “you still might mistake it for a concrete house.” Photo by Norman McGrath.