House

Monkman’s house has a quiet presence, its front half hidden behind a fence of cedar two-by-sixes.

The cypresses beyond the ipe fence afford the family privacy.

The 3,000-square-foot house sits partially on stilts to tread as lightly as possible on its natural island site.

Stone walls, a pine tree exploding out of a deep overhang, iroko decking, outdoor rooms, a glassy swimming pool, and endless views of the sea make this home a paragon of indoor-outdoor living.

A pair of Icelandic prefab pioneers deliver an efficient family home in Culver City. Building smarter is at the heart of everything designers Tryggvi Thorsteinsson and Erla Dögg Ingjaldsdóttir do. Whether they’re testing the limits of indoor/outdoor living or developing a prefabricated wall system that they hope will make traditional wood framing a thing of the past, the founders of the Santa Monica design studio Minarc are consumed with making structures stronger, lighter, and more efficient.

In seaside Tuscany, Italian architecture firm FABBRICANOVE realized a villa that embraces modern lines and the mild climate.

An existing non-descript structure, perched above the crest of the dune between the ocean and bay, was thoroughly transformed. We utilized clearly defined volumes, simple, durable, yet elegant materials and details instilling a strong connection between the indoors and out.

On a sandy cul-de-sac in Stinson Beach, California, architects Matthew Peek and Renata Ancona built an elevated modern structure beside a modest 1940s bungalow.

The house that Fleetwood Fernandez Architects designed for contractor Mehran Taslimi and his wife, Laila, embraces its surroundings. “They wanted doors that they could just throw open,” designer Hunter Fleetwood says of the retractable wall system from Vitrocsa.

Designed in 1972 by local architect Edgar Waehrer, this home was renovated by creative director Ben Watson and his partner, painter Claudio Tschopp. As a later example of Northwest modernism, the home combined the clean lines and open plans of mid-century modernism with an emphasis on natural local materials and natural light. However, while the 16-foot ceilings in the home gave a sense of airiness, the plentiful wood paneling on the walls kept it dark and feeling damp, and so the couple bleached the walls to better reflect natural light.

The team used board-formed concrete and FSC Certified framing lumber that they cleaned and reused to frame the house. During construction, they wanted to make sure they’d be able to install a green roof in the near future on the flat areas. To do this, they pre-engineered the desired sections in order to hold the weight.

Interspersed throughout the gray siding are segments of horizontal natural finished cedar siding that they installed themselves. To fit with their active indoor/outdoor lifestyle, they included an exterior bike room that’s accessible under the house’s cover.