Collection by Matthew Keeshin
With clean white stucco cladding and unusual angles, the three-module house stands out from the surrounding neighborhood, which features mostly post-war, one-and-a-half story homes.
Sky-high ceilings are created by a sculptural pitched roof. Its uneven angles are the result of the required setback distances from surrounding roads and houses.
Another angle of the “Phantasy Landscape.” © Panton Design, Basel
The house has a striking facade: The sharply angled roofline eschews conventional geometries. The structure is clad in a durable roof shake manufactured by Enviroshake that doesn't require any maintenance after installation.
The building features an angled roofline and a textured brick facade.
Some 35 percent of the materials from the renovation were resurrected in the yard: Redwood panels became fencing. Blocks cut from original concrete patios form the snake wall. And Purdy plans to crochet colorful cozies over various branches and stumps.
“The steep site lends itself to the ‘upside down’ configuration,” Harkness explains. “It certainly wouldn’t work as well if you could only access the house via the lower level, as this is through the bedroom zone, so we included two entrances. The upper one involves walking across a little bridge.”
Lean Machine-Architect Jesper Brask waited three years studying the site of his future vacation home before building, ultimately using wood felled in the space where the house was built and perfecting a design that melds indoors and out. Photo by: Karina Tengberg
Just a few blocks from the swooping Barclays Center arena in downtown Brooklyn sits an unexpectedly quiet haven, a petite 1,300-square-foot patch of green punctuated by a small outbuilding. This modest structure, a single room with just enough space for an army cot or chair, was designed and built by architect Nicholas Hunt, who runs the studio Hunt Architecture with his brother, Andrew, in addition to working for larger firms.
GilBartolomé Architects says the metal facade looks like "the skin of a dragon set in the ground when seen from below" but "waves of the sea when seen from above."
Concrete planters frame the facade—a union of monolithic slabs that offers privacy and compositional integrity to the building. The exterior is a plaster finish over insulation and concrete.
At the lower left, polycarbonate panels glow under the cantilevered, vertically-seamed sheet-metal facade.
Photo credit: Dale Christopher Lang PhD AIAP
An artist by trade, and gardener by passion, Allison Paschke commissioned Providence-based architecture firm 3SIXØ to build a modest cottage that would allow her to reconnect with nature. She landscaped the home’s lush gardens herself.
The roughly 5,000-square-foot Lens House renovation, which was finished in 2012 and just won a 2014 RIBA National Award, required six years, major remedial work on the roof and walls, approval from the planning committee, and even a sign-off from a horticulturalist to guarantee the backyard excavation didn't interfere with a walnut tree. "These things aren’t for people who are in a hurry," says architect Alison Brooks. The focus is the ten-sided trapezoidal office addition. "It wraps itself around the house with a completely different set of rules than the Victorian building," she says.
In the new 2,770-square-foot apartment, original I-beams brace the structure at dramatic angles and collide overhead, and the raw concrete is tempered by blackened steel, white-oak flooring, and bush-hammered Carrara marble—all selected by Willis.
Abutting the kitchen, the owners’ existing dining chairs, table, and bench have found a new home beneath the extension’s glass planes and plywood structure. Reflective white Terrazo floors further accentuate the airiness of the open-concept extension.