Arch

The 1,900-square-foot home, designed by architect D’Arcy Jones, is made of cement, raw steel, and charred wood, materials that were chosen for their low maintenance.

The first thing landscape designer Laura Cooper asked Devis and Purdy was to recall childhood gardens and outdoor play. In that spirit, she designed their backyard, integrating the high ground with the low just outside the “kids’ wing.” The resulting series of outdoor rooms on this quarter-acre is full of memory and play.

Architect John Holmes, of Holst Architecture, chose Brazilian ipe for the exterior, despite the Northwest's unwritten rule that a wood facade will succumb quickly to the rainy climate.

In her spacious kitchen, Mahnaz Fashandi prepares for Persian New Year with her brother Mohsen and her parents Mohammad and Azam.

What differentiates a house designed by architects from a woodland nest built by a robin or a rabbit? That basic, elemental question—and a desire to narrow the gap between the two— inspired the 1,300-square-foot home Hiroshima-based architect Keisuke Maeda designed for a teacher, her two teenage daughters, and their cat in the hills of Onomichi, on the southern end of the Japanese island of Honshu. "It’s a nest that’s dug into the ground and covered with fallen leaves, where inside and outside flow into each other. That seemed right for a house near the woods," says Maeda.

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A large metal floating mirror from Restoration Hardware seemingly doubles the 675 square feet of the Schmidt-Friedlander apartment in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. The family of three dines at an oak table from Canvas Home, with Wishbone chairs by Hans Wegner. Decorators White paint by Benjamin Moore and oiled Hakwood European oak flooring are used throughout.

The 947 Liberty Lofts, in downtown Pittsburgh’s Penn-Liberty Historic District, is one of developer Eve Picker’s efforts to bring the city core back to life. A 20-foot setback leaves room for an outdoor café that bustles at lunchtime. The 15-foot sculptures were created by James Simon, a Pittsburgh artist.

In the Dolomite mountains, an angular copper-clad apartment building echoes the topography of its site. Photos by Hertha Hurnaus