Architecture

House Åkerudden

The weeHouse exteriors are clad in corrugated Cor-Ten, but with a custom pattern of folds to create an organic randomness. The foundations were designed with a shallow recess around the top to make the modules look like they’re hovering. After they bought the property in early 2014, the Siegels camped there for two summers while they saved up money and planned a permanent structure. In his research, BJ came across this design, a customizable prefab house by Alchemy Architects. "Of all the things that I found, I was drawn to that one because it was absolutely the simplest and cleanest," he says.

Edgeland House, built on a cliff-top lot in Austin by architect Thomas Bercy for lawyer and writer Chris Brown, is topped by a living roof to help it blend into the landscape. The concrete, steel, and glass house is divided into two distinct public and private halves.

At Sea Ranch, a half-century-old enclave of rugged modernist houses on the Northern California coast, a new home captures the spirit of its surroundings. The client, a couple, were guided by the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. Lovers of Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, the architects made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house "was very crisp and clean," he says. "This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi." Together, the Cor-Ten steel and board-form concrete give the exterior a weathered look.

Architect Tom Kundig’s assignment was simple enough: Build a tiny, Thoreau-like getaway for an Atlanta-based writer who owned ten acres on San Juan Island in Puget Sound. "The idea was not to clutter anybody’s thinking, especially a writer’s," he said. So he designed a 500-square-foot retreat that’s both womblike and open to its surroundings.

Jarson Residence

Bi-fold doors connect the main residence to the backyard, which features a large swimming pool, a 200-square-foot pool house, and an outdoor kitchen.

Stained cedar, ipe, and concrete form the palette of this modern, verdant 2,500-square-foot home in Kansas City. Indigenous wildflowers and native grasses grow on top of the structure; this planted roof also helps insulate the home and limited its energy needs.

“If you look closely at the concrete wall, the curvature is based on one really simple formal move,” says Massie. “In front, the roof is about 11 feet high, and in back, about 9 feet. If you could imagine just pinching the back of the building, that linear distance would have to go somewhere, hence the curve.” That arc continues inside as the wall nearest to the guest sleeping area. “It’s really interesting to feel that wall dimpling toward you,” says Wooten. “It changes as you walk from the bedroom to the guest bath—it starts with a dramatic curve and gradually flattens out.”

Built in 1953, the Wiley House is made up of a single glass-and-wood rectangular pavilion that’s perched on top of a rectangular box made of stone and concrete. Johnson chose the six-acre plot of land himself and was particularly fond of the natural slopes of the site, which is surrounded by hickory trees.

Delighted with the result, they requested additional structures, including a pool house with a dining area that opens to the outdoors. Rising from the edge of the pool deck, a planted overhang shelters a gym and sauna below.

This retreat for two by Mexican architecture group EDAA flawlessly meshes with its surroundings in an elegant response to the landscape formed by native Tepoztecos over 500 years ago.

#gessato # catalonia #farmhouse