Cabins to Build

The main house was given a contemporary look by way of a metal roof and a black exterior.

The existing driveway was rerouted to a lower elevation, and the garage tucked underground so as not to detract from the surrounding views.

“This is a humanized landscape of meadows, walls, ash, streams, a small-scale landscape, minimal, almost domestic, and where absolutely everything happens in yellow,” the architects wrote in a statement. To that end, the only hint of color on the house’s otherwise natural exterior is a door painted a vibrant lemon-yellow hue.

For the exterior and roof, Ewing chose Una-Clad corrugated-steel siding. The material, more commonly found on commercial buildings, is lightweight, durable, easy to maintain, and recyclable.

In the master bedroom, Douglas firs filter the light and mountain views for a more intimate experience.

Theron Humphrey's new home in Nashville, Tenn.

By carving away some of the hillside, the Deams effectively added an outdoor room to their renovated home.

The Blue Sky prototype house leads a second life as desert getaway for David McAdam and his partner Scott Smith.

The Casa Cuatro sits above a 180-foot cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The locally quarried stone makes the house blend in with the landscape and acts as a thermal-mass wall, absorbing heat during the day and releasing it through the evening.

“Segovia is a very central region, but an underdeveloped one,” de la Quadra-Salcedo says. “Traditionally devoted to agriculture and mainly livestock, it flourished in the sixteenth century but now that the older generations are disappearing, there is a problem of abandoned villages and fields.” The structure highlights the rural surroundings.

Cedar slats mark the facade of the Worple's lakefront vacation home in Ontario.

The Fish Camp acts as the couple’s forest getaway, just a quarter mile from their main house.