Concrete

After purchasing a thin, L-shaped lot in Tokyo, Tamotsu Nakada asked architect and friend Koji Tsutsui to create an open-plan concrete home to fit the site. Photo by Iwan Baan.

Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers add a graphic touch to the garden.

Pros: Concrete countertops are durable, resistant to heat, and can be less expensive than natural stone, especially when completed as a DIY project. Cons: Concrete must be sealed before being used; otherwise, its porous nature means that it will stain very easily.

The bathrooms feature the same polished concrete flooring and poured concrete counters found elsewhere in the home. A honed granite recessed shower provides a visual counterpoint to the sea of white and steel.

A minimalist approach to design can make spaces feel thoughtful, bright, and more spacious than they really are—qualities that are paramount to a recent project in Poznań by Polish architecture firm mode:lina. The architects employed several tricks to make the home feel more spacious. Among them, mirrors were installed to visually enlarge the room, and smart storage spaces—even a recessed dog house—were built directly into the home’s walls. “The less visible [storage is], the better,” they say.

Concrete stairs leading up to a sleeping loft are illuminated with wall sconces.

A spacious deck was created as part of the addition. A cantilevered concrete bench stretches out to the rear garden and complements the adjacent concrete wall.

Sofia von Ellrichshausen and Mauricio Pezo’s reinforced concrete home in Chile stacks rooms for working in a vertical column atop horizontally-oriented spaces for living.

Concrete is used for the walls and ceiling and stone for the floors to maintain an urban, industrial feeling.

A mesh steel bridge sits above a cast concrete outdoor canopy on the patio. Concrete floors are polished on the inside, and kept rough on the outside. A pine door leading to a lower level bedroom adds warmth.