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The smartpod also comes furnished with a full sit/stand desk, as well as webcams, speakers, a monitor, office chair, and a wireless mouse and keyboard.

While the Archetype can be easily connected to utilities in a code-compliant way, it can also run off of battery for a totally off-grid configuration.

Minerit fiber cement pavers lead from the primary bedroom to the guesthouse and art studio.

Minerit paneling finished with wax also tops the counter of the kitchen island.

Top 9 Gardens of 2020: The verdant spaces nominated for the Dwell Design Awards help enliven their biophilic homes.

A vegetable garden is on top of the structure. Placing the garden up a flight of stairs—the form of which shapes one of the house’s openings— protects its plantings from hungry fauna.

Levenbetts designed the guesthouse as a porous block. Every side opens to the outdoors, allowing the landscape to continue through the building. “The idea was to create this total openness and informality and almost undomesticated domestic space,” says architect David Leven. The concrete is textured by its forms on the outside but smooth where it cuts into the building—“almost as though you sliced into it with a knife,” Leven adds.

The balance of old and new achieved in the project impressed the jury for the Australian Institute of Architects 2020 awards, which commended Bokey-Grant by saying, "JJ House is exemplary as an approach for altering and establishing a sense of individuality in the recognizable housing stock of our suburbs."

In the bathroom, old and new merge in unexpected ways. The floor is covered in heritage red hexagonal floor tiles, “which are often used in Victorian-era public buildings,” says Bokey-Grant. The amber panel is a piece of heritage patterned glass. “We had intended to reuse a piece of glass from a window that was removed during demolition, but this broke during removal so we sourced a new piece,” says Bokey-Grant. “This is an adaption of the original fan light / highlight window prevalent in heritage homes in Australia.”

While creating a live/work space at a former garage for Klari Reis and Michael Isard, architect Eric Dumican carved out an atrium on the second floor to bring in light. Three sides open with Fleetwood sliders; the fourth is a living wall by Planted Design using Florafelt Pro System.

After: Wood beams and concrete walls emerge from cutaways in the drywall, revealing the building’s industrial skeleton. The custom steel-and-oak dining table is by Ohio Design.

This kitchen features SieMatic cabinetry, Neolith countertops, and a faucet by Dornbracht. Mike Geno’s paintings of bread and cheese hang near a Lee Materazzi photograph.

Lee Cline made the painting in the guestroom, which opens onto a new balcony.

Recalling the drive-in openings of the former auto shop, hydraulic glass garage doors hang from both Klari’s studio and the exhibition space, where a selection of her paintings is on view.

Klari at work in her studio.

SOMA Residence floor plan

An Eames elephant sits by a kitchen nook; the painting is by Michael Shankman.