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Designed by architect Robin Donaldson as his personal home, this 3,160-square-foot loft is located in downtown Santa Barabara.

For Gabriel Ramirez and his partner Sarah Mason Williams, following the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. The architects love Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, and they 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.”

The 1950 Eichler home in Palo Alto, California, that Ogawa Fisher Architects renovated for a family of five features a cool gray facade punctuated by a bright orange front door.

Just past sunrise at Betasso Overlook.

“I envision people writing their books, music, refuelling their creative flow,” says Castillero. He should know about its energizing power more than anyone, really: it brought him back to his love of architecture, after all. “It’s truly my new happy place.”

As a standalone suite, the Moliving prefab can be tailored to its location based on the owner's specifications. The process can take as little as three months to complete.

The trees here “hug the building,” says Fritz. A Sycamore sits next to the house, providing shade for the patio in the summertime.

A series of “stacked boxes” laid the foundation for this Sea Ranch–inspired home on a narrow site set on two flood zones and filled with protected redwoods.

After: A new porch roof, made of metal, completes the updated exterior facade. The home’s doors and the garage door are painted a punchy pink, Benjamin Moore’s Rosewood.

As Nicolás Tovo and Teresa Sarmiento of La Base embraced modular design as part of their architectural practice, they noticed that prospective clients were wary of prefabricated construction. So the duo teamed up with Place, an Argentine prefab builder, to make a proof of concept just outside the Patagonian resort town of Bariloche.

The wings of this cruciform residence jut out over the landscape on stilts to capture panoramic views.

The Konga Float houseboat features a prefabricated design that operates fully off-grid.