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The contemporary home is marked by long horizontal planes and clean lines. Giulietti Schouten Architects crafted it with an eye for timeless design.

“Great care was taken to preserve all fir and maple trees on the site and to compliment the new landscaped areas to highlight the natural setting,” the architects note of their site-sensitive approach.

Set on an east-west axis, the home stays cool with shading south-facing glass, minimal west-facing glass, and operable windows that allow for natural ventilation. Energy recovery ventilators also bring fresh air into the home.

Set on a one-acre wooded bluff overlooking Puget Sound, the Tree House is clad in low-maintenance materials including Cor-Ten steel, stained cedar shiplap, and painted HardiePlank.

At just under 3,000 square feet with three bedrooms plus an office, this home follows the basic plan of Stillwater's sd-161 design. It also features a separate guest house with two bedrooms.

Warm light emitted through the expansive windows lets the home glow warmly against the mountain and forested setting.

Klopf Architecture, Arterra Landscape Architects, and Flegels Construction joined forces to refurbish this Palo Alto Eichler. Standout features include a fully opening glass wall, an outdoor living area with a kitchen and fire pit, and furniture by Kayu and Primary Pouf.

Pole Pass Retreat | Olson Kundig

"We made the space as flexible as possible to allow for numerous potential uses in all four seasons," says architect Tom Kundig. During the summer months, the property is especially lively as the residents take advantage of their waterfront location.

Pole Pass Retreat | Olson Kundig

After: Elevated landscaping allows the lush greenery of the outdoors to take center stage.

The father of architect Greg Dutton wished to build a cabin on the family farm, located within Appalachian Ohio and home to 400 heads of cattle. Dutton, of Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio-based Midland Architecture, presented this design as his father’s birthday present in 2012. Finished in 2014, the 900-square-foot cabin operates entirely off-the-grid.

WDA demolished a 1950s tract home to built a brand new, two-story, 4,898-square-foot oasis with five bedrooms and four-and-a-half-baths. Topping off this Silicon Valley home is an asymmetrical, Le Corbusier-style butterfly roof that gives the home its distinctive form while creating soaring spaces on the second floor.

Malcolm Davis stands behind the specimen oak tree on the new cantilevered wraparound deck.

The main house has windows in every room that capture the spectacular view. The off-grid property is equipped with a solar power system and has access to spring water.

Austin-based architecture firm Thoughtbarn set out to renovate an H-shaped residence in a wooded, hilly neighborhood known for its midcentury, ranch-style homes, but quickly discovered that the home’s slab was structurally failing and would need to be replaced. This replacement ultimately led to the construction of a new home based on the footprint of the original—but with a small addition to the south. The exterior is clad in board-and-batten siding, while the front porch is covered with stained pine. Both materials have a vertical emphasis, which speaks to the heritage oak trees on the .75-acre property.

The architects planned the home’s footprint around the roots of the heritage oak trees on the site, and ensured that the building height would fit under the canopy.

Sleeping Cabin from southeast lawn and existing storage shed beyond.