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The entrance to the house.

From the garden level, a staircase leads up to the protected courtyard where the entrance door is located.

Concrete and wood create a two-toned exterior.

The garden "basement" level houses two guest rooms, a sauna, and a bathroom.

The Phoenix home of designers and builders Sarah Swartz Wessel and Ethan Wessel sits amid desert-friendly trees and plants. The couple bought the property in 1998 and worked on the house for a decade. Juxtaposed with limestone floors, wood-beamed ceilings, and walls of hand-troweled plaster and board-formed concrete, glass is strategically placed throughout the 4,000-square-foot expanse to frame slivers of landscape and sky or open wide to reveal gardens of various sizes, which the couple also designed.

In Englishman Bay, Maine, where his relatives have summered since the 19th century, a musician builds an idyllic hideaway for his family and their three parrots. In late 2015, the musician and his wife asked Whitten Architects and Nate Holyoke Builders (in Portland and Holden, respectively) for a durable, minimalist home, simultaneously rustic and Scandinavian, that would sit lightly on the land and make use of local materials whenever possible. A board-formed concrete hearth by Harkins Masonry, which can also act as seating, has a monumental presence in the three-season porch, which holds the dining and living areas.

The recently completed home—dubbed the Hawthorn House—was created for a couple who asked Edition Office directors Kim Bridgland and Aaron Roberts to apply rural design sensibilities to a more suburban context.

A studio located above the dining area enjoys direct access to one of the two roof terraces.

About 100 miles southwest of Mexico City, nine black concrete blocks in a forest clearing make up one family's holiday home. Designed by Mexican architect Fernanda Canales with landscaping by Claudia Rodríguez, Casa Bruma makes elegant use of a construction material that's commonplace in Latin America. The texture of the black board-formed concrete contrasts with the simple, rectilinear forms of the individual parts of the residence that surround a central patio paved with stone.

Architects Javier Sánchez and Carlos Mar of JSa created a bold house in Valle de Bravo that emerges from the setting in three parts like "excavated stone boxes." Valle de Bravo that emerges from the setting in three parts like "excavated stone boxes. Inspired by Donald Judd’s minimalist works, the three volumes feature board-formed concrete walls accented with charred wood. Strategically placed cutouts and windows frame views within and between the volumes and out to the surrounding terrain.

Whereas others might look at a board-formed cement wall in a basement and see, well, a concrete wall, Jess and Jonathan Taylor, the design duo behind the L.A.-based firm Taylor + Taylor, were inspired. The couple had purchased a virtually untouched 1952 house in east L.A. and that concrete wall became the backdrop for a new guest kitchen in the basement. "It was really the starting point of the whole design," says Jess Taylor. "As designers, our goal is to always try to incorporate the existing surroundings whenever possible, utilize them in practical ways, and be inspired by them."

Located in Austin’s historic Hyde Park in the company of 1920s-era bungalows, the Concrete Casita by Ravel Architecture is distinct with its contemporary, low-lying profile, yet feels at home with the neighborhood. Designs to become in-law’s quarters or serve as a versatile, indoor/outdoor space for an active Austin family, the 600-square-foot structure has a rugged makeup of board-formed concrete, rusted steel, and glass. Ravel Architecture partners Alex Finnell and Devin Keyes chose board-formed concrete for the exterior, scoring the vertical boards to "get a really nice texture and interesting dynamics," says Finnell.

At the family home of an Israeli architect, modern and light-filled interiors enliven a brutalist, raw concrete structure. Located in the city of Ramat HaSharon near Tel Aviv, the home that Pitsou Kedem designed for himself and his family boasts a powerful and striking horizontal form with a low silhouette.

At a home in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Besonías Almeida Arquitectos were asked by the client to design a home built with exposed concrete that also incorporated wood to "break the monochromatic expression." The resulting design not only incorporated the two materials together, but also inextricably linked them by using board-formed concrete that expresses the texture and grain of the wood boards from the mold, but in a horizontal orientation in contrast to the verticals of the wood panels.

In the 1950s, Ramat HaSharon, close to Tel Aviv, was home to numerous brutalist structures. There, architect Pitsou Kedem, craving the same style for his own family house, built it as two squares of concrete stacked atop each other. Materials like iron, wood, and silicate brick, along with a skylight that runs along the length of the stairwell, imbue it with a welcoming sense of earthiness.

View to Bay Across Terrace