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Apart from the kitchen, which was renovated in 1997, the home is all original.

The casitas feature large corner windows that offer impressive views of the landscape.

A built-in reading nook in the bedroom frames a window that overlooks the backyard.

The clients enjoy boating and kayaking and often utilize the site’s direct water access. “There’s a boathouse at the bottom of the site, so we’ve tried to clean the view up,” says architect Fraser Mudge of the framing. “We also controlled the height of it a little bit to frame the beauty of the water and the National Park, rather than the sky.”

The bespoke brass dressing room unit in the principal suite has a pivoting double-sided mirror and individual hanging slots for feature pieces. It was designed by PO Box Designs and crafted by Koorool Constructions.

Site plan of Foo by The Ranch Mine

A window in the office purposefully frames a large cactus, inviting the Sonoran desert landscape into the home.

A large en suite bathroom adjoins the principal bedroom, featuring bright-white walls that reflect natural light and high windows that frame the sky.

On an undulating stretch of California coastline, a hidden guesthouse runs free of the grid. "The house is elemental," says project architect Dan Weber of Santa Barbara–based firm Anacapa, who collaborated on the project with designer Steve Willson. "We endeavored to make it out of materials that would wear and take on a patina over time, so they could feel like part of the landscape." Unfinished steel, board-formed concrete, and glass continue inside, where rich black walnut—used for ceilings, cabinetry, and furniture—provides an inviting contrast. "On a foggy day, you want that feeling of warmth around you," says Margaret. Brass fixtures complement the deep-hued wood.

Cedar, glass, and concrete combine in this minimalist pool house that draws inspiration from Mies van der Rohe’s 1929 Barcelona Pavilion. The pool house, built into a mountainside west of Montreal and designed by Halifax–based MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, employs board-formed concrete for the home's expressive exterior.

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."

Inside Out Architecture renovated an apartment in the Clerkenwell section of central London, removing interior walls to create an open, loft-like living space. The architects were taken in by the "dramatic geometry" of the existing board-formed concrete ceiling, and their design maintained and emphasized its dynamic criss-crosses and texture.

Brutalist materials like concrete and steel are balanced by the gentleness of the wooden carpentry. Ash wood is used for the cabinetry throughout, from kitchen cabinets to storage units.

The bath in the ensuite is made of terrazzo.

Floor Plan of Hypostyle House by Miguel Marcelino

The house is located on a hill in Portugal and its architecture takes advantage of its views of the surrounding nature.