Favorites

The metal rod construction keeps the sight lines generous and visually connects the two floors.

The staircase design was dictated by the need to let the light in – and spread it to the cellar below, which has now been finished into a children’s playroom. The staircase is suspended from the structural supports above it. “Engineers always write to me about this stair, because they're like, ‘Whoa, I can't believe you did that without stringers or anything like that,’” says Kaplan. “Because it's the opposite of how you'd ever normally design a stair.”

master bedroom

living/dining room. painting by Ishi Glinsky.

living/dining room

living/dining with hanging light designed by gerald thurston

Vipp's prefab Shelter units are made in factory in Denmark with a six-month lead time.

For 2015, Vipp, the Danish industrial design company known for its iconic trash cans and all-black kitchens, introduces a 592-square-foot prefab unit called Shelter.

Heating for the unit is provided by a Spartherm fireplace, with electric heating integrated into the magnesite floor. Walls are insulated with fire-tested wool felt under plywood panels.

It takes three to five days to install a Vipp Shelter onsite.

Untreated Lapacho timber planks—the same material used on the main house—clad the exterior of the two guest homes. In contrast to the horizontal cladding of the main house, the planks are vertically oriented here.

Located in the countryside in southern Uruguay, the prefabs overlook a gentle rolling landscape with eucalyptus trees, farm animals, and mountains in the far distance. The owners also have many domestic birds—including swans, peacocks, and ducks that freely roam the site.

Los Angeles–based writer Leslie Longworth knew she’d found the perfect retreat when she spotted a five-acre lot in Pioneertown. Immersed in the rugged beauty of Joshua Tree with a dirt road for access, it was an ideal creative space. Seeking a low-impact build, she hired prefab company Cover to draft, construct, and install a custom home. The prefab came complete with fixtures, finishes, Wolf Sub-Zero appliances, and a state-of-the-art radiant heating and cooling system. In order to design around endangered Joshua trees, boulders, and the view, Cover used a combination of 3D mapping via drone imagery and handheld photos.

The architects applied BM marine-grade paint to the containers’ corrugated metal walls. The home is deliberately compact to match the scale of the neighborhood homes

“The structural design of the 10' pop-out on the second floor is unique. There are no beams under it—it looks afloat,” explains Behrooz, who notes that the pop-out was originally cut down from a 20-foot container. “Technically it is not a cantilever—but it is structured from the top (roof) and held back in tension, down to the foundation on the opposite side. It’s kind of a structural breakthrough—we used the inherent structural strength of the containers to our advantage.”

Founded in 1958 by the Finnish Saarelainen brothers in Eastern Finland, Honka—known as Honkarakenne in Finland—was the first industrial manufacturer of log houses. Today, the pioneer brand has built almost 85,000 houses across the globe, including a quaint Scottish retreat for the Queen of England in 1969. Pictured here is an exterior view of Kide, a sauna cabin located on the west coast of Finland.

The architecture follows the natural contours of the wedge-shaped site: the building is placed on higher ground on the site’s wider east end, while exterior decking steps down to the pool to the west.

A glassed-in walkway connects the open-plan living areas to a separate bedroom wing.

Six slabs were placed in a row on top of prefab concrete walls (inset). The architects chose the components in part for their length, which could span the width of the house, eliminating the need for columns.