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Cristián created slots in the rear facade so that each home’s primary bedroom could have three exposures. The voids also allowed him to install skylights that illuminate the ground floor. The detailing of the ribbed exterior was adapted from a large institutional building designed by his father—“really almost a cut and paste,” says Cristián. The overhang at the rear of the building offers partial cover for the private walled patio that each family enjoys.

Dellekamp + Schleich built this C-shaped weekend getaway in Valle de Bravo with a central courtyard that prioritizes play.

Roger and Mary Downey’s 3,200-square-foot rammed-earth home seems to float next to the forest along the Rio Grande in Corrales, New Mexico. While the home’s design and materials nod to the neighboring adobe farmhouses and agricultural sheds, architect Efthimios Maniatis of Studio eM Design calls them an amalgam of “modern contemporary regionalism,” governed by Roger’s strict mandate for minimalism.

The architects worked closely with the client to maintain the openness of the original plan.

A lofted drawing studio features a sawtooth roof with expansive skylights that frame the branches of a jacaranda tree overhead.

Now a good example of the natural lines favored in ’70s aesthetics, Arcturus and the other homes Rick would build in the area were unique at the time. “I freaked out some of the neighbors intially,” he says, “who were not so comfortable with a bunch of, you know, pot-smoking hippies.”

Prefabricated elements allow the cabins to be assembled on site without the use of heavy construction machinery, a key consideration when building in sensitive natural environments.

When the residents of Sinfonía Verde bought their property in 2002, they had expected to spend most of their time on the beach. But the land changed in the twenty years since the initial purchase, and—drawn to the sounds of the regenerating rainforest—they found themselves spending more and more time inland. They asked Ben Saxe to design a house immersed in the canopy because of the studio’s “beautiful designs that work with the environment rather than against it,” the clients say.

“During summer there is so much greenery, and it grows and changes every day. It’s very different in the autumn and winter—even the acoustics are different,