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Double-height, steel-framed glass doors connect the entire home to its beachfront setting.

Keeping sustainability in mind, the architects have cladded the structure's interior with timber.

"The hut is a series of simple design moves," says the firm. "The form is reminiscent of a surf lifesaving or observation tower."

Salvaged ironbark floors in the living room step down to the adjacent kitchen and dining space, creating a built-in seating area.

The headboard was built from three pieces of prefinished maple plywood that cost $80 each. “We’re obsessive about measurements because everything you transport in has to go back out if it’s not used,” says Jeff.

Musician Drew Straus enlisted Laun Studio to transform his Silver Lake home into a soothing escape.

A mirrored wall in the courtyard bounces light into the living room, where a Sticotti lamp stands next to a desk by Buenos Aires designer Antonella Marini.

The table in the well-lived-in kitchen is a loose replica of a Donald Judd design made by a beloved 70-year-old local carpenter whom Pato knows only by his first name, Gustavo. A Ries chair sits opposite the dining table, while a painting by Josefina Alen (instagram.com josefina__alen) hangs above the sink.

The front balcony lets light and air into the library, where an AJ table lamp from Louis Poulsen adds extra illumination when Elwin is at his desk.

Floor plan of Tiong Bahru Apartment by Linghao Architects

How to Build an Affordable America: There are as many solutions to the country’s housing crisis as there are causes. We need them all.

Along a stretch of bungalows and boxy new developments in Los Angeles’s Venice neighborhood, architect Barbara Bestor inserted a modern villa within the footprint of an old house purchased as a teardown. Preserving two walls of the previous single-story structure, Bestor designed a new, two-story wood-frame house crowned by a large skylit bathroom with its own expressive rooftop.

Top 10 Sustainable Homes of 2020: From a carbon-negative cabin to a prefab farmhouse, these resourceful designs captivated readers this year.

“We’d go to the salvage yard every weekend and painstakingly go through hundreds of windows, see one that might work, write down the measurements, run out to Jeff’s truck, and put it in the SketchUp model,” says Molly. The chair is by Christophe Pillet for Emu.

The couple also built an outhouse for the bathroom area.

The couple and their friends spent hours clearing brush and felling at-risk oak and madrone trees. “There was no view at all,” Molly says. “You had to duck and peek through thick oak brush just to see that there was anything on the horizon.”

A sleeping area is tucked away underneath the rafters. Large windows brighten the space and provide views of the forested surroundings.