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Grass-covered dunes dot the coast of Cayeux-sur-Mer, a rugged resort town in northern France where filmmaker Olivier Panchot and business consultant Marie Becker built their holiday home. A striped daybed in the living area provides a cozy perch for the couple’s teenage daughter, Lou, and the family’s Bengal cat, Kimiko.

Derek Gray of Bay West Builders made the entry bench from wood earmarked for an unbuilt breakfast bar. Radiant-heated concrete floors offer a polished counterpoint to the board-formed walls outside.

“From anywhere in the house, you have a sense of the outdoors,” says Melonie, “and yet it’s very private.” Ikegami agrees. “The building was really about the landscape—it can dissolve into the background,” he says. In the master bedroom, Japanese Tansu chests from the couple’s previous home flank a Duxiana bed. The full-height windows and swing door are from Western Window Systems.

Recently retired and ready to downsize, Paul and Melonie Brophy found a lot in Palo Alto that gave them the chance to start fresh. Their glass, concrete, and wood house, designed by Feldman Architecture, seems to float above a landscape by Bernard Trainor. Of the board-formed concrete wall, architect Taisuke Ikegami says, "It connects the building to the ground plane while allowing the house to be a landscape element."

Walnut and Formica cabinetry, Neolith basalt counters, and concrete floors make up the kitchen’s minimal palette; a large clerestory ushers in natural light.

The couple worked with architect Kevin Yoder and interior designer Louise Cohen to refurbish the brick-and-wood home, adding a 36-foot saltwater pool, where their goldendoodle likes to take an afternoon float.

Just outside the studio, Ground Studio Landscape Architecture created a natural courtyard with a meadow and an edgeless pool that mimics a pond.

Sharon and Mike Matas work at large wood table in the studio while their daughter plays.

The private backyard captures striking views of the city skyline and surrounding canyons.

Tucked away off the foyer is a spacious, sunken living room, complete with beamed ceilings and large windows overlooking the backyard.

A single linear element of joinery was installed across the entirety of the south facing wall of the flat, which houses various functions including a kitchen larder cupboard, display cabinet for pottery, plenty of drawers for camera equipment, and at the far end, book storage and a living room media cabinet

"Jack and Alice had really clear ideas about the main feature lights,

The oversize sofa is from Piet Boon.