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“The pitched ceilings and ribbon of clerestory windows make the interior feel more spacious than it is,” notes Gooden.

While the owners really liked the idea of shou sugi ban, they opted for a more cost-effective black stain. The random-width, reverse board-and-batten siding reflects the wabi-sabi concept. “The builder said the math for the random siding was torturous,” the wife said. “We didn’t know how hard it was to make things look simple.” DeNiord planted hay-scented fern and lowbush blueberry sod around the house. “We didn't want any side of the house to feel unconsidered,” he says. As for the local boulders he placed around the house and terrace, he says, “They give the feeling that the house grew up around the outcroppings.”

Combine native plants with rockscapes to create gardens that don’t need excessive irrigation. Here, Techo-Bloc’s Industria 600 series slab in Greyed Nickel was imaginatively used to create contrast between the more organic stones and rocks, as well as functional walkways for seating and a fire pit.

Top 9 Gardens of 2020: The verdant spaces nominated for the Dwell Design Awards help enliven their biophilic homes.

Completed for an approximate cost of $2,000,000, the modern, net-zero home features 3,835 square feet and is located in the heart of Suncadia’s master-planned community.

Caterpillar House

Set on five acres, the three pavilions total 2,900 square feet. They gently fan out in a semicircle “like the charms on a necklace,” Suzanne says. The pair recruited landscape designer Bernard Trainor to help integrate the house with the land.

The ability to open the living and dining area to the pool and terrace makes the home ideal for entertaining.

The house is quite large, and one of McCabe’s challenges involved “figuring out how to get this much house on the site without it feeling overwhelming, and still having it live small for the family day-to-day,” he says.

From the deck you really get a sense of the two main volumes of the house. One faces inward and the other out, a fine representation of Boone's ideas about the division between work space and living space.

Through an integral relationship between use, form, and material, the Low/Rise House responds sensitively to site, nature, and neighborhood, creating a new type of suburban living – both urban and rural.

Just beyond the northern edge of the home is a small koi goldfish pond, extending the notion of a California oasis.

For Gabriel Ramirez and his partner Sarah Mason Williams, following the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. The architects love Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, and they made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house “was very crisp and clean,” he says. “This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi.”

Architect Fred Fisher’s California residence recalls family memories of la dolce vita.

Susan Lankford created a custom headboard in Romo fabric for the primary bedroom, to accompany a custom bed. A Parachilna pendant and vintage lounge chair are on the far end of the room.