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An inviting entry nook—now featuring an Album surfboard and Cultiver towels—welcomes guests to the house.

Oversized sliding doors open to the bunk room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the serene lake.

The space below the stairs in this revamped Brooklyn brownstone was turned into a cheerful play area for the clients' two boys. "We built an egg shaped 'nook' underneath the staircase, and filled it with soft ‘pebble’ pillows," adds architect Frederick Tang.

A Falper Quattro Zero bath from Rogerseller overlooks views of greenery in the bathroom.

The bathroom has been entirely clad in large Fior di Bosco marble panels, creating a simple backdrop for the arrangement of plants overlooked by the tub.

The bathroom is lined with on-site molded terrazzo made from white cement and bits of yellow and gray stone.

Now, a walk-in shower and soaking tub are tucked under the roof line.

Luckily, the current owners agreed with the finish-out choices from phase one, making phase two move much more smoothly.

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.”

"We were interested in this idea of treading lightly on the site. Using a green roof is a logical extension of that. When you introduce a building that supplants a little piece of the forest floor, it's nice to replicate that on the roof as a return gesture to continue to create habitat for birds, animals, and plants, and to help manage the flow of storm water," explains McFarlane.

“From the street, it appears as a rectangular building with sloping shed roofs, but this is actually an illusion,” Hutchison notes. “The floor plan is actually U-shaped, wrapping around an entry courtyard that is contained by the continuous west facade.” A standing seam metal roof by Custom Bilt Metals blends in with the cedar siding.

A wooden home nestled amongst a cluster of Japanese larch trees offers a perfect sanctuary from nearby Tokyo. Chubu, Japan. By Koji Tsutsui & Associates from the book Rock the Shack, Copyright Gestalten 2013.

The cabin’s exterior walls and roof are clad in overlapping stone plates that mimic the look of traditional wood paneling found in Western Norway. “It provides an affinity with the cabins nearby,” partner and architect Nils Ole Bae Brandtzæg explains. Solar panels cover the chimney pipe, lighting LED lamps inside.

The two, season-specific wings of the L-shaped plan are separated by a covered breezeway.

The concrete foundation was poured on top of a rock outcropping, so that the house would feel like part of the natural features of the site.