Gardens

Just north of central Johannesburg, the home is a block away from Parkhurst's shopping drag—4th Avenue.

Designer Peter Steere took down the pitched roof and wrapped the home in metal cladding reminiscent of rural barns.

The living room section of the ground level opens into this tiled patio, furnished with a long wooden table. In the background is a pool.

The single-volume home has been designed to appear to float over the lot on its deck. Ryan upgraded the existing foundation to support its passive design. "Originally, I wanted to make the whole house powered with wood pellets," he says. "But I decided against shoveling pellets in the snow. I'll get weird in a little bit less of a cold climate."

After reading about landscape designer Ryan McWhirter’s firm in a local paper, architect Karin Scott reached out about working on a San Antonio, Texas, lot where she and her husband were building their new home.

The couple completed the workshop before the house to stage the DIY components of the project. The family added a beekeeping area just outside it.

For the house’s foundation, Emilie and Seth went with a raised concrete slab on top over wooden piles, which was $39,570. That includes a burnished finish for the ground-floor apartment and the foundation for a detached backyard workshop, some of which was fashioned out of remnants of a dismantled Tulane building. They built the tree house using fence boards and building sills from the original home on the lot.

Carmen chose white-flowering plants for her low-maintenance garden.

Filled with predominately Australian plants, the garden is easy to look after.

The original garage's breeze blocks add interest to the downstairs library, connecting it to the garden. Carl's tools are scattered among the rubble filling the gabion seating.

The courtyard and open-air kitchen are the home’s hub, where Ernesto’s guests can convene for meals he prepares using local ingredients. “There is an incredible amount of produce in the area. It’s the simple things,” he says. Ellen designed the table and benches, which are surrounded by plantings added to the property.

The floor-to-ceiling sliding doors and windows were the most expensive line item in the renovation. “The house would simply not be the same without them,” says architect Miguel Rivera. “When you are in the living area with the doors open, it creates one large indoor/outdoor space that is simply stunning.” Just beyond the kitchen, a bookcase in the hallway is painted to appear red from one side and gray from the other.

"This compound is situated in the heart of west Altadena, giving you views of the San Gabriel mountains from all over the property,