Henry

Untethered from the walls, the kitchen appears to float anchorless in the center of the room. The stainless steel appliances don’t have handles to keep the look uncluttered. The island made of poured concrete offers pop-up power outlets as charging stations for electronics. LED lights help reduce energy needs.

This rational European ethos motivates Bosch appliances' design down to the most minute details. For meals that require large and small pots, the FlexInduction feature on Bosch Benchmark induction cooktops combines two distinct cooking zones into one contiguous area, providing total fluidity of movement.

THE FUTURE OF KITCHENS Cardenio Petrucci has seen the kitchen assume increasing prominence, to the point where it’s akin to a piece of fine furniture.

Girodo describes LEAPfactory’s architecture as being “molded according to the needs and stresses imposed by context.” In this setting, strong winds and snow loads are serious concerns. The shell’s composite sandwich panels and aluminum shingles ensure that the school can withstand the elements.

Matthew Hufft designed the house that he shares with his wife, Jesse, and their three children to sit inconspicuously among its neighbors in the Roanoke Park area of Kansas City, Missouri. The backyard and porch, which is furnished with a Saarinen Round Dining Table and Emeco Navy chairs, is a popular setting for warm-weather entertaining.

Architect Ben Waechter wrapped the upper floor of Nick Oakley’s house in inexpensive black corrugated steel. By rounding the corners, Waechter avoided unsightly trim at the edges.

A tight construction budget informed the choices Sean Guess made as he designed a house for a couple in Austin, Texas. Budget-minded materials, like the James Hardie fiber-cement siding, helped hold construction costs to $130 per square foot. Sherwin-Williams’s Cyberspace hue colors the exterior and Parakeet coats the custom kitchen cabinets by Austin Wood Works. The planter is made from Cor-Ten steel.

As International Style modernism flourished in the mid-20th century, architects in the Pacific Northwest developed a regional version, fusing the glassy transparency of Mies van der Rohe and Richard Neutra with a reverence for natural wood and pitched roofs. But by the time Ty and Kelly Milford found one such gem, a succession of past alterations had marred its original design. Acclaimed local architect Saul Zaik had built the wood-clad Feldman House in Southwest Portland in 1956, with a dramatically cantilevered, low-pitched gable roof and floor-to-ceiling glass. So why was there a post right in the middle of the family room? Why were the ceilings taller in the bathroom than in the master bedroom? “We wanted to put back the part of Saul’s design that had been remodeled out of the house,” recalls Ty Milford, a photographer and midcentury-design enthusiast with a collection of George Nelson clocks in his bedroom and two vintage Porsches parked outside. “We didn’t want to go back exactly to the original kitchen and bathrooms,” he says, but he notes that subsequent renovations had been on a budget—and it showed. “We wanted a cohesive house where at no point did something jump out as not fitting.” The exterior sconces are original to Zaik's 1956 design. JHID rebuilt the rear deck off the living room, which connects to an aggregate patio; the two architectural elements are connected by pathways in variegated bluestone designed by Lilyvilla Gardens.

Just as the barn was extended and cantilevered over the sloped site, so too was the deck off the kitchen, which juts out toward the oak grove.

In Pittsboro, North Carolina, design-build firm Tonic contstructed a four-story, 3,200-square-foot residence for a musician and his son. By using, a philosophy of "construction-led design" to inform the structure's details, the firm was able to realize the design for $200 per square foot. Located on a 60-acre plot of land, the house features green elements like a small footprint, bamboo flooring, Energy Star appliances, natural daylighting, an efficient HVAC system, and operable windows for cross ventilation.

The Desert House located in Desert Hot Springs is a steel structure designed with large expansive windows, and concrete flooring.

For the cantilevered second story, Natale selected black powder-coated aluminum frames for the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The back of the home glows at night as the giant, two-story glass doors swing open to remove the barrier between inside and out. A polished concrete patio deck and pool, along with a simple block perimeter wall, make smart use of available materials. The pool acts as a passive conditioning tool, cooling air before it enters the house. The block wall is positioned 31 inches from the house, creating a gap or "air chimney" that allows air to circulate up and away from the home, while simultaneously letting light filter down.

The house cantilevers slightly over a concrete wall, adding a touch of lightness and drama to its approach. Stairs beside to the cantilever lead to the entrance. On the upper level, a bedroom and family bathroom look out through the windows of the cantilevered façade.

The house, which is located near Oxford, is clad in cedar. Composite timber and aluminum windows maintain the house’s connection with the countryside, as does the generous patio that wraps around two of its sides.

Made from anodized aluminum, the mechanical louvers surrounding the master bedroom provide privacy while letting in light.

A second-story Dutch door above the canopy ushers in sunlight and breezes. “Light is really important in the Pacific Northwest because it’s dark for most of the year,” says the resident. The cedar-clad facade is pierced with thoughtfully placed windows, which frame views and “actively engage the idiosyncratic nature of the place,” says architect Tom Kundig.