Home design

The architects worked with the natural, six-foot slope of the site and built the Granny Pad into the hill to gain the needed interior height. The volume on the right is the original garage footprint, which now houses a kitchen and sitting room. The added volume on the left hosts the bedroom, as well as a bathroom beneath the loft space.

Fir-veneer plywood wraps the entire interior of a compact guest cabin with a 12-by-15-foot footprint, smaller than a single-car garage.

The simple massing consists of two blocks, which have been connected via an outdoor patio that wraps around the home. Here, outdoor spaces become one with the indoor elements.

Writer Marc Kristal described the house as "a lapidary example of Miesian simplicity: a 25-by-95-foot rectangle, composed of a black exposed-steel frame, front and northern elevations clad largely in white glazed brick, and southern and western exposures enclosed by floor-to-ceiling glass sliders."

"The buildings recall the agricultural forms of the local built environment, but as is our nature in our designs, we sought to take that context and evolve it to a more emphatic modern language. We sought to design something that was exquisitely proportioned in a quiet, agricultural way." –Tom Kundig, Design Principal

Concrete pavers line the new hardscape, which steps up to a deck built of ipe wood. Ipe wood has also been used for the built-in benches and fencing.

The master bedroom's sliding glass doors open up to an outdoor terrace, garden, and the pool.

The home’s program is split between two structures, each completing one arm of the L shape, and connected by an enclosed, second-story bridge.

The 2014 Consumable Sugar Shack

Working with a sumptuous material palette, Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects designed a sprawling new residence in Palo Alto for Mark and Laura Pine. The teak wood and handmade Danish bricks that define the exterior are used inside as well; distressed stainless steel panels by Chris French Metal sheathe one side of the upper volume. Blasen Landscape Architecture chose Peruvian feather grass to flank the entrance walkway.

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The original house is shaped like an L, with a butterfly roof. The architects first took note of Emery's key material moves, which include the white-framed windows, a brick foundation, and dark hardwood cladding on the exterior.

She used cedar planks from Lowe's and stained them to match the vanity and other wood elements in the room. “We sealed the cedar planks with tung oil, and after a year it's held up wonderfully against water seepage,” says Bertolini

No whiteware here. In this moody apartment in Berlin, multi-toned charcoal gray subway tiles make up the backsplash, which contrasts with the pop of rosy color on the kitchen cabinets.

In the living room, spare Scandinavian design takes center stage. Hans Wegner’s Wishbone chairs surround an Essay dining table by Cecilie Manz for Fritz Hansen; a mostly wood palette is enhanced by slate-gray brick around the fireplace. The paper lanterns throughout the home are a mixture of classics by Isamu Noguchi alongside those picked up in Japan and France.

A cylindrical glass staircase with Western red cedar and painted steel mullions dominates the front of the house. The stair treads, along with the floor, are made of recycled spotted gum.