Home Designs

With its concrete and metal finishes and brutalist edges, the home is unrecognisable.

The Weltys started construction by having the structure framed out but allowed themselves time to sort through unresolved areas and select finishes. After they spent a year and eight months manipulating materials and playing with textures, their vision finally came together.

Solar panels create a geometric pattern on the roof of the ADU.

87 pieces of optical glass—each measuring 13.1 feet tall and 3.3 inches square in cross section—are aligned vertically at the front facade. The high specific gravity of the glass ensures sufficient sound insulation against the noise of the city.

Opposite the optical glass facade, the slant of the northern facade is the result of Tokyo urban planning requirements. A constant gradient diagonal line restriction dictated that the home’s mass recede diagonally away from the northern property line, to ensure adequate light and ventilation for the neighboring property—a policy not uncommon in lower-density residential areas of Tokyo.

The original home's avocado tree inspired the renovation's solution of a main home and ADU, which are connected by sliders on either end.

The front of the renovated property features clean lines and few materials to not overwhelm its corner of the neighborhood.

Owned by the same family for almost 60 years, the Hamilton House, designed by postwar architect Kazuo Umemoto, was virtually unchanged when Simon Cremniter bought it in 2018. A switchback driveway, mature trees, and abundant plantings create privacy.

Designed by the prominent midcentury architecture firm Muhlenberg Brothers in the late 1950s, a house outside Reading, Pennsylvania, proved irresistible for Philadelphians Paul Savidge and Dan Macey.

The home sits at the end of a quiet, gravel road just 325-yards from the ocean. A board-formed concrete wall along the entry path hints at what is indoors.

With a home for his family along the Mississippi River waterfront, architect Barry Yoakum aimed to achieve the highest standards of energy performance and carbon mitigation without compromising on design. A modern anomaly among its historically styled neighbors, “the house is a fresh, authentic approach to climate change but also a piece of architecture,” he says. Its Pac-Clad aluminum panels with Bone White Energy Star coating reflect light differently from minute to minute while reducing solar heat gain. “The house will age well over time,” says Barry, who expects the cladding to have a long life span.

Customers are free to customize their prefab, as long as it fits within the company's structural grid.

He worked around existing oak and eucalyptus trees for the new building, and retained the vernacular of an original barn, at right, where Frankel hosts concerts. Check out MVRDV's Balancing Barn.