Houses

The house is a succession of three pavilions unified by a unique roof, with two covered patios.

Designers Christopher Robertson and Vivi Nguyen-Robertson conceived their house as an unfolding sequence of simple geometric forms: a low concrete wall, a concrete cube, and a boxclad in Siberian larch.

Commissioned as part of the popular Chinese reality television show Beautiful House, Beijing–based studio Evolution Design Architects was given a budget of 600,000 RMB (approximately $87,965 USD) for construction and interior design, as well as just two months to complete the transformation.

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

The front of the house restored and adapted

The spacious living room opens to the dining area which sits off the kitchen.

Large spans of glass look out on the surrounding lush vegetation.

The rear of the house looks onto a lush backyard. The rough, industrial prefabricated concrete panels by the German manufacturer Syspro are the building blocks of the home.

On a site adjacent to a greenbelt, architects Yen Ong and Paul Merrill of 5G Studio envisioned “a solid black mass within an enclosed garden,” says Ong. A geothermal heat pump, solar panels, and rainwater harvesting helped the project achieve LEED Platinum status.

Inside Out Architecture renovated an apartment in the Clerkenwell section of central London, removing interior walls to create an open, loft-like living space. The architects were taken in by the "dramatic geometry" of the existing board-formed concrete ceiling, and their design maintained and emphasized its dynamic criss-crosses and texture.

Formerly the site of a French polishing company in the 20th century, this building in Clerkenwell, London, was converted by Chris Dyson Architects in 2015 into a residence with an expanded basement and triple-height living space that allows a dramatic feature staircase to take center stage.

For Gabriel Ramirez and his partner Sarah Mason Williams, following the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. The architects love Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, and they made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house “was very crisp and clean,” he says. “This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi.”