“It didn’t bother me to do a house with a lot of things half the size of what people think is normal,” John Picard says of his half-lot home (above) in Manhattan Beach. The home’s steel frame offers a maximum expanse of glass. Because of the small footprint, Picard wanted every inch of the living space to be usable—which is made possible by the steel frame and a service core that runs the entire height of the building.