Living Spaces

For another residence in Turkey, the pair used brass and leather as luxurious counterpoints to whitewashed brick.

Peeling back plaster and drywall they unearthed beautiful brick walls. They opted to leave them exposed, letting light from the street and a wall of rough-hewn red brick warm up the large living rooms and kitchens. Mazza's living room sofa is from Crate and Barrel.

The Parisian flat that American-born architect Michael Herrman shares with his wife, Cécile, and their 2-year-old daughter, Rose, had been nearly untouched since the 1790s, when it was built. “But I wanted to try and reveal some of its age in a fresh new context,” Herrman said.

The dining room and upstairs view from the courtyard.

The main living area is connected to the back unit by a modern bridge. Polished concrete is used for both floors and ceilings, and a Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Stool accents the space.

Linda Hutchins and John Montague hired Works Partnership Architecture to turn a former Portland, Oregon, warehouse and auto repair shop into a versatile live/work space.

Omer Arbel, the creative director at industrial design firm Bocci, was given three parameters when he began designing a home for his colleague Randy Bishop: Create a “profound” connection between the internal and external spaces; build only one level; and, most crucially, utilize a wealth of 100-year-old beams salvaged from a series of warehouses owned by Bishop’s ancestors.

In sharp contrast to the industrially-manufactured components used to build the first floor, the second floor features a hand-made Catalonian vaulted brick roof.

An electronically controlled louver shading system protects the glass façade of the kitchen, office, and upstairs open-plan bedroom from the sun.

Ray sits at the central hearth on the north end of the comfortable sunken living area. From this perspective, you can see how the interior spaces flow into one another, passing one half-level up into the breakfast nook and kitchen and out from there onto the overgrown hillside. The various built-in furnishings have all been there since the house's construction.

Consistent with the rest of the home, the minimal and simplistic dining area relies on the warmth of wood to anchor the space. Pendant lights hang above a custom-built wood table and bench. The lounge area below follows suit with wood coffee table, and both stationary and mobile cushioned seating.

Large banks of windows connect the living room of a family home in El Salvador to the surrounding rainforest.

Mad tech mogul Nathan Bateman’s home has gorgeous, expansive views of a lake and mountains, but an underabundance of trees, considering the film’s Alaskan setting. Tall trees were imported and placed on twenty meter-high stilts to create an Alaskan vibe. The hotel, perched on a steep levee within a nature reserve, is a minimalist marvel that blends into the wilderness—in building the hotel, no alterations to the terrain or rock blasting were permitted. The result is a series of birdhouse-shaped log houses that jut perilously over slopes and a collection of guest rooms that are stand-alone cubes supported by huge steel rods drilled into the rock, each with one or two glass walls that offer eye popping views of glacial mountains.

“It’s never static or solid here—with thelight, there’s always some sort of movement.”—Austin Lowrey, resident

A free-flowing, open-plan dining and living area is built of local Dahoma wood and has sliding screens and jalousie windows to allow cross ventilation in the hot climate. Photo by: Dook

Blanc took the term "living room" to a different level with this striking 20-by-23-foot interior wall for the Dimanche family's home in Paris.