Project 1

Project Name: boarding house dresden

Project Name: Containerlove Shipping Container Home in Germany

Humble materials are used to good effect throughout the apartment. The bathroom contains ordinary rope lights concealed above the sinks. The tumbled slate mosaic tiles are by Artistic tile. All the wooden bathroom accessories were purchased from Ikea.

The Zizmors didn't want to use curtains to screen their wide-open home from noisy neighbors. Instead, Kari Elwell Katzander of Mingo Design, an urban landscaper, created a living wall of wooden planters and English ivy that provides privacy without blocking light.

Set high in Crestwood Hills, Richard Neutra’s 1956 Adler House underwent a faithful restoration by Tyler and Margaret Lemkin.

Concrete Collaborative demonstrated their polished concrete tiles, decked out in vibrant aquamarine colors.

"It was nothing but a muddy pit," landscape architect Terence Lee says about the 500-square-foot yard behind his Pacifica, California, house. Instead of filling the space with potted plants or paving it over for a quick fix, Lee devised a simple budget-friendly plan involving tilted lines and a few plants to fashion a functional, low-maintenance space fit his family of five's lifestyle.

A mesh steel bridge sits above a cast concrete outdoor canopy on the patio. Concrete floors are polished on the inside, and kept rough on the outside. A pine door leading to a lower level bedroom adds warmth.

Heywood lives in Oakland with his wife, two small children, and lots of books. The young boys provide the abstract paintings that grace the walls.

Clad in Western red cedar siding and punctuated with floor-to-ceiling windows, this minimalist two-bedroom home boasts sunrise views over the Sonoma hills.

Two art studios adjoin a central volume at this work/live residence built from terracreto (sustainable concrete), glass, and painted steel just outside of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Residents Austin and Lida Lowrey, retired design and museum professionals, collaborated with their two daughters—Sheridan, an artist, and Elizabeth, an architect—to design the structure as a place for creative contemplation.

The home’s facade is private and mysterious, without discernable windows or openings. The exterior is made of concrete tiles, black plaster, and wooden trellises. The trellises act as a light screen, allowing only cracks of light to penetrate the exterior. The entry is camouflaged in the plane of the trellises, which adds to the opaque and impenetrable aesthetic at the front facade.

Schatz and Eamon carefully tend to the greens planted on the ground that they took to with shovels when digging the original footings for their home.

To most eyes, Ezequiel Farca’s 1970s-style concrete home in Mexico City looked like a teardown. Even the lot itself—shallow and crammed against a steep hillside—wasn’t particularly alluring. But Farca saw through all the restraints to create a spa-like refuge in one of the world’s most energetic cities. "It’s is such a hectic place. You’re bombarded by so much information the moment you step into the streets," says Farca, who first gained prominence as a furniture and interior designer. "So we envisioned this house as a retreat, a kind of a temple." The rooftop courtyard is lined with a verdant mix of indigenous plants, including banana trees, palm trees, lion’s claw, Mexican breadfruit, and native vines. The chaise longues were designed for Farca’s EF Collection.

The pantry, kitchen, living, and dining room are in one seamless circulation that leads to a northern terrace and a central outdoor courtyard.

House #7 (Beverly Hills) 1995, from Opie’s Houses series. Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles © Catherine Opie “Cathy photographs in such a way that—just as in her portraits—you see these carefully detailed facades that express the personalities behind the houses,” says Bills.

In a loft renovated by designer Andrea Michaelson, a Liebherr refrigerator blends in with stainless-steel cabinets from Fagor. Flow chairs by Henry Hall Designs and CB2 benches pull up to an antique farm table.