Residential architecture

During the daytime, the house is completely illuminated by natural light. Other energy-efficient features come in the form of the house's super thick building envelope, radiant floor heating, and cross-ventilation.

Residence VDB-Belgium by Govaert&Vanhoutte Architects

Located in Los Altos, California, Curt Cline's modern house seeks to respect the neighborhood fabric. By keeping the abode low-slung, using a few simple geometries, and the leaving the facade spare, Cline helped the structure blend in with the 1940s and 1950s structures around it. The materials—board-formed concrete and cedar slats—instill a contemporary California aesthetic.

Indoor and outdoor entertaining is made simple by the dining room’s sliding glass doors, but the two spaces also share a literal common ground. Lapicida’s tumbled black limestone with white Carrara marble inserts sprawl from the kitchen, past the dining room, and onto the patio.

The architects designed the rooms as a linear sequence wrapping around a central courtyard. As one would have traversed the preexisting rock face, residents are constantly negotiating small elevation changes throughout the house. The plan also protects a central courtyard from the harsh Yucca Valley climate.

“There was the challenge of how to build appropriately on such a sublime and pristine site,” explains Pejic. “It is akin to building a house in a natural cathedral.”

Protected by an overhang, and floating above ground level, this tertiary space is known in traditional homes as the "engawa." To sustain a unified look throughout, the floor and ceiling are clad in ipe wood.

“The house was designed to complement the challenging triangular corner site and its context.” —George Bradley, architect.

The large sliding doors are a telescoping design, which means they fit into one another and can therefore maximize the opening to the yard.

Designed by Marc Merckx

A series of narrow, vertical window openings punctuate the thick-walled facade of the structure, which is optimized for passive solar gains (left). A consistent application of surface materials throughout the interior and courtyard bridge the connection between indoors and out (right).

In the Norton family home in London’s Stoke Newington district, Jamie Norton and his sons, Miller, 3, and Ned, 7, enjoy a meal at a salvaged table and chairs found at a local vintage shop. The ceramics are by Richard Batterham.

The rear of the house features Victorian brick, a modern extension, and Velfac windows. Landscape designer Matthew Wright was inspired by the art of Henri Rousseau when choosing plants to set amid the garden’s Dorset pebbles.

“Segovia is a very central region, but an underdeveloped one,” de la Quadra-Salcedo says. “Traditionally devoted to agriculture and mainly livestock, it flourished in the sixteenth century but now that the older generations are disappearing, there is a problem of abandoned villages and fields.” The structure highlights the rural surroundings.

The house may appear conventional at a glance, but a closer look shows how Oostenbruggen has pushed the boundaries of the traditional gabled typology. It has an asymmetrical roof, with slate shingles that extend down the eastern side to close it off completely.