Shed house inspiration

The kitchen includes under-counter cabinets from Ikea and a custom open shelving system and hood in white oak designed and built by Jai and Lindsay.

The workshop interiors emphasize function, with polished concrete slab floors and 35-foot-high ceilings to accommodate large projects and gatherings. The disco ball, set to spin via a smartphone app, can be lowered with an industrial winch and is visible from the overhead studio suite through a peek-a-boo window.

Architect Jai Kumaran and his partner, Lindsay Merkle, transformed a badly neglected ridgetop property in Scappoose, Oregon, into a retreat, completing a 3,000-square-foot prefabricated workshop and studio suite as the first phase of a larger planned creative compound where they could live, work, and gather with family and friends.

An Englander wood-burning stove warms the living room, and the two round windows were inspired by architect Paolo Soleri’s Arcosanti, which the couple visited on a cross-country van trip.

“Everything is in the core,” Farley says. “It’s an efficient way to organize space and functions.

Remo Kommnick and Emi Moore wanted a minimalist home that could blend with its site in rural Virginia. “We had to keep things really simple,” says architect Patrick Farley. The cabin is clad in stained western red cedar, and its form is inspired by shelters on the nearby Appalachian Trail.

Ash chose the furniture, alternating iconic midcentury pieces with selections from CB2 and Ikea to maximize his family’s budget.

With nods to both Maine vernacular and contemporary forms and materials, the home is clad in cedar boards and capped with steeply pitched roofs to dispatch snow and water.