Sugar Mountain

On Viggsö, an island of the Swedish Archipelago, architecture firm Arrhov Frick designed a two-story retreat, using simple but hardy materials. The roof, made from corrugated metal and fiber-reinforced plastic, joins the pine timber frame.

Lightweight corrugated zinc roof sheeting clads the exterior.

The studio is clad in corrugated tin, echoing the adjacent water-storage tanks, which collect and filter rainwater off the roof.

Rookie firm Patch Work Architecture used locally sourced Lawson cypress to clad the exterior of a 970-square-foot house in New Zealand. Vibrant painted accents contrast with the otherwise neutral structure. Steel trusses, painted in a blue hue called Lochmara from Resene, are visible through the fiberglass panels on the veranda. Photo by: Paul McCredie

Sustainbly constructed through a local prefabrication system, the Karangahake House earns its place within its beautiful natural New Zealand landscapes.

On the shores of New Zealand’s Lake Wakatipu, architects Bronwen Kerr and Pete Ritchie designed a relaxed family home that reclines into its spectacular landscape. Queenstown gets cold in winter, hence the installation of a sauna. Outside, the landscaping was kept deliberately casual, with rock walls and gravel paths.

The siding slides into the Louvre system and create a magical presence throughout the course of the day, but was quite the challenge to install as no contractors in the area had ever worked with it before. "We had the factory pre-cut and pre-drill every piece so the whole house basically came pre-packaged."

A light filled Victorian in Carlton, New Zealand.

The timber construction is a nod to Coromandel’s timber logging heritage.

The homeowners have joined New Zealand’s One Billion Trees program and plan to regenerate part of their land with native bush.

A promenade, playfully dubbed “the wharf,” offers a spot to catch morning rays. Photo by: Paul McCredie

The second-story viewing platform was born from an onsite discovery. After framing the first level, Patch Work Architecture noticed a vista to the west and decided to add a window.

Fletcher House by Hall & Mackenzie (1964)

The home is clad in slats of sustainably sourced and locally grown untreated Lawson cypress.

The home takes cues from the rural surroundings and local buildings. "We drew upon the rural vernacular of sheds and open-sided barns, along with the philosophy of baches: a close relationship to outdoors, large deck areas, and diminutive scaled interiors," says Gittos.

Architect Bergendy Cooke, who worked for Zaha Hadid and Peter Marino before returning to her home country in 2007, is an admirer of the strong, sculptural architectural forms that appear in Japanese and Spanish architecture. Outside Queenstown, she put her ideas into practice in a home that would be the benchmark for bc+a studio, her own venture. The combination bunk bed and playhouse is a whimsical gesture the architect designed specifically for her two daughters. The spaces are organized in such a way that they can play independently or together.

The design of Scrubby Bay was inspired by a piece of slowly aging driftwood.