Superb Single-Story Homes

In keeping with the island’s rugged character, the new home was pared down to the essentials. Even the floor in the living room, elevated during the construction process to give seated guests sight lines of the coast, helped frame the outdoors. With this philosophy in mind, Vieira da Silva sourced and designed simple, light furniture, such as the custom bookshelves made from “criptoméria," a type of Japanese wood planted in the Azores for construction. The floor lamp, a Sampei model by Davide Groppi, is set above a Lamino Easy Chair by Swedese. Both the sofa and table are also Swedese.

PROD Architecture + Design created a farmhouse in Penafiel, Portugal to fuse the aesthetic of traditional homes in the region with contemporary, floor-to-ceiling windows that respond to the environment. Made up of four distinct structures, the home takes on the shape of an existing gabled-roof structure on the site. To complement the stone building, the home incorporates a series of muted materials including granite for the base, zinc for the roof, and Scandinavian pinewood for cladding.

The residents requested in the project brief that the home revolve around family spaces. To that end, the outdoor area, with its green courtyards, is meant to recall a campground experience.

In the foreground are Float beanbag chairs and poufs from Paola Lenti. Mamagreen sofas nestle near the house on the sun-dappled deck. A 9.5-foot-tall shade cloth curtain seals off the entire length of the house when the couple is away, keeping the heat out of the interior and preventing accidental bird suicides against the floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

When he became the dean of Syracuse University's School of Architecture in 2004, Mark Robbins made a plan to help the city and, potentially, the entire country. “I wanted to see if we could build houses that simultaneously made propositions about sustainability and about the possibility of constructing houses in a city like Syracuse,” Robbins said. The result was three green homes for $200,000 each and the promise of more to come. Read more about the central New York project here.

Builders, developers, designers, and architects have developed a range of homes that are composed of prefabricated, modular, or kit-of-parts pieces that can allow for lower costs, faster and easier on-site construction, and even higher quality spaces. Here, we delve into the differences—and similarities—among these manufactured residences.

Cedar rainscreen in a range of widths and color stains makes up the facade. The low-slung exterior was designed to respond to the surrounding topography. "The design of the house provides a subtle, and at times, dramatic response to the open Midwestern terrain and offers a contemporary interpretation of 'prairie style' architecture," El Dorado Inc principal Josh Shelton says.

Sheridan Coakley, owner of the London-based furnishings purveyor SCP, uses his circa-1970s home as a testing ground for the furnishings he carries in his company’s inventory. In the foreground, a Balzac lounge chair by Matthew Hilton is draped with a Donna Wilson blanket.

Seen from the guesthouse, the new home touches every corner of the property without overwhelming its natural beauty.

Two linked 1,000-square-foot pavilions are greater than a sum of their parts. The simply detailed, taut, flat-roofed home’s two wings form a T-shape. One wing runs north to south, parallel to a pool, and contains the open-plan living spaces. Photo by Matthew Millman.

For all its hard environmental work, one of the most immediate of the Blue Sky Home’s pleasures is how it sits so snugly in its desert surroundings.

Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan collaborated with New Haven, Connecticut, firm Gray Organschi on their midcentury-inspired New York vacation home.

Here's a wider view of the exterior.

In 1962, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect Arthur Witthoefft won the AIA's highest honor for a home he built in the lush woods of Westchester County. Having fended off a developer's wrecking ball, Todd Goddard and Andrew Mandolene went above and beyond to make this manse mint again.

Marmol and Becket with their daughter, Emilia. The intersecting modules were designed to frame a range of spectacular desert vistas.

The Hupert-Kinmont house lies low in a century-old apple orchard, far from neighboring houses. The spaciousness of the rural surroundings is echoed inside.

In realizing their dream to build a country retreat in upstate New York, Sandy Chilewich and Joe Sultan—proprietors of the textiles firm Chilewich|Sultan—eschewed a mountainous view for an understated wooded plot. At 800 square feet, the flat-roofed home is a modest structure for the expansive 10-acre property.

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.

The iT House offers cross-ventilation through its wide, expansive doors and windows, which naturally help cool down the home's interior temperature. Photo by: Gregg Segal