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Exterior Design Photos and Ideas

“The addition is oriented towards the sun and faces the original Californian bungalow, allowing you to look at the heritage house from the new part and vice versa,” said Welsch. “It combines two unlikely architectural expressions—the casualness and generosity of a lightweight timber-clad building with the heaviness of earth construction.”
Sherry Birk and Anthony Orona, tapped HR Design Dept, whose co-principal, Eric Hughes, is a longtime friend of Anthony’s, to design the midcentury-inspired, one-story house in Austin. The dark metal fascia emphasizes the home’s horizontality and complements the earth-toned brick facade.
The bright orange tone of the front door matches the color of the accent wall in the living room, connecting the exterior and the interior of the ADU.
The large pocket doors of Mandeville Canyon House open up the corner of the living room to the concrete terrace and lawn beyond. This house, designed by Dutton Architects, is perfect for informal living and taking advantage of the southern California climate.
The view from the rear lawn towards the house. The outdoor living room is accessible from the family room (on the right) and the living room (on the left).
“We sculpted the lawn, so it became layered, almost like an amphitheater,” says Wyllie, who salvaged stones from the site to create steps down to the yard.
The design team painted the exterior a dark, charcoal gray and sliced a two-story volume through the facade, removing part of the second floor to create the double-height space.
To the front, the gardens are laid around a central lawn with a circling driveway which provides parking. There is also a garage for family cars.
Sleeping Cabin from southeast lawn and existing storage shed beyond.
Dad, a swimmer and triathlete, pops down to the river every chance he gets, rinsing off in the outdoor shower afterwards.
Rich, dark concrete panels and colorfully dispersed windows wrap the exterior in varying permutations.
Achieving such efficiency and maintaining the integrity of the wetlands and woodlands on the property meant more research for both the designers and the resident—just getting approval for the siting of the buildings and the driveway took eight months—but Hague is hardly one to do things half way. “A lot of times couples engage in house-building, like birds. I'm doing this solo, more like a monk,” he says of the deeply personal undertaking.
A third of the house and deck cantilever out toward the stream, and the void beneath the deck provides a place for wood storage. The cabin sits just 100 feet from the water, and with the windows open you can hear the ambient rush of the stream from throughout the house.
Eivind Bøhn’s cabin on the outskirts of Hardangervidda National Park is a modern update of the classic Norwegian <i>hytte</i>. The design, by Snøhetta architect Øystein Tveter, features a sod-covered roof that blends with the grassy hillside in warmer months.
The concept of this Scandinavian getaway was simple: To create a cabin that is small and sparse yet spatially rich. The 55-quare-meter (592-square-foot) cabin, commissioned by a private client and completed in 2016, comprises a large living room, bedroom, ski room, and small annex with a utility room. It functions off the water and electricity grids.
Ryan Anderson of RAD Furniture designed the stools as well as the table and benches on the pool deck.
"I wanted the bones of the house to be bold, strong and simple,
The green roof, wood cladding, and low profile help to integrate the home with its lush, natural surroundings.
The volumes that contain the living room and a guest bedroom were designed with roof terraces, and green roofs cover four of the other volumes.
Upcycled wood—sourced from fallen trees near the site—was used as part of the shrub-covered green roof.
The goal was to be able to squeeze a full bathroom, kitchen, living room, storage, as well as a sleeping space that would accommodate a king-sized bed into the cabin's original tiny footprint.
Elina and Otto paired their Iniö model with a sauna from Pluspuu and an adjacent hot tub that sit just down a path beyond the home. In winter months, guests can skinny dip before warming up again.
Black-painted window and door frames contrast with the white-painted steel siding and offer a crisp, clean aesthetic for the exterior of the cottage.
The renovation took nearly a full year, and the family now uses the boat for vacation getaways as far as the Bahamas.
Airstream’s Flying Cloud 30FB Office travel trailer includes a designated workspace in the back corner.
A bi-fold metal door doubles as a shade canopy along the front of the home. The door easily raises and lowers, as needed, to provide additional protection and security for the interior.
Wexler and Harrison's original plan was to create affordable vacation homes for a growing middle class. When this home first went on the market with the others in 1962, it was competitively priced between $13,000 and $17,000. Today, the kitchen has been restored following guidelines from its original configuration, and the landscaping was updated in 2001 with Wexler's oversight.
Setback from the street, this extremely private one level property has sliders with outdoor access, solar panels, and mountain views from every room.
Arcadia windows and doors with bronze finishes help achieve the homeowners' goal of indoor/outdoor living.
It’s hard to believe that, only two years ago, Jessy Moss and Steve Jocz’s glistening white home in Indian Wells, California, was being marketed as a teardown. Jessy, an interior designer who used to be a singer/songwriter, and Steve, a realtor who was once a member of the band Sum 41, saw the stucco-clad home’s potential and made it their mission to fix 50 years of decay. As the project unfolded, they researched the home’s origins, turning up troves of documents that strongly suggest it is an unrecognized work by midcentury icon William F. Cody. The circular concrete pavers in the driveway, replicas of originals, are reminiscent of pavers that Cody used for a motor court at another Southern California home.
Both cabins are elevated on wooden pillars about 260 feet above sea level.
The outdoor terrace folds up, and the roof can be detached so that the container home can be easily relocated.
The Nomad Den is designed as a cross between a glamping tent and a cabin, with a timber frame and cladding, and canvas roof and window shade.
“Metaphorically, the cabin’s exterior is like a cut log,” Lane says. “The black-stained Western red cedar is the bark, and the Douglas fir siding under cover is the exposed wood once the log has been cut.” Beyond the house and native sod gardens, a meadowscape blends into the mature pine forest at the lakefront. “We wanted a woodland garden quality,” landscape architect Soren deNiord says.
The front garden area is terraced with custom Cor-Ten steel retaining walls with an oxidized patina. The plantings are inspired by the couple’s love for Palm Springs.
DeNiord designed a simple concrete bench with a honed top to run parallel to the randomly sized concrete pads that lead to the covered entry. He planted blueberry bushes behind the bench and a river birch tree behind the boulder. To conjure a wabi-sabi feel outdoors, diNiord poured concrete around a boulder. “It represents the interruption of perfect geometry,” he says.
Lauren and Brittan Ellingson, the owners of Notice Snowboards, a custom snowboard and wakesurf company in Whitefish, Montana, approached Workaday Design and builder Mindful Designs to concoct a new lake home for their family. The brief was, perhaps unsurprisingly, focused on getting the family outdoors as much as possible.
Perched below the Griffith Observatory and overlooking Hollywood is a lush lot crowned with four towering olive trees and a 1965 home designed by modernist architect Craig Ellwood. When a young couple purchased the home in 2018, it needed substantial work. For a historic restoration, they called on Woods + Dangaran, a local firm fluent in modernist history. The team completed a meticulous restoration of the home while keeping original components like the linear shape, open plan, and expansive windows. One of the most striking features is the original koi pond (a feature deemed so essential that its preservation was a condition of escrow) that is now crossed via a bridge that leads to a new lap pool—perhaps the biggest intervention on the property.
This barn-like residence enjoys sweeping views from all sides to the picturesque Northern California landscape that surrounds it: Mayacamas Mountains, roaming sheep, and Monterey pines. An L-shaped ipe deck connected the main residence to an art studio and forms a cozy courtyard, complete with pool.
Architect Minwook Choi’s 710-square-foot Seroro House rises from a tiny urban lot in Seoul that had long been neglected because of its challenging size.
To turn a home into a permanent residence for a family of four, Rama Estudio attached a prefab glass-and-steel box that extends into the surrounding wilderness.
"In some ways the strongest attributes of the house are probably the outside spaces,” says Court. The original cedar deck was replaced with Kebony decking that wraps around a century-old cherry tree. A pair of Andy rockers from Mamagreen face an ottoman by Kenneth Cobonpue. The accordion doors are a NanaWall SL-60 system that allows the main room of the guesthouse to open completely to the deck.
<span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">Designed by Atelier Lina Bellovicova, House LO marks the country’s first residential project to use hempcrete, a sustainable and fire-and-mold-resistant materil. </span><span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">"The roof is covered with a green carpet so that the house merges with nature and is well insulated,
Architect Paul Elliott erected a new, cork- and timber-clad house on the adjoining plot to his family home, which his late architect father designed and built in Cape Town, South Africa. The new residence implements sustainable materials such as cork and timber. It also incorporates Japanese architectural styles, including circular windows and doorways.
DGN Studio renovated and extended a semidetached Victorian terrace near London Fields for clients Rebecca and Roman. The rear extension is defined by a material palette of exposed concrete and white-oiled oak, which was chosen for its durability, as well as its warm texture and grain. “We are very aware of the dialogue around the sustainability of concrete as a building material, so we were keen to make sure its use was related to a specific set of practical tasks for which it would stand the test of time,” says DGN studio cofounder Geraldine Ng.
<span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">London-based practice Studio Ben Allen implemented prefab elements to recast a dark and dated Victorian terrace home for its longtime residents in just four days. The architects expanded the rear of the home, adding a new kitchen and two bathrooms. The entire update is swathed in a chromatic series of green-, blue-, and red-pigmented concrete.</span>
"It is something that seems at home in the forest, but at the same time, it’s strikingly strange,” notes Kivi.
The rollable wood-clad walls help the retreat further blend into the surrounding nature.
Two of the home's three levels rise from the site's original garden wall, presenting an impressive elevation from the street.
"The home noses out of the forest just a little bit, like it’s peeking out of the trees,” says architect Ray Calabro.
The goal with the Lodge was to simplify the original structure to focus the experience on the natural setting and framing the coastline's exceptional views.
Cross-country skiing tracks are located along the south-facing elevation of Kvitfjell Cabin. They connect to the downhill slopes of the surrounding Kvitfjell ski resort.
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