SubscribeSign In
All Photos/Editor’s Picks/exterior

Exterior Design Photos and Ideas

The ground-floor study, the living room on the second floor, and the dining room above are all oriented toward the sea.
In Goseong, Architect Wook Choi and artist Jinnie Seo build a different kind of beach house with geometric volumes tied together by terraces.
The 100-year-old house retained original features such as the roof.
The house is located in Jinseki, in an area with picturesque views.
“CLT House is built in a forest clearing in upstate New York. Aiming for a light touch on its natural site, the 2,150-square-foot house was built with cross-laminated-timber (CLT) panels and installed in 11 days,” nARCHITECTS tells us. “The live-edge siding and its uneven weathering with time aims to provide a rustic contrast with the contemporary nature of the prefab build and its modern environmental features: geothermal wells, a radiant floor system, and a solar panel array.”
Zoé Stone's home is nestled into a forested hillside that had never been built on before. Others had shied away from its engineering challenges, but not Zoé and her dad.
At this summer house in a Danish forest, the cabin's T-shaped plan branches between existing trees.
“We didn’t want anything flashy. Just something that belonged here,” Andrew says. The cabin’s gabled form is preserved and reclad in black Colorbond steel blends into the surrounding bushland.
The cabin’s gabled form was reclad in black Colorbond steel. A new parents’ retreat extends off the deck to accommodate the growing family.
The tiny, open sleeping shelters abut a stand of woods. Their open fronts frame views of the Wanderwood farm.
A multi-layer curtain system provides privacy—with nets to keep mosquitos out—but according to Matt and Kelsey, leaving it open and falling asleep with the stars bright overhead is a dreamy experience.
With a brand-new plan, vibrant decor, and a bright-yellow door, Ghislaine Viñas reinvigorated a 600-square-foot kit house for her family.
Wang repositioned the entryway to create more space for the living room. It's highlighted by a skylight and planter box.
SHED rebuilt the deck to have only two support posts, and an integrated planter faced with COR-TEN steel to tie into the front facade.
After adding layers of exterior insulation and new windows for an energy retrofit, the team replaced the siding with open-gap cedar cladding and COR-TEN accents.
Kevin kept the Victorian details on the upper portion of the building, painted Benjamin Moore "Mayonnaise,
The loft extension is arranged over two levels, with the form housing the study and terrace, and the upper front section the primary bedroom and en suite.
“The original house was more about viewing nature from afar,” says architect Alice Fung of the 1954 structure, which is perched at the highest point on the site. “The new buildings are very connected to the land and allow people to go outdoors at every level.”
<span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">The ceramics studio was built on the posts and beams of an abandoned pergola from the old estate. Its new enclosure consists of a roof elevated off of the original rafters, and glazing applied directly to shelves that are suspended between the original columns.</span>
Redwood siding lends TK. "We wanted to slowly gain some presence in the community and not come in swinging,
Architect Linda Taalman worked with landscape designers Terremoto and homeowners Kathryn McCullough and Andrew Bulbrook to revamp and expand this 1955 cabin in the woods of Mount Washington. "The intention with the design was to have a conversation with Kemper Nomland, Jr. who was the original architect by experimenting with the wood framing and ceiling plane,
Taalman Architecture, Terremoto, and interior designer Kathryn McCullough honor the past while transforming a compact Mount Washington cabin into a family retreat.
TK from Ikebana TK. Since 1921, Hollyhock House has undergone extensive restorations and repairs, some of which were overseen by Wright’s son Lloyd Wright. The remaining guest residence is undergoing its own renovations and is expected to open to the public in 2027.
The TK facade of the house. In contrast to Wright’s earlier Midwestern-inspired Prairie-style designs, the temple-like Hollyhock House was influenced by pre-Columbian architecture, notably Mayan and Aztec styles, though some have also described it as Asian or Egyptian. The result was something the architect called “California Romanza,” and Wright’s use of hollow clay tile covered in stucco presaged his later textile block residences.
Set on the highest point of the property, the house offers panoramic views.
Madeline, Alexandre, Camille and Leonard enjoy a moment of sunshine with their chickens.
The eastern cedar cladding will develop a gray patina over time.
In rural Quebec, La Shed Architecture designed a simple gabled home that echoes the form of the region’s traditional barns.
The cantilevered addition was kept, and another bedroom added to the second floor over the existing house. Parks collaborated with Fort Structures to ensure that the third addition would sync with the rest of the house, replicating the window placement to make them sit between the roof beams, while still meeting current code and insulating the ceiling.
The architect removed the clunky addition enclosing the front door and reinstated the original door and sidelites. New and restored board-and-batten siding is painted Roycroft Bronze Green by Sherwin Williams.
Architects Carlos Cottet and Victoria Iachetti of Cottet Iachetti transformed an old house in the quiet Agronomía neighborhood of Buenos Aires into a modern white-walled residence with straight lines and carefully placed windows.
The new second-story addition, clad in Hardie Lap Siding and painted in Benjamin Moore Deep Sea, creates a bold contrast with the existing home's cedar shingles in Black Panther.
Jess, Shay and Mike now have a home that works for their busy family of three.
“We demoed the kitchen, installed new bathroom vanities, and sanded and finished the kitchen counters,” says homeowner Malcolm Taylor—and that was just the start.
“The living room ceiling brought the whole project together,” designer Ben Warwas explains. “It was a win-win because we also got a whole new facade in the back.”
Facundo Ochoa’s beach house is an ode to craft and coastal living with a sprawling deck, DIY details, and lots of room to hang out.
The house floats out over the hillside, minimizing its impact on the landscape, while taking advantage of surrounding views. The design, which places the primary living spaces on the upper floor, leaves flexibility to add an additional bedroom underneath in the future.
Angelika and Scot Whitham tapped their son Todd McMillan and his wife Kristen, both principals of the firm Ben Homes, to build a retirement home on their property near the Muskoka River in Ontario, Canada.
LAMAS Architecture kept the peaked roof in the recent renovation, as the clients had no desire to change it back to a flat roof, and wanted to generate their own electricity. Now, there's a large solar array on the south-facing roof of the Honer addition.
A 2024 remodel of the home by LAMAS Architecture kept the exterior of the historic farmhouse much the same.
"An ADU facilitates flexibility,
There are two entrances into the ADU, and this one by a courtyard feels more private.
Kudoo is built on a two-cent plot—a unit of land measurement, commonly used in parts of South India, equivalent to 1/100th of an acre. Half of the site is occupied by the built form, with a landscaped border surrounding it. A major challenge was the location of the home, 100 metres from the main road. This meant that everything had to be carried to site by hand and added to the construction cost.
The modest home is clad in Weathertex panels made from 97% eucalyptus woodchips and 3% paraffin. The cladding is finished with a charcoal-colored stain to enhance street appeal and avoid any unsightly weathering.
Barache describes the metal roof as essentially a deformed plane, placing an apple beneath a sheet of paper to demonstrate his point. He chose zinc for its malleability and the high level of the craftspeople who work with it.
The vertical, three-level cabin is compact in footprint, but maximizes every square foot.
A triangular cutaway in the barn's volume creates a transitional space between indoors and outdoors and fills the interior with natural light.
“Initially, we proposed fewer glass panes to control sunlight and energy loss,” says architect Daniel Iragüen. “But in the end, we made the house almost completely transparent.”
Divided into three volumes (plus a garage), the single-level residence incorporates steel and stained and natural cedar. The architectural lines were kept simple and paired with the palette they help the house blend almost seamlessly with the site.
The back patio and fire-pit area are central entertaining spaces. When the weather is nice, homeowner Joan and Ken wheel their dining room table outside for parties and dinners with friends. The fire pit was built using a steel cut-off from a natural gas tank.
The Bjorksten's refreshed farmhouse is now equipped for farming and family life.
After spending several years in Tokyo, a family revamps an American Foursquare with a fresh floor plan, a glassy extension, and an appreciation of Japanese design.
Colleen Healey Architecture rebuilt an existing addition and reconfigured the common areas to place the kitchen and dining table right next to the meadow.
Nigel Chouri and Crick King bought a tattered ’50s beach house for $911K and introduced water-resistant features, a Spanish-style plaza, and a dreamy garden ADU.
The duo recently moved to Australia from Barcelona, and they drew inspiration from Spanish-style plazas for the home’s backyard.
Circa-1940s documents that were filed with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety credit William H. Thomas, who was a very close friend of graphic designer Alvin Lustig, as the house’s “certified architect.” After extensive research conducted by the previous homeowner, Andy Hackman, the current owner, Andrew Romano, believes the structure was in fact Lustig’s design.
The house is partially off-grid, with all water collected on site and all sewage treated and disposed of on site.
12345...29