All Photos/exterior

Exterior Design Photos and Ideas

“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.
Small, simple, yet fully functional, La Casa Nueva is an off-grid timber camper designed by Ecuador-based architect Juan Alberto Andrade. He created the dwelling as a personal retreat for himself and his partner, Cuqui Rodríguez, to travel throughout the country photographing various forms of architecture.
The house has a front door, but it’s actually not the main entrance: That’s found around the side, via a soothing, wood-lined courtyard. It’s a natural space for outdoor entertaining, too, thanks to the built-in fireplace and bench.
The Monocular - Back at Dawn
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.
The tiny cabin currently sits on a friend’s property, but it’s designed to be mobile, should the couple need to move it. “It can be dragged away with nothing more than a tractor,” says Nathalie.
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.
The home is clad in red-painted Norwegian pine, echoing the red-flecked trunks of the surrounding spruce forest. “We wanted to reference a traditional red barn in a modern way and pull it forward into our time and give it a complexity,” says color consultant Dagny Thurmann-Moe.
"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.
Dwellings Winner: Casa Ter by Mesura Mesura designed a retreat for a family of five in the Catalonian countryside, utilizing regional and artisanal building techniques and local materials for a sustainable home that blends with the landscape.
The 1967 beach house—which underwent a meticulous renovation by Bates Masi, the original architect’s firm—is listed as an exclusive holiday rental along the coast of Long Island in New York.
<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,
After an award-winning renovation by local practice Seibert Architects, the 1959 dwelling originally designed by architect Ralph Twitchell is up for grabs in Sarasota, Florida.
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.
Studio Prineas extended a historic Federation home in Sydney to be stylistically distinct from, and yet subtly reflective of, the original residence’s features. A sleek rear addition encompasses a new bedroom and study nook on the upper floor, with an open-plan living, kitchen, and dining area on the ground level. Sliding glass walls provide full access to the garden and pool.
After Ashley Trebitowski spotted a Craigslist ad for a 1999 Bluebird school bus being sold in Ennis, Texas, for $4,400, she and her husband, Brandon, hopped on a flight to check out the vehicle and drove it back to their home in New Mexico. Over the next few months, the couple overhauled the bus for their family of five with a $30,000 DIY renovation.
Rear of the house and the garage at dawn
Front entry and glimpse into the office
Front facade from across the street
Front facade at dusk
Rear of the house and the garage in the snow
SF Historic Renovation
SF Historic Renovation
SF Historic Renovation
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.
<span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">Architect Grant Straghan, founder of DeDraft, designed an aluminum extension in London’s Walthamstow area for a librarian and an illustrator who had lived in the old terrace house for several years before they were ready to move forward with an expansion. After learning about the clients’ affinity for green, Straghan selected a pale-toned paint to decorate the exterior in the residents’ favorite color.</span>
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.
“Something really difficult to capture is the visceral quality, like the acoustics, and the experience of being in the barn with the changing weather,” says Sam.
“Our interventions were about making it extremely clear what we were putting back, and where we were adding new elements,” says Tom.
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.
The preserved grove of Redwoods is just past the house. “They loved the house that was there so much that, it was important to create something that wasn't trying to replace it, but would function for them in a different way,” says Boyer. Thus, this cabin reconnects the couple to the land, and gives them “that place of refuge” they need in nature.
The cabin has charcoal-colored metal siding and a punchy yellow-green front door for contrast.
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