All Photos/exterior

751 Exterior Design Photos And Ideas

Though the Quinta Ivana site was very restrictive (30 feet wide by 80 feet deep), it benefits greatly from a greenbelt area on the southern façade, which lets a tremendous amount of natural light into all three levels. Large, strategically placed glass walls further enhance that illumination, as does the restrained use of recessed lighting by Lightolier.

2017 winner The Little House in Seabeck, Washington by MW Works captures the essence of a cabin in the woods, despite its more generous size.

West Face on Approach

The cedar wrapped deck appears to carve out of the metal wrapped shape.

Wooden screens provide privacy to the Master Bedroom from the entrance facade.

Transom windows along the side of the house provide cross ventilation.

Front

Front

Balcony

The building’s south elevation. The lofty double-height balcony, with windows leading into his study, shows how the architects’ break from the triple-decker’s usual horizontality created dramatic results.

Ample windows cut into the north elevation of the Valentine House, behind which live the architects. The openings reveal lofty double-height spaces inside. The ground-floor garage often serves as a shop for architectural model-making.

Cabin Knapphullet is small cabin inspired by its location nestled between large rocks and low vegetation of the Sandefjord coast in Norway. It is only 323 square feet, but contains an open living space with a bathroom and a mezzanine bed that sleeps two people. Although the building occupies a small footprint, the space expands vertically over four levels including a roof terrace.

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.

The pavilion concept of this cabin is emphasized by its large roof which also serves as a shelter for rainy days and makes for a greater sense of space.

The metal cladding, inspired by a nearby zinc mine, continues seamlessly onto the house’s roof for a minimalist shed effect. “The drip edge turns to make the wall,” explains architect Brandon Pace, “but changes above the window to accommodate a downspout. Any place where the metal contacts glass, or where you walk underneath, we have an internal gutter.”

Rocks that were unearthed while digging the foundation make up the hardscape in the rear, beyond the open porch. “It’s one of my favorite parts of the house,” says resident Laura Sohn. Sanders Pace Architecture finished the exterior in western red cedar treated with Sikkens Cetol.

Architect Yuri Zagorin Alazraki’s refined home in Mexico City is oriented as a series of stacked boxes.

Farm House, 2008. "Doing a small house is like doing a portrait of your client," says Jarmund. "In one case it’s an old abandoned farmhouse for a pair of historians. In another, it’s a guy who wants a house out of James Bond."

The Donning Community Building, constructed in 2006.

The Triangle House, 2006.

Villa Bjørnsen/Sund, 2003.

The White House, 2006.

The Red House, 2002.

The Triangle House was completed in 2006, and its natural materials and geometric form equally embrace the surrounding forests and ocean.

Architect Jim Garrison of Brooklyn-based Garrison Architects was asked to design a retreat for visiting families on an idyllic lakeside expanse of land at a boarding school for troubled teens, Star Commonwealth in Albion, Michigan. To drastically reduce academic interruption and cut site noise, Garrison decided early on to create an 1,100-square-foot modular building dubbed Koby, with two bedrooms on opposite sides of the structure and a common dining area in the middle “as a therapeutic space for families to gather and eat together.”

Hidden away up a perilous dirt road, the Witt Guesthouse, in its material and construction, reflects the wildness of the beauty that surrounds it.

The Treehouse, also part of the Post Ranch Inn, features Cor-ten panels.

The glass doors of Muennig’s own home allow the ocean breeze through the circular entry of the sea-facing front.

The Partington Point House, which Muennig renovated in 1995.

The interiors of many of Mickey Muennig’s houses emphasize natural building materials such as wood, concrete, and stone.

Olson Kundig designed the Rolling Huts in Mazama, Washington, for a client who needed space to house visiting friends and family. The huts sit lightly on the site, a former RV campground in an alpine river valley. The huts are sited to capture views of the mountains and not one another.

The defining feature of this lakeside cabin in northern Idaho is a 30-by-20-foot window wall that opens the living area to the surrounding lake and forest. Concrete blocks, steel, and plywood make up the simple palette of materials.

Olson Kundig refurbished this 1950s building as a flexible off-site exhibition space for SFMOMA's Project Los Altos in downtown Los Altos, California. The firm replaced the front facade with a double-height, floor-to-ceiling window wall that can be raised or lowered at the whim of the user.

Near the main house, James Turrell’s pyramidal Skyspace structure invites visitors into its dark recess for a chance to view the heavens through a perspective-altering cutout. Most of Murren’s museum-quality art collection is inside the house, including a Robert Rauschenberg piece, a set of Andy Warhol prints, and a hologram by Turrell.

Debbi Gibbs loved the seeming wilderness of the area, especially considering its relative proximity to her New York apartment. She bought a ramshackle cabin with plans to tear it down and start fresh, then bided her time until she found just the right architects. Enter Joseph Tanney and Robert Luntz of Resolution: 4 Architecture, who granted her wish for an open prefabricated structure with custom design touches.

A prefabricated lakeside New Jersey retreat is one woman's outdoorsy counterpoint to city life.

Architect Byoung-soo Cho and his wife, Eunsil Kim, value the privacy, and style,

that a concrete wall and recycled Indonesian teak facade provide.

Visitors enter through a narrow staircase, visible here as a slit to the right of the courtyard.

A square hole in the ground and a concrete slab are all that demarcate Byoung Cho’s Earth House from the surrounding countryside.

Parson Russell terriers Pepper and Trixie get a glimpse of the large courtyard through a glassy expanse by Marvin Windows and Doors.

Buser and Chapoton blackened the exterior cladding themselves.

A series of charred modern boxes, the home Petra Sattler-Smith and Klaus Mayer designed for Martin Buser and Kathy Chapoton, is organized around views of the Alaskan landscape.

On Vashon Island, about 20 miles southwest of Seattle, architect Seth Grizzle designed a 440-square-foot multiuse structure for his clients Bill and Ruth True.

The 3,000-square-foot house sits partially on stilts to tread as lightly as possible on its natural island site.

Architect Michelle Linden worked with Brothers to create a minimalist house. Inspired by the inward-looking approach of Cistercian abbeys, Linden oriented the U-shaped structure around a courtyard.

Anna Hoover, founder of the non-profit First Light Alaska, sought a "thought refuge, a room with a view to sit and contemplate future projects and reflect on recent travels and interactions, plenty of ‘headspace’—tall ceilings—and the ability to host other artists for studio time," she says. A longtime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Hoover was familiar with the work of Olson Kundig and contacted the Seattle-based firm to design her abode.

Updating the A-frame of yore, this home’s liberal use of windows makes the most of panoramic views spanning two valleys. Catalonia, Spain. Cadaval & Sola-Morales from the book Rock the Shack, Copyright Gestalten 2013.

The charred cedar exterior gently basks in the Alaskan sun.

The facade is clad with beveled siding, stained dark to meld into the forest.

Estate Bungalow in Matugama, Sri Lanka, by Narein Perera as published in Cabins (Taschen, 2014).

Sebastian Heise’s wooden structure, seemingly atilt, overlooks a green valley in Oberwiesenthal, Germany. The two horizontal windows on the side and the front porch give the home its own unique sense of balance.

A shed provides storage for the owners’ tools as well as wood for the fireplace. It features the same aged pine finish as the main home.

Building atop the foundation of a previous greenhouse was a cost-cutting measure; it allowed the project to be considered a renovation and thereby qualify for a temporary tax reduction. Its traditional, gabled form also pays homage to the original structure.

Jaanus Orgusaar's NOA cabin in the Virumaa region of northeast Estonia. The structure rests on three feet, so it doesn't require a foundation.

The House for a Musher is all about taking advantage of its hilltop site. The courtyard in the front has vast views and the house itself is oriented toward the surrounding landscape.

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