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Exterior Design Photos and Ideas

The couple behind Field Theory help their brother reimagine a dreary 1890s estate as the irresistibly chic Hotel Lilien.
At night, full-height glazing makes the cabin glows from within.
The cabin's roof is made from the strongest gauge corrugated metal that Carsten could find. "Trees fall over in large windstorms,
Madison points out that the pod concept would make it easy to add an extension if necessary. “We see it as a house that can grow with us—and that we can pay for as we go along.”
Spyon Cop is located in the Cairngorms in Scotland, a large national park renowned for its natural beauty and access to outdoor activities like hillwalking, mountain biking and climbing. The house is located on a hilltop where the River Don bends, and overlooks beautiful views down two valleys. “Our clients wanted the house to feel like it belonged, so Spyon Cop is quite modest in its size and form, but also in its presence,” explains architect Kate Brown. “It sits gently on the land.”
The sod roof is angled to create a sweeping elevation on approach and is planted with grass tussocks cut from the hillside during construction. “The tussocks camouflage the house, melting it into the landscape,” explains architect Kate Brown.
Tasked with renovating a 1950s ranch in Northern California, Ogawa Fisher Architects revived an existing Japanese garden at the center of the home as a central organizing element. Low-slung, wide decks (inspired by the Japanese “engawa,” or elevated walkway) and deep roof soffits expand the living spaces, frame views, and blur the boundaries between inside and outside. The garden is the second of three courtyards that orients the various wings of the home from front to back, creating a vast sense of openness while also maintaining privacy from other areas of the house and the street.
The wood-wrapped tiny home features a deck pierced by a tree trunk.
The home is divided into different zones that are clearly represented in the built form. The ground floor is open, public and noisy; the first floor houses more private rooms for guests and children; and the new mansard roof extension has a
The deck was reconfigured to open on to the garden, as one enlarged and connected space.
Moss-covered boulders at the base of Colorado Camelot tree house helped to inspire the design for the compact structure.
The Colorado Camelot tree house in Manitou Springs, Colorado, is wrapped with Douglas fir and features a deck pierced by tree trunks.
The owners found this cabin, built in 1959, after looking to fix up a "weird 70s contemporary,
Named House With Gable, the 1,680-square-foot home has been beautifully designed by Austria–based studio mia2/ARCHITEKTUR. Constructed predominantly with native timber, a concrete foundation, and expansive glass windows, the modern dwelling also features a massive, eye-catching gable roof.
Composed of overlapping cubes of different sizes, the Gjøvik house by Danish firm Norm Architects gracefully embraces its hillside terrain—naturally blending in with its stunning surroundings near Mjøsa Lake an hour north of Oslo.
Inspired by the Ice Age rock formations found throughout the region, the Meteorite, so named for obvious reasons, is a faceted dwelling designed by Kivi and Tuuli Sotamaa, the brother-and-sister team behind Ateljé Sotamaa.
Sitting on a plateau over the rolling landscape of rural Quebec, the residence comprises three joined, gable roof structures, each oriented differently. It takes inspiration from the local farmhouses and barns of the area, whose steep rooflines help shed snow in the winter, and whose wood-clad facades traditionally used lumber from local trees.
HR Design Department refurbished the original wood siding and painted it in Sherwin Williams Snowbound. New flagstone pavers and gravel make the yard more drought tolerant.
The Armadillo is parked on a 1,000-square-foot lot that gives the couple ample outdoor space.
The home nestles comfortably into its surroundings, rather than feeling 'perched' awkwardly atop the sloped landscape.
On the exterior, floating steel siding shields the home from the elements while allowing fresh air to flow in and out.
The 260-square-foot tree house in Melides that Madeiguincho designed was inspired by a pair of centenary pine trees.
Designed by Madeiguincho, the Columba tree house has handbuilt furniture, a roof deck, and a slide.
<span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">A Chicago-based firm known for preserving cultural landmarks builds a refined weekend home on Lake Michigan’s southern shore.</span>
The volume of the first floor overhangs the entrance by three meters, covering the semi-public garden. “The overhead volume makes you feel quite small,” says Eduardo Ugalde from All Arquitectura. “Then, when you open the door and turn to the right, you discover a large open space.”
Antonio and Estela have been together since they were teenagers and today have two teenage children, a son and daughter. The couple built a business together and lived in rented accommodation but always dreamed of having their own home. As their company became increasingly successful, they had the opportunity to not just buy but create their dream home. Interestingly, for a home that values privacy, the front garden is conceived as a semi-public space.
Tantalus Studio coaxes a Palm Springs home into the 21st century with fresh finishes and a sublime palette plucked from the desert landscape.
The house for Kundan's mother, dubbed Chameli, is constructed of two 40 x 8 containers located next to the family's garden.
Mary and Kundan Bhullar built a shipshape country escape that sits lightly on the land in the Aravalli hills near Gurgaon, India.
The Perch at sunset.
The steel structure is suspended two feet above the roof of the existing bungalow, supported by four steel columns, one of which screens utility lines running from the Perch to the house below.
Architect couple Andreas Lyckefors and Josefine Wikholm took an unusual approach to designing their dream home. While living in a small apartment with three young children, they bought a site in Askim, a popular suburb close to Gothenburg, where they designed a pair of mirrored residences under a single gable roof.
A simple floor plan emphasizes the rugged materiality of this elongated, cabin-style home designed by <span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;">Augusto Fernández Mas of K+A Diseño and Mauricio Miranda of MM Desarrollos</span><span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, sans-serif;"> in Valle de Bravo.</span>
The timber-clad cabins at Find Sanctuary in Big Bear, California, were devised to help urban professionals manage stress anxiety.
“We definitely wanted to preserve the character of the home and make sure that it always fits the neighborhood,” says designer Jenny Bassett. To that end, the team kept the front façade intact, only repainting and adding new landscaping. The fireplace in the living room was also retained, so wood is stored in the front yard for easy access.
Perched just above the edge of the Narrows, the house is an ideal place to live surrounded by the wild beauty of Ketchikan.
One of the most important aspects of the renovation was to achieve the same high quality of crafted finish that had defined the original building—and much of the budget was allocated to skilled craftsmen, bricklayers, and carpenters. “Obviously, this has a huge impact on a renovation project like this,” explains Thomas.
The bedroom is elevated around five meters above the forest floor, and the space beneath has—like the green roof—been given back to the Bushveld. “Naturally, this space is shadier than the surrounding forest, so it creates a different microclimate for different species to flourish in that area,” says architect Ant Vervoort. “It’s an area that we have cultivated.”
On the site of a former clinic, Kevin Veenhuizen Architects creates a peaceful family residence where plants and wildlife abound.
The 1969 summer house needed a gut remodel—so Carisa Salerno and Aaron Levin rebuilt it piece by piece: “In the end, we feel like we built a sculpture, not a house.”
The compound was built on one of the Frio Cañon homesites along the Frio River—a ranch that’s been divided up into lots and developed with utilities. So while it’s rural, it also avoids some of the typical headaches of a remote location.
The rhythm of the slat wall (made from red cedar and stained to look prematurely weathered) is echoed in the shutter detailing on each window.
"It only cost about $48,000 to build, which was incredibly cheap," says Turner of the Stealth Barn. "We got the Timber Frame Company to supply the shell, then we clad it and fitted out the interior and windows ourselves. The idea was to take the archetypal black tar-painted agricultural building and make an almost childlike icon of that."
Built with trees felled on-site, a 650-foot-long elevated pathway connects the cabin to the nearest road.
This wilderness sauna cabin in the west coast of Finland was built with 112-millimeter thick squrae logs, and has a 1,028-square-foot outdoor terrace.
Sundberg used materials, which include concrete and zinc in addition to larch, that were as close to their natural and untreated form as possible. "It is the right thing to do here," he says. "We don't want our design to pretend to be something it is not."
The charred cedar exterior gently basks in the Alaskan sun.
A full-height, double-glazed window lets ample light into the secondary bedroom.
About 100 miles southwest of Mexico City, nine black concrete blocks in a forest clearing make up one family's holiday home. Designed by Fernanda Canales with landscaping by Claudia Rodríguez, Casa Bruma makes elegant use of a construction material that's commonplace in Latin America
The Hut rests peacefully on a bank overlooking the lake.
Fifteen years ago, the “rickety” cabins that the family had built over the years on their lakeside property were reassessed as lakeshore homes, and the family’s taxes soared. They decided to subdivide the lots—they sold two, and three of her brothers took lakeside lots, while Diane and another brother took back lots. The old boxcar has been preserved and encased in one of her brother’s lake homes. “I didn’t want to build a lake house,” she says. “I wanted to give my grandchildren the old boxcar experience of freedom and simplicity. I wanted them to be able to hear the wind, feel the rain, and be one step from nature.”
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