In Bracebridge, Ontario, this cedar cabin with slatted wood screens treads lightly on the land. Read more about the project here.

A linear sequence of eight, 12-foot bays extends the length of the home from rear bedrooms and an office to the open kitchen and living room space. The modest form, a reflection of the owners' desire for simplicity, required few materials: wood, concrete, and steel. Photo by Ron Johnson.

The firm also designed a slatted screen next to the staircase.

Set amongst the trees, with its simple form and earthy adherence to wood, the home fits in well. "Veronica and I walked the land for many months before we decided where to put the house," says Hirsh. "We had picnics there. We sat looking east. We sat looking west. We sat looking south. The site felt wonderful." Photo by Ron Johnson.

The master bedroom is shaded by exterior slats in cumaru, a sustainable tropical wood. Alazraki designed the custom bed frame.

A cedar-slat rain screen hangs on the facade of Denis Carpenter’s concrete house in Jersey City, softening its appearance and adding a modest dash of color. Carpenter keeps the awning-style windows open in the spring and summer, creating a draft that compensates for the lack of an air-conditioning system.

“I made a very conscious decision, when I realized that the house with nothing in it was such a fantastic work of art,” says Greg Wooten, “to go out of my way to pull back and only select pieces that complemented the architecture and would allow both the house and the furniture to breathe.” The place is furnished minimally with vintage finds he chose for the rooms over time.

"How would a kid draw a house?" architect Per Franson asked himself when designing the Olivero-Reinius family home. The simple prefab structure’s unusual color comes from a traditional source: falu rödfärg, the historic mineral paint that gives the region’s famous barns their red color.

The cedar screen that extends out from the dining and living rooms traces the line of the actual setback and reads not as a wall of the house but as a delineator of exterior space. The same material is used on the railing on the roof deck and offers a bit of privacy without, according to Braver, “looking like a stockade.”

Movable wood screens on the exterior provide shade to alleviate heat gain. The home is color coded to correspond to the outside elements.

The exterior is clad in Siberian larch, which doesn’t require paint and will develop a gray patina.

A high band of windows on the east side of the home lets light in, while a simple wood overhang shades an outdoor dining area on the terrace with mountain views. "On clear days, it feels like you can see across the high plains to Kansas," says Hirsh. Photo by Ron Johnson.

A Simple Plan A Marmol Radziner–designed prefab house, trucked onto a remote Northern California site, takes the pain out of the construction process.

The exterior features vertical, untreated cedar panels. “We tried to use materials that are beautiful in their natural state without excessive treatment or finishing,” Pavonetti says.

Architect Sven Matt mixed basic shapes with rich details in this Austrian home. The lattice shell was hewn from silver fir sourced from a nearby forest. Eternit shingles clad the roof.

A small country road borders the property to the west.

O’Sullivan designed the ceiling “to have a knitted or woven quality like that of wool or silk.” It dives down over the kitchen and dining area, eventually reaching a point at the entry that is low enough to touch. Here, resident Jes Wood leans against the onyx kitchen island while her daughter Ruby hangs out. Replica Jean Prouvé chairs surround the dining table; a vase by Bruce and Estelle Martin for Kamaka Pottery sits on top. The Reel table under the television is by Atelier Oï for B&B Italia.

To tackle the challenges of a steep slopping site and a tight budget, architect Dan Rockhill used a slatted exterior screen of Cumaru wood to shields inexpensive metal sidings for this Kansas home.

Verda Alexander and her son, Apolo, collaborate on a project in their first-floor studio.

Landscape architect Tait Moring installed pavers around the structure’s perimeter and kept the tree cover intact. Photo by: Kimberly Davis

“If you look closely at the concrete wall, the curvature is based on one really simple formal move,” says Massie. “In front, the roof is about 11 feet high, and in back, about 9 feet. If you could imagine just pinching the back of the building, that linear distance would have to go somewhere, hence the curve.” That arc continues inside as the wall nearest to the guest sleeping area. “It’s really interesting to feel that wall dimpling toward you,” says Wooten. “It changes as you walk from the bedroom to the guest bath—it starts with a dramatic curve and gradually flattens out.”

Architects Joan Soranno and John Cook of HGA developed five site-specific cabins that tread lightly on the land at Marlboro College in rural Vermont. These deceptively simple structures update the regional vernacular. Every year, Marlboro College hosts the Marlboro Music Festival in which classical musicians join together to hone their craft. These cabins help support the musicians that live, work, and rehearse together.

Architect Dan Rockhill tackled a tight budget and a steep slope to build a modern Midwest haven for a family in Lawrence, Kansas, who had just $214,000 to spend on design and construction. His biggest flourish was a slatted exterior screen of Cumaru wood that shields the inexpensive metal siding.

Sited on a lake near Bracebridge, Ontario, this small-footprint family cottage was designed by Toronto firm superkül to integrate with its natural surroundings and minimize its environmental impact. The clients, a married couple, had mixed feelings about going completely modern with their cabin's aesthetic, so the architects created a sculptural wood form to bridge the gap between traditional and contemporary. Photo by Shai Gil.

Torontonians Dan and Diane Molenaar head north to Drag Lake when they need a weekend away from urban life—though they brought some of the city with them. The mirrored windows that circle the cottage were recycled from two office towers in Toronto.

Photo by: Dan Rockhill

“I wanted to do a house that belonged on the site,” she says.

“We wanted the wood to appear as natural as possible, so leaving the larch untreated was the first choice,” Bas explained. But the shape of the house would make the wood turn gray unevenly, so they blackened the larch. “The clients were excited with the dark color as it helps the house blend into the trees. They didn’t want the anything excessive or showy.” But blackened timber comes with its own challenges. Since it absorbs more heat, a larger air cavity was built behind the wood to keep it cool.

Referencing the motif in the kitchen, wood slats also appear on the rear facade of the home; the variegated cedar planks both modulate light and provide a bit of privacy (above).The garden floor, which accommodates an additional living area and office, also offers access to the backyard.

Teaming up with architect Craig Steely, an industrial designer and a mechanical engineer find just the right design for a striking home on a San Francisco hill. Photo by Ian Allen.

"The longer I work as an architect, the more I want to deepen my skills as a gardener," says Yuri Zagorin Alazraki, founder of the Mexico City firm ZD+A. In building his own house in Mexico City’s Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood, his commitment has produced results that appear miraculous. In fact, they grow out of a carefully choreographed series of bravura design moves.

A pop of red distinguishes the front door, paired with vertical cedar siding with an ebony stain, and Richlite panels and detailing.

Roger and Mary Downey’s 3,200-square-foot rammed-earth home seems to float next to the forest along the Rio Grande in Corrales, New Mexico. While the home’s design and materials nod to the neighboring adobe farmhouses and agricultural sheds, architect Efthimios Maniatis of Studio eM Design calls them an amalgam of “modern contemporary regionalism,” governed by Roger’s strict mandate for minimalism.

Alongside the redwood shade screen, which keeps the house from overheating, Freeman and Feldmann grow vegetables in an 18-inch-wide garden but frequently bike to nearby eateries for the local Mexican cuisine.

An outdoor shower in the lower courtyard includes most of the materials that define the project, including Cor-Ten steel posts, horizontal ipe slats and decking, a custom seat and towel shelf set into a natural boulder, and concrete pavers. The yard includes many elements built for play, like a water feature embedded in a concrete wall that is fed by runoff rainwater collected from the breezeway roof.

“There’s a presence to that place—it’s vast, and constantly shifting,” Moffitt says. “It was clear that this house should be an observation shed for the changing landscape beyond.”