La Girotte dam

Valve room at the foot of the penstock, La Bâthie power plant

Roseland dam, Méraillet buttresses

High mountain pastures, Saint-Guérin dam

High mountain pastures, Saint-Guérin dam

Engine room, La Bâthie power plant

La Girotte, vaulting maintenance

Nino Manfiotto, who worked at La Girotte in the 1940s

Hydraulic machine, Queige power plant

The landscaping appears to be based on the mullet principle: business in the front, as seen here (manicured grid lawn, with native vegetation sprouting in careful symmetry), party in the back (sunflowers and wild mountain grass growing in harmonious chaos).

Yang Yeo and his girlfriend Ching Ian relax on the back stoop of their renovated and radically updated Singapore shophouse—an archetypal building type in this busy port city. “Shophouses brought back memories of our childhood,” says Yeo.

Christine (at left), and Amanda (at right) chat with David’s sister Aroha Yates-Smith (center) in the kitchen.

“There was too much visual pollution disturbing the simplicity. The goal was to allow the existing buildings to work within a totally new program, each still distinguishable by its own destiny.” —Architect Bart Len

A verdant tundra that the architect dubbed the “courtyard” separates Bullitt’s house from his 900-square-foot studio. The space, which is planted with Bog Myrtle, bearberry, and other native plants, “reinforces...the dominance of the landscape over the building,” the architect says. “The end result was an exceedingly naturalized setting.”

A small terrace outfitted with an H55 easy chair by Björn Hultén offers a view of the San Francisco Bay.

The ever-changing, lush wooded surroundings of Minnesota, such as those experienced at this 8,000-square-foot Type Variant House outside of Minneapolis designed by Coen and Partners, are right near the small town of New Richland.

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The landscape design, by Anna Boeschenstein of Grounded, followed a 2,200-square-foot extension by Formwork architects Robert and Cecilia H. Nichols. The front door is painted in Chinese Red by Sherwin-Williams.

Upon his first visit to Tasmania, an island south of the Australian mainland, resident David Burns was immediately smitten with its varied, pristine landscape. Working with architecture firm Misho+Associates, he built a self-sustaining, 818-square-foot retreat that would allow him to completely unplug from urban life.

Sited parallel to each other, the two autonomous bedroom cabins frame perspectival views of the surrounding landscape. Exteriors of all three structures feature mitered corners and cross-laminated timber panels, all nailed by hand.

Achieving such efficiency and maintaining the integrity of the wetlands and woodlands on the property meant more research for both the designers and the resident—just getting approval for the siting of the buildings and the driveway took eight months—but Hague is hardly one to do things half way. “A lot of times couples engage in house-building, like birds. I'm doing this solo, more like a monk,” he says of the deeply personal undertaking.

The backyard’s emphasis on nature is mirrored in the front of the home, which also underwent extensive landscaping by Considered Design. The owners and Parish wanted to “tone everything down” and turn the home into a backdrop for a natural setting.

To combat the site’s steep, uneven grade, Boeschenstein staggered a series of ipe decks around the two main volumes of the house. Atticus joins his brother, Bodhi, on the zigzag decks.

“It was very important to get the integration between the garden and the house right,” Maynard says. The architects worked with Bush Projects to strike that balance, laying down concrete pavers and planting native flora that add to the home’s relaxed feel. Permanent steel awnings protect windows from glare, while retractable fabric ones by Shadefactor offer residents optional shelter when they sit outside.

Glass Houses Though the original plans called for a frameless wall of glass in the back, it turned out that it would eat up most of the budget. Instead, they installed three wood-framed windows made by Fecon. fecon.de Cut and Plant For the landscaping, the couple literally took a page out of somebody else’s book. Winterhalder says their garden was lifted from page 38 of Peter Janke’s Kleine Gärten (Small Gardens), published by Becker Joest Volk Verlag. bjvv.de

Crushed stone paths and native plantings, including cacti, wildflowers, and grasses, encompass the surrounding landscape. “We’re nothing but natural,” says Austin. “The cacti, to me, are like pieces of sculpture, each with their own personality. I even named some.”

Shope and his wife carefully designed an eco-friendly landscape: For instance, they did not fell any tree with holes that could support an owl’s nest. They also planted flower species that feed hummingbirds and monarch butterflies. Shope laid out the pathway of reclaimed granite slabs that leads toward the Hudson River below.

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A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.

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With input from her clients, Barensfeld used a computer to generate the circular patterns that were carved into a pair of Cor-Ten steel screens with a water-jet cutter. The perforations allow light and the green of the surrounding Koi bamboo to filter into the space while preserving privacy.

The master bedroom features a low-level picture window that opens out to the green space behind the house.

Having lived, he says, in “a number of houses where the living room is the most adorned and the least used,” it was important for Lazor to create a functional family living space. As the gathering above attests, it worked. The carpet is by InterfaceFLOR, and the armchairs by Blu Dot.

The recycled shipping containers were sourced from the Pacific Port of Caldera in Costa Rica. “Discarded shipping containers are all over the world and cost relatively little,” Saxe says. “With a bit of creativity and understanding of local building techniques, the interiors can be modified for any client.”

The bedroom pavilion is mostly hidden, thanks to a massive native California oak—part of a grove. “That’s the good thing about oaks—they keep their leaves in the winter, so you don’t have one view in the summer and another in the winter,” Suzanne says.

Sliding aluminum panels on the facade of Green Orchard not only mirror the local flora, they also allow residents Fred and Edna Wadham to control how much sunlight enters their 2,150-square-foot home.