Former Brooklynites, Darren and Cathryn purchased the property in 2013. The passive solar home sits on a sloping site to optimize sunlight.

“Our goal was to strike a good balance between traditional and modern in a way that did not result in simply a traditional exterior and modern interior,” says Lewis. A pressure-treated wood deck extends from the property under a stained pine, V-groove ceiling. Steel and wood comprise the columns.

Floors are sealed and waxed concrete. The 4,200-square-foot home is clad in stained local tongue-in-groove cypress.

“The main volume presents a traditional front and is wrapped on the west and south by a deep porch,” says architect Erin Sterling Lewis. “Living and dining spaces access the porch.” A standing seam metal roof with a Kynar finish and HardiePlank Lap Siding cover the exterior of this 3,000-square-foot home.

Amy requested a quiet, sunny reading nook with a view; In Situ obliged with a built-in bench housing her collection of books.

A family of cost-conscious Hamburgers converted a kitschy turn-of-the-century villa into a high-design home with a strict budget in place. To unite the quaint masonry of the original villa with the squat, ugly add-on built flush against it, the architects decided to paint the old-fashioned facade graphite gray and then covered the box next door in plain, light-colored larch. Photo by Mark Seelen.

The Clark family residence in Raleigh, North Carolina, was designed around the Series 600 multi-slide window walls from Western Window Systems, a rarity in the southeast.

A door frame was preserved as "a sculptural memory piece," Sara Imhoff says, after a wall separating the old kitchen from a small dining room was demolished. The countertops and backsplash are by Caesarstone.

The firm also designed the kitchen, which was fabricated by Thomson Cabinetry.

Living spaces are tailored to each of the two clients' needs. Here, the composite bamboo decking is by Calibamboo. Courtesy of Richard Leo Johnson / Atlantic Archives Inc.

In the living room are a sectional by American Leather for Room & Board, an Eames lounge chair and ottoman, and a custom floor lamp and coffee table by Jeremy Clark and Ed Haynes.

“We tweaked the site by as little as three degrees, to keep the view, and slid it a little downhill from the top to preserve it.” —Erin Sterling Lewis, architect

The renovation of a 2,000-square-foot property updates a century-old design for a family of four. "We placed the kitchen at the center of the house to link with the dining room and the outdoor space," Moreau says. In the kitchen, a Wolf oven brings out the silver details in Coit’s Bianco Cararra backsplash and island. Hee bar stools by Hay are lined under the island.

The renovated bathroom features tiles from Heath Ceramics.

A pool located just outside the dining space and master bedroom echoes the home's angular forms.

The bedroom—accessible via the living room—is where the couple will place a bassinet for their newborn.

Some 35 percent of the materials from the renovation were resurrected in the yard: Redwood panels became fencing. Blocks cut from original concrete patios form the snake wall. And Purdy plans to crochet colorful cozies over various branches and stumps.

Tuned into its sylvan setting, this affordable green home in Hillsborough, North Carolina, is a modern take on the surrounding centuries-old structures. The house’s skewed cubic form is clad in plank-like Cor-Ten steel panels and shielded by a rain screen. Over the years, the Cor-Ten will develop a rich patina that will liken the home to the weathered and rusted farm buildings in the area.

Designed by Frank Harmon this residence features deep roof overhangs shade the interior from high summer sun.

Most of the galleries at the new North Carolina Museum of Art are naturally daylit.

Only one shade of paint was used in the interior of the home, including the bathroom: Sherwin-Williams's Harmony.

Jeremy and Amy have two separate offices that share a common space. “It gives us individual privacy, buta collaborative environment when necessary,” Amy says.

Originally designed by locally renowned architect Arthur Dallas Stenger, this 1960s home featured an unusual awning that was maintained during a 21st-century upgrade by architects Rick and Cindy Black. The architects partially reconfigured the interior layout, updated the kitchen, and added new doors to the porch, all the while making sure the adjustments to the house honored its midcentury provenance while still avoiding creating a time capsule.

As grand as it ever was this renovated Eichler home in San Rafael, California, exudes warm light into the California hills. Photo by: Scott Hargis

“The backyard, which was kind of the focus of the project, was overgrown and quite disconnected from the house itself,” said architect Nigel Parish. The glass doors of the addition open onto a patio and lawn where the kids can play.

A family in Hamburg, Germany, turned a kitschy turn-of-the-century villa into a high-design home with a few exterior tricks, including sheathing the exterior in one-dimensional, murdered-out black.

The corner window overlooks the woods. Courtesy of Richard Leo Johnson / Atlantic Archives Inc.

Built by Joseph Eichler, the home was designed by A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons. While bringing the home back to its former glory, the family with two children also made some modern updates. Materials original to classic Eichler homes such as interior wood paneling, aluminum sliding doors, glass walls, and VCT flooring were restored, and other original spaces like an open atrium were maintained.

Creative Direction The arrowhead-shaped corner at the end of the living room evolved from the need to accommodate a standard sliding-glass-door module. “It would have been astronomically expensive to custom-build it,” says Chris Bardt. This architectural gesture— the arrow “points” toward the river—“enabled us to be very generous with the view area without having to extend the entire house.”

An office nook and library can participate in the open plan or disappear behind pocket doors.

In 1962, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect Arthur Witthoefft won the AIA's highest honor for a home he built in the lush woods of Westchester County. Having fended off a developer's wrecking ball, Todd Goddard and Andrew Mandolene went above and beyond to make this manse mint again.

Alex Gil and Claudia DeSimio created a duplex in an apartment building where they’d been renting for years in Brooklyn, New York, and set to work gutting the interior and adding a new rooftop addition clad in panels of Cor-Ten steel.

The metal wall panels are designed to blend in with the home's surroundings. Courtesy of Richard Leo Johnson / Atlantic Archives Inc.

The Dora pendant lights in the kitchen are from Rejuvenation; quartz countertops are by Cambria and the custom bar stools are by Rocky Mountain Table Company. In Situ Studio designed the solid walnut steps with custom steel rails, a walnut hand rail, and a removable baby gate.

Delivering a modern look, concrete serves as a long-lasting, hardwearing material.