November 2009

East Windsor Residence
Alterstudio Architects, LLP
Alterstudio Architects creates a house with 270-degree views of green hills and downtown Austin.

Photo © Paul Finkel – Piston Design

October 2009

Island 254 C
Peter Hamilton Architects
One building and one sleeping cabin were allowed on this acre-plus lot in Toronto’s Georgian Bay, but the family building a retreat there was a couple with six children and three grandkids. Architect Peter Hamilton made it work by designing separate-yet-connected volumes that give privacy and community, without violating code or local aesthetic.

Photo © Peter Hamilton

September 2009

Alpers - Jannetta Residence
Paul Lukez Architecture
Architect Paul Lukez completely renovates and expands a family’s 1960’s home by 1,400-square feet, integrating the Dover, Massachusetts, house with its hilly site.

Photo © Peter Vanderwarker

August 2009

House in Kohoku
Torafu Architects
Shaped like a cluster of barnacles, this house in Kohoku, a suburb of Yokohama, Japan, by Torafu Architects, doesn’t exactly blend in with its neighbors. What it does do is provide a forward-thinking empty nester couple with a unique home that has quadrants that are both separate from and connected to each other.

Photo © Daici Ano

July 2009

Bridge House
CCS Architecture
Talk about resting gently on the land. Australian architect Max Pritchard has designed a narrow, 1,200-square-foot box that is literally in the trees—spanning a creek and sitting on two steel trusses. The home was built with sustainability as a primary goal, including solar cells, passive heating and cooling, and recycled and recyclable materials.

Photo © Sam Noonan

June 2009

Seadrift Residence
CCS Architecture
A 1,900-square-foot house by CCS Architecture becomes a beach retreat for a three-generation San Francisco family. Casual, simple, elegant, and functional, the home’s open plan is tailored to family gatherings and outdoor living. The home opens to decks and courtyard spaces, while glass railings, skylights, and lots of windows take advantage of views and sun.

Photo © Matthew Millman

May 2009

Screen House
Randy Bens Architect
Architect Randy Bens transformed a small 1950’s bungalow in British Columbia by adding a story and a deck. The project knits together old elements and new with simple materials and gestures that update and modernize the home while staying sympathetic to the original structure’s context.

Photo © Roger Brook

April 2009

Montecito Residence
Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects
A house in a fire-prone California canyon, by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, is designed to harvest the sun and the wind—just the climatic conditions that make the site so dangerous.

Courtesy Tim Bies/Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects

March 2009

Fairfield House
Webber + Studio, Inc.
Webber + Studio builds an architect's home in central Austin, Texas with room to grow. Manipulating mass and voids as well as regional materials allowed for a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces: an interior terrace, backyard patio, parking garage with bridge-like rooms above, and a dog-trot breezeway.

February 2009

The Weeks House
McCarty Holsaple McCarty, Inc.
A beloved A-frame, Tennessee riverfront home built in 1950 gets a complete renovation and addition from designer Brian Pittman, Assoc. AIA. Bringing warmth and modern efficiency to the home without destroying the original architect's intent was the goal—with a design rendered entirely by hand.

January 2009

Skyline Residence
Belzberg Architects
It's hard to believe that the Skyline Residence, perched on a ridgeline in the Hollywood Hills, had a small budget for the neighborhood and an unusually challenging site. The house is a comfortable, sensitive home situated and organized to both protect residents from the elements and let them enjoy views and light.

December 2008

Tunquen House
Riesco + Rivera Arquitectos Asociados
Riesco + Rivera Arquitectos Asociados designed a family's vacation retreat in a desolate region in Tunquén, on Chile's Central Coast, to literally be a three-part harmony—three individual units that read as one home. With interiors clad with raw structural panels and voids to bring in natural light, the home is both rustic and elegant, much like its surrounding landscape.

November 2008

N85 Residence
Morphogenesis
Architects Manit and Sonali Rastogi of New Delhi and Pune, India-based firm Morphogenesis designed their New Delhi home as a platform to address the changing lifestyle of a modern Indian family. The house multitasks as a home for three generations, a busy workspace, a cultural hub, and an oasis.

October 2008

OneTwo Townhouse
FdM:Arch
Houston can be a free-for-all when it comes to architecture. But this townhouse complex, designed by Houston-raised and New York-based architect Francois de Menil, provides a sculptural solution to a difficult site and program.

September 2008

Cornell House
Stephen Dynia Architects
Architect Steve Dynia proves that homes in Jackson, Wyoming don't have to be huge, expensive, energy suckers with his practical, modern, sustainable Cornell House, a 2,500-square-foot home built for only $190 per square foot.

August 2008

Kew House
Jackson Clements Burrows Architects
Built literally on a tennis court at the end of a suburban cul-de-sac, The Kew House, in Victoria, Australia, is Jackson Clements Burrows Architects' answer to the question of whether a building can heal an artificial scar on the landscape.

July 2008

Machly/Schwarz Single-Family House
Christoph Mayrhofer Architect
Austrian architect Christoph Mayrhofer was hired to create a noteworthy home in an otherwise bland neighborhood outside Vienna. The result is a tube-like form with windows that frame spectacular vineyard views while keeping the neighbors visually at bay.

June 2008

Box House
PyattStudio LLC
Box House, a renovation and addition to an existing 900-square-foot home in Boulder, Colorado, addresses issues of sustainability with elegance. Rob Pyatt of Pyatt Studio designed the house with the University of Colorado College of Architecture & Planning's research + design + build program.

May 2008

House at Further Lane
Leroy Street Studio
The 1,400-square-foot House at Further Lane, designed by Leroy Street Studio, is one of three structures on a 12-acre compound on Long Island. With its stone walls, hovering roof planes, and taut private wing, the house is part of the perfect family retreat.

April 2008

Reff Residence
ARCHITECTS hanna gabriel wells
Calling their process "choreographed subtraction," architecture firm ARCHITECTS hanna gabriel wells conceived this beachfront home in San Diego's Mission Beach as a solid form with carefully eroded spaces carved out for living a life that melds inside and out while maintaining privacy in this densely populated community.

March 2008

Ravine Residence
Cindy Rendely Architexture
Designed for an extended family—grandparents, parents, and three children—as well as a caregiver and her husband, the Ravine Residence in Toronto by Cindy Rendely Architexture pulls off comfort, privacy, and community, all while reflecting the sophisticated modern design aesthetic of the homeowners.

February 2008

Franco Residence
Stern McCafferty Architecture and Interiors
Stern McCafferty's Franco residence in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts functions as both an object and an edge, and recalls the simple, stuccoed homes found on the small Azorean Island off the coast of Portugal where the owners were born.

January 2008

Soaring Wings
Winn Wittman Architecture
A house in Texas by architect Winn Wittman seems about to take flight, yet its materials – copper, iron, steel, granite, wood – and built-in features such as a 3,200-pound bathtub keep it grounded to the earth.