Record Houses

Serenely spare spaces enclosed by rectilinear volumes characterize many of 2013's Record Houses. The precisely detailed, clutter-free architecture still attracts editors and clients who have long admired the exploration of the craft, technique, and form making integral to Modernism. Besides long, low houses that fit well into the landscape, RECORD is drawn to solutions that upend our expectations, such as a tower house whose living spaces extend over the treetops, a city dwelling festooned with vertical gardens, or an oddly shaped residence wedged in between its neighbors. Materials play a major role: poured-in-place concrete comes at the top of the list—whether roughly textured or smoothly abstract—with rammed-earth and fritted-glass surfaces making important appearances. Despite their stringent historical source, these houses reveal how inexhaustible the Modernist vocabulary can be.