A dreamy Paros house sits nestled in the picturesque fisherman’s village of Naousa, the Greek island settlement equipped with small boutiques and quaint cobbled paths. Welcome to Villa Sol Mare, a restored Cycladic house that preserves its original architectural language while welcoming comforting contemporary touches.

Inside Paros house Villa Sol Mare, a Greek island dream

The project was spearheaded by Isola Studio. Founded in 2021 by Chaido Kaproulia and Eva Lavranou, the Athens- and Corfu-based architecture and design studio restructured the original 90 square metre space to fit three bedrooms and bathrooms.

Cycladic architecture dates back to the early Bronze age, and was crafted by islanders to withstand harsh coastal weather, with white surfaces reflecting the beaming sun to keep the interiors cool. Although practical in nature, its distinct minimalistic style is now iconic, complimenting Aegean waters.

The Paros house's exterior looks like a postcard from busier sister islands like Mykonos and Santorini, with its hand-applied textured plaster, timber windows and Aegean blue shutters. Inside, local craftsmanship prevails. Terracotta flooring and timber joinery complement the white-washed plaster. The house feels fluid, almost ocean-like, each room rhythmically cascading into the next as harsh angles are softened by the use of smooth plastering.

The kitchen is set beneath a barrel-vaulted arch, where custom walnut cabinetry is integrated within plaster-sculpted surfaces. The bathroom offers a different material palette. Vanities are made from red travertine, and marble from the nearby islands of Tinos and Naxos.

The roof of the home is a tranquil oasis. The architects reinforced its structure to support a pool, which can be accessed via an unfolding sequence of terraces, garnished with native planting. Built-in seating and dining areas act like a series of courtyards. Here, visitors can enjoy the house’s connection to the island’s landscape.

The bespoke furniture and joinery spotlight the local craftsmanship (the island is known for its stonemasonry, marble and ceramics), while the house as a whole showcases Paros’ calming architectural nature. Ultimately, Villa Sol Mare is a place to gaze across the horizon and drift away to the chirping sounds of crickets, basking in the summertime heat.

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Heinrich Simon’s famous 1874 saying, 'There is no such thing as bad weather, there are only good clothes,' rings true for those living in or visiting Scotland. It also resonates with the aptly named architecture studio Dress for the Weather, which has recently transformed a stone-built Victorian schoolhouse into Bute Cottage, a contemporary family home.

Inside Bute Cottage, a redesigned Victorian schoolhouse

Nestled on the Isle of Bute on Scotland’s west coast, the old former schoolhouse building contained the teacher’s quarters downstairs and a classroom upstairs. Now, the new layout features three bedrooms and an extension, with views over the sea to the Kintyre Peninsula and Arran.

‘The client had originally conceived the project as a rear extension to the cottage; but seeing the rear (and I’d say main) facade of the cottage for the first time, it was clear to me that we needed to work with it,’ explains project architect Matt McKenna. ‘The views out to the west from the site then determined the orientation for the extension. So, the existing site had already sort of determined the main moves. This then gave us the courtyard space that we have now, formed by both the historic and new facades.’

The home has an L-shaped plan. The existing stone facade has been restored with a new slate roof installed. The extension comprises a timber frame with large, glazed openings framing the expansive vista.

Inside, the bedrooms and bathrooms can be found in the original cottage, while communal living spaces are located in the extension. A new entrance area has been integrated, highlighting the exposed stone of the cottage and acting as a bridge between the old and the new.

‘The weathered timber cladding and stonework have helped give a neutral tone to the building, which sits well within the colourful landscape,’ notes the architect.

The residence is an example of how a design can champion both what was there before and what is on site now. Says McKenna, ‘ Whether you're in the hall where the gable of the cottage is exposed internally, or in the courtyard where we’ve tried to keep the composition equal, the overall experience is enhanced by bringing the old and new together. This gives the project a balance.‘

dressfortheweather.co.uk

Located in a spectacular spot on Spain’s Costa Brava, the Staempfli House is new to the market via Sotheby’s International Realty in Spain. Built on the seafront in the town of Cadaqués in the heart of the Cap de Creus Natural Park, the terraced house has balconies that overlook the town’s main beach.

The Staempfli House was built in 1958 for the Swiss-born art dealer George William Staempfli (1910-1999). Staempfli moved to the US in 1935, took up a role at the venerable New York dealership of M. Knoedler & Company and served as curator of paintings at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts from 1954 to 1956. In 1959, he set up his own dealership, the Staempfli Gallery on 77th St, with his second wife, Emily McFadden Staempfli.

This Catalonian house served both as a bolthole and a place to entertain the European artists he represented. The town itself was a favourite spot of Salvador Dalí (the Casa-Museu Salvador Dalí is a short walk away on the adjoining bay) and other key artists including Picasso, Miró, Duchamp and Richard Hamilton were also visitors.

The house was extensively rebuilt in the late 50s by the British architect Peter Harnden and Italian architect Lanfranco Bombelli, partners in the exhibition design specialists PGHA Peter Graham Harnden Associates. Harnden and Bombelli were also regular visitors to Cadaqués and built extensively for themselves and other artists in the region.

The Staempfli House fulfilled a dual role as residence and museum, with house guests including Dalí and Duchamp, along with Isamu Noguchi, Harry Bertoia, and Xavier Corberó, renowned for his impressive house in Barcelona. The house retains these qualities in the present day, blending traditional tiles and timber with (then) state-of-the art kitchen and bathroom fittings, giving off an eclectic mid-century vibe.

Elements like the floating fireplace with integrated seating, the tiled ‘water mirror’ sculpture terrace, timber-clad ceilings, niches, arches and integrated furniture all come together to create a house that demands to be a backdrop for art and design.

Staempfli retained his New York gallery until 1988, representing Dalí alongside the Belgian realist Paul Delvaux and the neo-figurative artist Elmer Bischoff, amongst others. In retirement, Staempfli moved to Maryland, where he died in 1999.

The house in Cadaqués passed into similarly enlightened ownership, retaining its strong creative vibe. The town itself continues to be an artistic haunt into the present day, with museums and galleries adjoining the more traditional beachside restaurants and bars of the region.

Staempfli House, Cadaqués, Spain, €9,500,000, Spain-SothebysRealty.com, @Spain.SothebysRealty

Darren Petrucci considers each commission within the specifics of its place and within the context of his architecture practice. A recently completed Arizona home outside Phoenix is another entry in his ever-evolving approach to desert-based design.

In addition to considering responsive materiality set within arid conditions, 'recurring sensibilities happen in my work,' Petrucci explains. 'One of them is that the house is iconic in some form - something memorable or totalising.' In this particular case, 'the iconic form is a long, bent bar. We maximised the horizontal distance the lot could accommodate to capture that view and become a ridge line across the hill. Then the walls shift and move to adjust to the context.’

Tour this powerfully minimalist Arizona home

The strikingly contemporary home, dubbed the Shifted Horizon House and built for a family of four, faces landmark Camelback Mountain. Previous projects Petrucci completed with his firm, A-I-R (Architecture-Infrastructure-Research), also sit within view. 'We were hiking and realised we could perfectly frame Camelback Mountain,' recalls Petrucci, who is also a professor in the Design School at Arizona State University, of the site.

What developed was a split-level home with a plan in the aforementioned shape. The brief called for a home that would be ‘elegantly austere and really clean' in every respect - from the angular massing to the light switches, which eschew any digital functionality in favour of analogue tactility. Volumes constructed of concrete masonry unit (CMU) 'emerging out of the desert' interlock with a mass of stucco built without control joints, Petrucci says about the challenge.

The effort became an opportunity to explore the interplay of darker surfaces awash in the Arizona sun. 'The light is so intense that when you make a darker interior, it emphasises the interior and the light,' Petrucci says. 'The analogy I typically give a client is a football player putting black under his eyes to reduce glare.'

Dynamic indoor-outdoor spaces were achieved using materials including dark polished concrete flooring, grey-hued CMU block, and stucco — the latter of which A-I-R typically keeps to a minimum. The block itself is a conventional, standardised material, but its double-score profile, applied with careful customisation, 'creates this textured, fabric-like pattern on the wall,' Petrucci adds. 'It's all about the detail,' so he collaborated with builder Jason Smith of Identity Construction to additionally score certain blocks at the corners to repeat the pattern, making the material 'feel more monolithic.’

The stucco is a key element in absorbing and transforming natural light. 'It can look blue-purple, or warmer,' Petrucci says, referencing the Japanese neutral chromatic concept of rikyu, which here serves as a bridge to shift with the changing sky and a link to the ground. In the primary spaces, many of the materials and finishes are one and the same.

A devotee of John Lautner, Petrucci has long been fascinated with the organic modernism pioneer’s theorising about the foundational spatial concepts of the 'canopy' and the 'cave.' The Shifted Horizon House integrates a third element. 'With every project there's a piece that's carved, and something that becomes the heat shield—and in between is "the court." It's like a courtyard inside the building.'

The residence's 15-foot-high central space, illuminated by clerestory windows, feels like a pavilion, with floor-to-ceiling glass panels that fully pocket to connect to the outdoors. 'You can think of the whole thing as a cave, a solid that's been carved out, but there are moments when you feel like the roof is a canopy,' he observes.

Other details and gestures establish scale and considerate touch points. A handrail transitions into the powder-room door handle, for instance, and nine-foot-tall, wood-lined walls add warmth to the multifunctional great room. 'It has a brutalist feel to it in many ways, but the curves and the wood ribbon that runs through the house are intended to bring a softer, more supple feeling,' Petrucci notes.

The 'wet edge' pool appears like a reflecting pool, with a hot tub border that disappears beneath the waterline, and the property features desert-appropriate landscape design by Phoenix-based Kris Floor of Floor Associates. The dramatic, double-sized, carved-out fireplace, built of CMU, continues a datum line in concert with the kitchen island and television. These decisions operate holistically on multiple levels, creating a testbed for ideas about desert living. 'It organises everything. Because of that alignment, I believe you relax. It keeps you grounded,' Petrucci says.

theairsite.com

There is one name almost inextricably bound to Palm Springs’ mid-century architecture: the American architectural firm Palmer & Krisel. The partnership between architect William Krisel and developer George Alexander produced thousands of homes that came to define the clean lines, indoor-outdoor living and innate optimism of the region’s famous desert modernism. Yet what many people don't realise is that the architectural language that transformed Palm Springs was first explored not in the desert, but in California's San Fernando Valley – more commonly known as, simply, ‘the Valley’.

Now on the market is one of the earliest examples of Palmer & Krisel's collaboration there. Completed in 1954, this home in Corbin Palms, Woodland Hills, belongs to a neighbourhood that served as an important testing ground for the design principles that would become synonymous with California modernism. Today, Corbin Palms remains one of Southern California's most significant – yet often overlooked – mid-century modern enclaves.

This renovated post-and-beam residence expresses many of the architectural ideas that would soon define Palmer & Krisel's celebrated communities. An exposed timber structure, soaring vaulted ceilings, clerestory glazing and an open-plan layout fill the interiors with natural light, while expansive walls of glass beckon the outdoors in. The emphasis on openness, climate-responsive design and economy of means – achieving the greatest architectural impact with the fewest necessary elements – would become hallmarks of the firm's later work in the desert.

The home’s recent renovation honours that legacy. Contemporary materials and modern systems have been integrated without compromising the original architecture: a kitchen with custom white oak cabinetry, quartz countertops and polished concrete floors sits easily within the home's framework, while a restrained material palette keeps the focus on the expressive post-and-beam structure at the heart of the design.

Outside, the integration of architecture and landscape – central to Palmer & Krisel's vision of California living – is evident. A swimming pool, outdoor kitchen, dining terrace, mature citrus trees and landscaped gardens extend the home's living spaces into the open air.

While Palm Springs will always be most closely associated with Palmer & Krisel, Corbin Palms deserves recognition as the place where many of the ideas that would define California modernism first took shape. For the home’s next custodian, this is not just any mid-century residence – it is an opportunity to own a chapter in one of the most influential stories in American residential architecture.

The Palmer & Krisel home is listed with The Value of Architecture for $995,000.

Casa da rua Escócia is located in a verdant part of São Paulo. Designed by local studio FGMF Arquitetos, the new house doesn’t cover the largest floor area. Instead, clever design plays spatial tricks with the site to maximise the sensation of being immersed in nature. As the architects note, the house was ‘conceived as an exercise in restraint, the project prioritizes the outdoors, turning the garden into its true protagonist.’

From above, the house wraps around its site, presenting a boundary wall to its neighbours whilst breaking up into a series of angular, fractured spaces overlooking the slim garden plot. This façade is clad in wood and punctured by flush-fitting shutters that can be opened up to reveal sliding glazing within.

The ground floor can be entirely opened up to the garden, with the cantilevered forms on the levels above providing varying levels of shade throughout the day. There is a certain poetic intent here,’ the architects write, ‘these volumes evoke tree canopies, gently shading and protecting the path below, where slender pillars — like trunks — define a small, constructed grove.’

It is certainly a verdant space. Densely layered sub-tropical planting terminates every vista, adding to the feeling of a house immersed in nature. Clever planning creates a multiplicity of angles out, across and through between interior and exterior space, an effect heightened still further by the sliding glass doors opening off the ground floor reception spaces and animated by the play of light from the pool.

The main reception space is reached directly off the main entrance. This is a double-height area that forms the core of the house, bisected by a first-floor level bridge that unites the bedroom areas. There’s also a sunken media room on this level; here, the light is modulated with just a slit of glass revealing the garden.

Outside, a generous terrace includes covered areas as well as space for a barbeque and dining area and a patio adjoining the pool. The house splits the site to allow for a smaller, more private terrace at the rear.

The main staircase leads up to what the architects call the ‘tree canopy’, a level with family bedrooms and a guest suite above the media room. The structure uses a combination of poured concrete and steel frame. The concrete is exposed at the rear and side boundaries to serve as an enclosure that disguises what is within, while a more lightweight timber-clad steel structure is used for the first floor level. In this respect, the house’s construction mirrors the sense of a visceral, earthy ground level beneath a canopy of timber and vegetation.

‘This is a house of modest footprint but remarkable spatial richness,’ say FGMF, a firm founded by Lourenço Gimenes, Rodrigo Marcondes Ferraz and Fernando Forte. ‘It is a place where architecture dissolves into landscape, and where every gesture seems to invite the eye outward, as if the house itself were almost not there.’

The opaque, geometric concrete volumes of this new Miami house belie the dramatic expression and spatial generosity of its interiors. Welcome to Cherokee House, a project named after the Miami Beach street it sits on, which inspired the intention to pay tribute to the people whose rich cultural heritage, artistry, and enduring legacy the street name represents. The luxurious home was designed by Colombian Karlos Perez (whose own Medellin House is an ode to tropical modernism) and his practice StudioKP2, in collaboration with Corradi Group.

Discover a new Miami house by StudioKP2

In the case of this Miami house, Perez pulled out all the stops to craft a building that feels rich, layered and contemporary. 'The overall feeling I want this home to invoke is admiration and awe. I want it to be a surprising and exciting experience to walk through it. I always aim for epic artistry, something brand new that the visitor hasn’t seen before. The house offers exceptional privacy while maintaining an open, airy feel, thanks to its expansive living spaces,' he explains.

Mass, materiality and light play a key role in defining the home's mood and atmosphere. The composition comprises two primary, blocky concrete elements and a third, lighter, glazed one, which connects the two. Wood, stainless steel and stone dominate, proposing an exterior and interior that flow together effortlessly and as one.

Meanwhile, even though the street facade may feel mysterious, with few openings, and the entrance sequence feels compressed, once through it and inside, the home doesn't feel insular at all – swathes of glazing connect the living areas with a green, surrounding garden throughout.

The living room and kitchen, in particular, flow together as one open, inviting space. This is also Perez's own favourite spot in the property: 'It’s designed to bring people together and inspire meaningful moments with family and friends. The seamless connection to the outdoors creates a relaxed, airy atmosphere where the interior and exterior blend effortlessly.'

Responding to Miami's subtropical climate, the home makes the most of its terraces and indoor/outdoor living opportunities, which include shaded open-air living spaces and a spacious swimming pool.

Spanning two main levels, the Miami house has its ground floor entirely dedicated to the entertaining and social parts of the home, while upstairs are three bedrooms (one of which is the primary suite with its own walk-in wardrobe). Meanwhile, the circulation core becomes an event in itself, taking the shape of a wide, sculptural staircase.

The result speaks for itself – and the feedback Perez has already received is gratifyingly aligned to his original design intention, he says: 'Several neighbours have come up and affirmed the amazement I wished to invoke. One of them said it’s a true masterpiece that stands out from all other houses in Miami Beach. I feel like my mission is completed when I’ve caused an emotional impact, even if it’s negative. I want our projects to invoke some kind of reaction, make you feel some type of way, preferably inspired.'

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A Welsh cottage, White Breakers, has been reimagined for the 21st century, courtesy of London-based architecture studio Unknown Works. The aim was to redesign an existing single-storey house on the edge of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park to improve both functionality and sustainable architecture – and to do so in the 'stealthiest' way possible.

Explore this reimagined Welsh cottage

The house offers long views of the Irish Sea and features large windows that bring in the natural vistas in all the main spaces. The architects sought to enhance this, implementing a muted colour palette inside and out, with dark colours outside and bright whites and timber accents inside. The slick look achieved makes the house discreet as well as warm and sophisticated.

Energy efficiency was a huge priority for the team and its client. Ensuring a low carbon footprint, both in terms of construction and the home's eventual habitation and operation, informed many of the design decisions. Keeping things nature-friendly was also crucial. A bat box was installed on the building's exterior, for example.

The clients, a pair of creatives with a main base in London’s Notting Hill, are a long-term Unknown Works collaborator – their London home was the practice’s first completed project, in 2016. This allowed the team to have flowing, in-depth discussions, working through the elements of the structure that needed updating and the best ways forward in each case.

It was ‘a bit of a Frankenstein building’, says Unknown Works director Kaowen Ho. ‘It was typically energy inefficient, like so many properties of its era, built with ad hoc extensions and very little thought given to the lifecycle of the building or how it might be used in the future, let alone sustainability or biodiversity. The house also showed signs of water ingress, thermal bridging and damp, amongst other critical construction flaws, whilst the interior was a warren of small spaces with no sensible layout or flow.

‘Overall, this is a stealthy, subtle and restrained design,’ he adds, ‘with the low-slung black, even brutal, exterior giving way to a very soft and bright interior, offering the warmth and welcome of a proper family home.’

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A simple, minimalist enclosure surrounds this Osaka house, carefully concealing the richness that unfolds within the new-build home, designed by Apollo Architects & Associates. The project, a family residence set in a sleepy neighbourhood of the Honshu port city, is titled Moment – and explores moments of everyday spatial drama subtly, as befits the Japanese architecture tradition.

Tour this contemporary Osaka house

The clean, blind wall that surrounds the residence allows one of its key architectural features – its timber-lined, 1.8m-deep eaves – to be seen from the outside, hinting that there's more than meets the eye to this seemingly modest Osaka house. Stepping through the garden gates from the street, visitors cross a generous terrace and garden to approach the main home's glazed volume, topped by the slender feature roof.

The architects worked on the home's volume as if it were a gallery – crafting the entrance and the arrangement of lacquerware, woodwork, bonsai, and decorative artworks in a way that nods to an exhibition space. The living areas' double-height interiors also afford a luxurious generosity of space, underlining the same approach.

A central staircase, placed within sight of the main entrance, punctuates the home's more social areas and leads upstairs to a mezzanine library and study area. Beyond it, children's rooms and a guest room are tucked away towards the opposite end of the plan. The primary bedroom is placed on the ground floor, right underneath.

The home was designed to feel just as impressive at night as it is during the day, the architects say: 'At night, carefully arranged lighting accentuates the walnut ceiling boards on the underside of the roof eaves, further articulating the home’s nuanced richness.'

They add: 'A dry garden planted with vintage olive trees and other greenery lines the perimeter of the residence, integrating harmoniously with the modern architecture. Over time, as additional plantings, outdoor furniture, and artwork are gradually introduced, the residence is intended to age gracefully and continue evolving with its inhabitants and their lifestyles.'

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Showcasing the world's most exceptional homes is what we do at Wallpaper*. The Architecture Edit is our monthly celebration of that mission – a running exploration of just how varied contemporary residential architecture can be, bringing together the houses that impressed us most each month for their design thinking, ingenuity and craft.

This month’s finds span continents, eras and philosophies: a converted canalside studio in Delft and a snow-set cabin in rural Ontario; a stone shepherd's shelter on Tinos and a stilted timber cabin above the Douglas firs of the San Juan Islands; a Pierre Koenig midcentury icon restored to its original bones and Frank Lloyd Wright's sole Tennessee commission.

A canalside studio

A traditional canalside house in Delft's city centre has been refurbished by DP6 Architects to create an open-plan living space, with a glazed rear façade added to the ground floor. What really caught our attention, though, was the new painter's studio in the rear garden. Built from Douglas fir with an exposed structure, the studio catches northern light through full-width roof lights and includes a kitchenette, WC and storage for canvases. Surrounded by new planting, an oval pool and mature trees, the space feels like a rural idyll despite its urban location.

A restored midcentury gem

Designer Jamie Bush spent years reimagining a 1966 Pierre Koenig house in Rancho Palos Verdes, stripping away a clinical early-2000s renovation to restore the architect's signature black posts, beams and folded-plate roof. Bush layered in craft through ipe-panelled walls, walnut cabinetry and custom terrazzo, merging midcentury modernist bones with an artisanal, textural sensibility, while landscape firm Terremoto activated the courtyards with drought-tolerant planting and an ocean-view fire-pit patio.

A wellness-focused townhouse

This subdivided Lisbon property was reimagined by architect McLean Quinlan for a wellness-industry client, creating a calming four-bedroom home plus a separate apartment and correcting acoustic issues left over from a 1990s split-level renovation. The ground floor houses a massage room, yoga studio, gym, cold plunge pool and infrared sauna – kept from feeling clinical through curtains and warm lighting – while the upper floors feature a kitchen overlooking the garden, Portuguese tiles and lime-washed walls.

A suburban brick pavilion

Olaver Architecture used a rare double-corner plot in Victoria, Australia, as the starting point for Hanslope House – a light brick pavilion that rethinks the conventional single-backyard suburban model. Two volumes are connected by a central corridor, splitting the garden into two distinct courtyards. Brick screens, terracotta gabled roofs and lattice details nod to the surrounding neighbourhood while giving the home a contemporary update, guiding visitors through a slow, layered sequence of arrival.

A stilted island cabin

This 400 sq ft guest cabin on Blakely Island in Washington's San Juan Islands was raised on stilts by Wittman Estes to minimise disturbance to the surrounding Douglas firs. Referencing Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden and Le Corbusier's Cabanon project, the compact 16-by-20-foot volume holds a kitchen, Murphy bed, bathroom and loft with bunk beds. Western red cedar construction, hardwood decking and large glazed openings – including a corner bathroom window – blur the boundary between interior and the great outdoors.

An organic-architecture renovation

Architect Nicole Hollis oversaw the renovation of Owl House, a 1970s Mickey Muennig design in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, previously restored by landscape architect Bernard Trainor. Muennig – an organic-architecture pioneer linked to Big Sur – built the redwood structure with radial trusswork, curved nautilus-shaped walls and sculptural skylights. Hollis restrained her intervention, keeping playful details like a mushroom-shaped kitchen window while introducing curved furnishings, hexagonal and terracotta tiles, and bold accents such as a red sofa and green sideboard.

A stone shepherd's shelter

Architect Kelly Spanou built this Cyclades home around a century-old stone keli, or shepherd's shelter, on the island of Tinos, retaining its irregular, non-orthogonal geometry rather than correcting it. Stone, raw concrete and reclaimed marble sourced from local artisans create an elemental, unpolished palette across two light-filled levels with sea views. The house embraces imperfection amid the mountainous terrain's dramatic natural forces.

A black cabin on a snowy slope

Silver Heights, a sleek black cabin set into a drumlin slope in Ontario's Trent Hills, feels almost embedded in the land. Architect Peter Braithwaite created it in concrete, black metal and rusted steel to withstand the region's climate, with white cedar adding warmth. Visitors move along a winding path to a weathered steel entrance, passing through a compressed corridor before the space opens into an airy room overlooking the Trent-Severn Waterway – a dramatic arrival.

Frank Lloyd Wright in Tennessee

This month, the Shavin House – Frank Lloyd Wright's only project in Tennessee – entered the market after nearly seven decades in one family. Seymour and Gerte Shavin commissioned it from Wright after getting married, rather than buying an existing house, and it was built in 1952 on Chattanooga's Missionary Ridge. The Usonian-style home features clerestory windows, mitred glass corners, a dramatic cantilevered carport and sweeping ridge-top views, and holds National Register of Historic Places status.

A renovated Somerset farmhouse

London studio Daytrip has renovated Springfield Farm, a 1990s house near Bath, turning it into a 250 sq m second home. While preserving the original tiered, timber-clad architecture, the designers added warmth with oak flooring, dark cherry timber, travertine and bronze finishes and bespoke and Scandinavian furniture. A new garden, wildflower meadows and a 12-metre pool complete the picture, while artworks by East London artists and a large bronze chandelier by Joe Armitage bring everything together with an unexpected flourish.

Nestled in its gently sloping site, this lush upstate São Paulo home, SL House by the Brazilian firm Padovani Arquitetos, features a low architectural composition that was conceived to flow with the landscape. The architects prioritised balancing voids and solid volumes to carve a residence that effortlessly integrates with the site's landscape – making nature a key element in the project's overall identity.

Inside SL House, a new upstate São Paulo home

The residence was crafted around the idea of layered volumes positioned so the eye and body are always directed toward the outdoors.

‘Each volume is envisioned as a layer unfolding to reveal the leisure area as the gravitational centre of the composition,’ says Lucas Padovani, founder of the firm. ‘The inspiration lies not in the mass itself, but in the void it frames: the outdoor space as the ultimate destination of every room.’

Positioned at the same level as the street, SL House is arranged to form a T-shaped axis. The 'voids' in the plan are enriched with intentional landscape design, which softens the transitions between the built volumes and provides constant access to nature.

However, achieving this proved more difficult than expected, as the architect explains: ‘The project's greatest challenge was transforming superimposition – a compositional principle that is inherently fragmented – into a unified whole. The intention was to create a house perceived not as a collection of juxtaposed volumes, but as a single architectural body, where the transitions dissolve within the experience of those who inhabit it.’

The firm used stone, which transitions smoothly from interior to exterior, and timber, which adds warmth, to unify the project. ‘These materials flow across the volumes, stitching together what geometry alone might otherwise separate,’ explains Padovani.

The ground floor is divided into two sections. One side houses two suites and a home office, while the other contains the kitchen, laundry and staff suite, as well as the main living spaces. A double-height living and dining area, which acts as the beating core of the home, physically connects all the different uses. Upstairs, visitors will find three suites, including the primary bedroom.

Says Padovani: ‘More than any particular room, the soul of the project resides at the threshold between indoors and outdoors – the point where architecture is no longer confined by walls and begins to merge with the landscape. The living room, gourmet area, and social spaces do not end at the glass or the deck; instead, they extend naturally into the leisure area, as though the house itself breathes through these openings.’

The landscape design was created as a mindful extension of the architecture, established via built planes, pathways, and stepping stones. Here, visitors will find a swimming pool, a reflecting pool, and a spa.

If there is one takeaway from the property, it’s the grand moment of suspension in the heart of the home. Padovani describes it as ‘almost one of quiet reverence before the scale of the space’. However, this sense of grandeur is not intended to create distance or a feeling of austerity; it is designed to be inviting. He adds: 'The expressive architectural gesture immediately translates into warmth, allowing the house to convey both a strong presence and a genuine sense of shelter.’

padovaniarquitetos.com

Overlooking the leafy banks of the River Tiracol, a Goa villa, set on the state's border with Maharashtra, was conceived as an architectural platform for family life in dialogue with its untamed natural setting. Designed by the Mumbai-based architecture studio of Jugal Mistri, JMA Mumbai, the home, titled SeaSky Villa, was designed as a celebration of both the life inside it and its broader countryside context.

Tour a white Goa villa surrounded by leafy nature

The project's journey began in a slightly unconventional way. Mistri and the JMA team were not given a very specific brief in terms of the number of rooms or the surface area, or even stylistic restrictions. Instead, the architects were invited to create a physical expression of the practice's core principles of 'collaboration, community and context'.

The project's characterful site was a key driver in the design's development, the studio explains: 'The absence of fixed instructions allowed the architecture to emerge directly from the land. The first encounter with the site revealed no obvious vantage point or horizontal surface – only a continuous slope falling towards the river.'

Taking their cues from this environment, the architects went on to craft their spatial strategy – a home placed on a series of cascading 'plinths', arranged around a central axis formed by the road as it enters the property.

Broken down into smaller volumes and made to feel lighter through permeable pavilions and colonnades that define its façades, the villa now spans a deceptive 4,000 sq m. Three bedrooms are located on the ground level, orientated to look out towards the landscape, 'transforming each room into a private viewing instrument', the studio adds.

The top areas contain expansive living spaces, which unfold through a variety of uses – entertaining and family rooms (defined by bespoke open-grain timber veneer panel joinery), kitchen and dining areas, both indoors and outdoors, including a striking open-air swimming pool and deck. Meanwhile, on the lower level sits a double-height studio loft, designed for independent living, its resident able to opt in or out of the social life of the family that resides above.

jmamumbai.com

This new architect's house – Draper Studio’s spectacular double-storey extension to a Victorian home in south London – maximises the drama within its classic terraced template, common around the capital. Designed for studio founder Adam Draper’s own family, the house had already been extended, setting a precedent for more involved and extensive works once the household had got used to the space and explored how best to make it work for many years to come.

Explore this south London architect’s house

‘[Because we’d been] living in the house a few years prior, knowing the location was great for schools and wanting a space for the next ten years, we discussed removing the existing lacklustre rear extension and maximising the home’s potential space at ground and first [floor levels],’ says Draper. ‘Although we got planning for a double-storey front extension, we worked out what was needed most: a full-width ground-floor rear extension to unify the three key spaces of a centrally accessed house, and a new double bedroom above.’

The major manoeuvre is a common one – taking out the rear façade and replacing it with a glazed, full-width extension for a garden-facing kitchen and family room. It’s a familiar device, especially with London houses, but Draper and his team have excelled themselves with the detail and materiality, stretching the budget wherever possible, from using spare stone bricks from other projects (‘kindly donated by my clients for use here’) to the most efficient brickwork patterns possible.

‘Recycling a repurposed material became a comforting theme during these radical changes to our home,’ says Draper. Some of the concrete foundations from the old extension structure were used as gabion walls in the rear garden, for example. The roof cladding is raw zinc, designed to patinate, while the glazing is low-key and unobtrusive anodised aluminium, and inside the walls are finished in limestone blockwork.

‘Although the CO2 saving is relevant, using [the limestone] as a textural finish that glows in the daylight from the skylight above is the true value here,’ says Draper. ‘The ground-level concrete floor was a bit of an experiment,’ he adds. ‘We cast terracotta tiles, stones, shells the kids had collected on holidays past – although I was correctly stopped from putting Lego in as a retaliation for all the times I’ve stepped on it. The floor’s finish has texture – it is deliberately not perfect, and warm underfoot.’

The primary material is the Redwood-pine timber frame, which is left visible throughout. ‘It’s everything in the space: a warm-feeling enclosure that feels linked to the main house in the winter and a pergola-like structure extending the garden when the sliding doors are cast open in the summer,’ says Draper. ‘With careful placement of rooflights, you’d hardly know there’s a double bedroom above with all the daylight flooding in.’

Much of the work was fabricated off-site to minimise disruption (and allow the family to stay put and save costs during the build). ‘Using materials that are real as opposed to finishes is also important, whether that be the concrete floor, the limestone blocks of the kitchen extension flank wall or the unpainted hemp plaster of the dining room,’ says Draper.

Using off-the-shelf lengths of timber also dictated the scale and rhythm of the frame, which in turn zones the 34 sq m extension into its different areas: kitchen, dining space and playroom.

As well as minimising off-cuts and sourcing second-hand materials where possible, the architects also salvaged elements like bathroom brassware, all in the name of lowering the environmental impact of the build. ‘It’s good to confront waste first hand,’ Draper admits. ‘Can stuff be repurposed, reused or retained, not just as an echo or a statement feature?’

The new house succeeds as both a laboratory of ideas and techniques and as a warm, inviting family home. ‘It’s a privilege to design your own home and explore ideas that I’ve been unable, to date, to convince clients to go with,’ says Draper. ‘It’s a little bit of material experiment, a narrative of what a home can be, all unified in a large, warm volume that finally links the house and enables the spaces to cohere.’

Draper.Studio

The canyons of Mission Hills, one of San Diego's most sought-after neighbourhoods, are home to the Bone Residence, one of Southern California's finest expressions of midcentury modern architecture. Commissioned to architect Richard Lareau by Jack Bone and completed in 1961, the residence is a symphony of warm cedar, glass walls and indoor-outdoor living. It is now on the market for $2.59 million.

The home embodies the philosophy that defined Lareau's career: that a house should do more than occupy its setting – it should engage with it. At the Bone Residence, a cascading series of decks and patios steps down the canyon, framing views of the downtown skyline, San Diego Bay, the Pacific Ocean and even Tijuana to the south. Inside, nearly every living space looks towards the canyon and the city beyond, while the post-and-beam structure – a hallmark of midcentury modern design – creates open, light-filled interiors.

The house also showcases many of the defining characteristics of California modernism: exposed structural framing that celebrates the building's construction, broad roof overhangs, strong horizontal lines and a restrained palette of natural materials, including timber and masonry.

Lareau is one of the architects most responsible for shaping San Diego's post-war identity. Completed only a few years after he established his own practice in the late 1950s, the Bone Residence helped define that architectural language, and is widely regarded as one of the finest-preserved examples of his work. Lareau would go on to design numerous custom homes throughout San Diego, as well as major institutional projects including much of the campus of Point Loma Nazarene University and the Mission Bay Visitor Center.

Although less celebrated than some of Lareau's later commissions, the Bone Residence remains one of the defining works of his early career and a landmark of San Diego's architectural identity. It distils the qualities that came to define California modernism: expressive yet lightweight structure, an effortless openness to nature and an architectural approach that treats dramatic topography not as a constraint, but as the foundation of the living experience.

The Bone Residence is listed with Keith York at Agents of Architecture.

Dutch architects DP6 work across a variety of scales, from university campuses to town halls, sports centres and apartment buildings. The Delft-based practice has also turned its collective experience to a small number of exquisite private residential projects, including the secluded Villa Santpoort. For their most recent residential design, a painter's studio in their home city, DP6 is once again working in an urban environment, only this time at a much smaller scale.

Tour a modern painter’s studio and home in Delft

This commission, a house refurbishment and painter’s studio, is located in the heart of the city centre and involved not just the restoration of a traditional canalside row house, but the addition of a dedicated artist’s studio in the rear garden. Making the most of a generous garden plot – ‘a green oasis in the city centre’ – DP6 have inserted a low single-storey studio at the far end. Set apart from the cityscape, surrounded by new wild planting, it feels like a rural space adrift from the urban location.

One of the key aspects of the refurbishment was the re-shaping of the house’s ground floor and the rear façade in particular. By creating a new open-plan living, dining and kitchen space at the rear of the house, along with a new glazed rear façade, the architects have set up a dialogue between the existing house and the new studio. Each façade is fully openable, so in the summer months life can flow between the structures.

The garden includes new patios and an oval pool, along with natural planting that retains existing mature trees and winds new paths and beds around them. The studio has been built from Douglas fir timber, with exposed interior structure and a canopy above the exterior terrace, looking back towards the house.

Vital northern light is harvested via a strip of roof lights at the far end of the studio space; these run the full width of the building. The studio is also self-contained, with a WC and kitchenette and plenty of storage for materials and canvasses.

The architects have made extensive use of oak for the new elements in the main house. These include the kitchen and fireplace, as well as the open tread staircase and upstairs wardrobes. The original house was listed for its historic interest, and the front façade retains its traditional appearance, giving no indication of the new world that lies within.

In contrast to the compressed, efficient install that's often typical of high-end residential design efforts, Jamie Bush welcomed an extended timeline when transforming a midcentury Pierre Koenig house – a 1966 home originally designed by the Southern California modernism master.

‘It was this slow, layered process, which was wonderful,’ the Los Angeles–based, New York–bred designer says. The clients, who live in Washington, DC, bought the property as ‘a hideaway in California that they could escape to, but live a very different life. They tasked us to reimagine the house as a contemporary craftsman/artisan take on this midcentury treasure,’ Bush explains.

The four-bedroom, relatively compact house sits on a bluff in coastal Rancho Palos Verdes, a neighbourhood located south of Los Angeles. While the property was structurally intact, a prior renovation that Bush describes as ‘a clean, impersonal contemporary take’ on Koenig's celebrated post-and-beam work – which includes the famed Case Study Houses #21 and #22 – called for a soulful update (the project was first reworked in 2000 and subsequently again in 2014).

Revisiting this Pierre Koenig house's midcentury materiality

Bush took a hyper-sensitive approach to remove overly clinical interventions from the early 2000s. ‘This is a good example where Koenig would have black posts and beams and white walls, which we wanted to keep,’ he states. ‘Then there would be isolated moments of wood and colour with a lot of his buildings. It was an opportunity to bring in the crafted layer on top of this midcentury pavilion.’ As per the oft-followed West Coast impulse, exteriors and interiors would be seamlessly integrated, here in collaboration with SoCal native landscape gurus Terremoto.

Like all quality architectural rehabilitation projects that don't set out to make a time capsule, the founder of Jamie Bush + Co drew upon both intensive research and creative licence. ‘We basically did a partial restoration and reimagining of this house because they didn't want to recreate everything that was historical,’ he explains. His experience reviving other historical homes, such as John Lautner's Silvertop in collaboration with architect Barbara Bestor, informed the strategy.

So, the house's signature chevron-profiled folded-plate roof and its existing wood surface treatments, open floor plan, and footprint were to remain. Specific features begged for proper repair, notably the red brick-clad fireplace that had been swathed in dark grey by previous owners. Bush then took the bold yet fitting step of freshly coating the front door in a reddish-persimmon hue.

His handling of millwork illustrates how Bush identified and navigated certain currents in the Palos Verdes Koenig. ‘When many of these houses were built originally, they would have one craftsman that would build the cabinetry and the panelling,’ Bush notes. The primary bedroom is panelled in ipe tropical hardwood (this was preserved, as it was introduced during an earlier refresh), and the same cladding has now been extended to the library. The whole is articulated ‘in the same language’ as the building's exterior wood elements, resulting in ‘more enveloping and rich’ spaces.

He further explored material expression via walnut cabinetry and terrazzo surfaces in the kitchen and bathrooms. ‘There's a modesty and an economy, if you will, of using the same materials – maybe in different colours and in different ways – so there's like variations on the theme,’ Bush elaborates. When customising the earthy grey terrazzo mix, ‘I wanted chunky – that sort of slight primitiveness. It's not something necessarily that Koenig would use, but it felt right,’ he says. The result reads as refined Flintstones, less fictionally futuristic Jetsons.

A through-line of what he describes as ‘a modernist, natural aesthetic [with] a midcentury ethos of form and texture highlighting materiality’ emerged from this particular mix of furnishings, decor, and art that also operate as foils for the architecture's pronounced geometry. ‘It was a great challenge to heighten all the textures and the natural finishes and the wabi-sabi of the perfect imperfection in natural materials and patina of vintage pieces, and highlight it by eliminating strong colour,’ Bush observes. Nonetheless, artwork by the likes of Jonathan Ryan and Alexander Calder introduces subtle chromatic components.

Along with collectible objects of domestic and global origins ranging from George and Mira Nakashima to Sergio Rodrigues, Bush was drawn to historical and contemporary artisans and artists with California ties. Works by Florence Nolan, Peter Voulkos, Mattea Perrotta, Bradley Duncan, Casey Johnson, and Commune appear in the home's cosily scaled spaces. Outside, a large-scale, turquoise-hued installation commissioned from celebrated ceramic artist Stan Bitters animates a wall next to the pool, its reflection seen dancing on the water's surface.

To ensure that the indoor-outdoor spatial dynamic would feel ‘like one idea’, Bush called upon Los Angeles landscape firm Terremoto to transform the grounds by activating the home's two private courtyards, installing new plant life throughout, and enhancing the view corridors. Drought-tolerant, low-maintenance plantings are simultaneously environmentally preferable and practical, given that the homeowners are part-time residents.

Terremoto's plan integrated other design considerations, too. ‘Spare sculptural plantings made their way into the house as well,’ Bush says, emphasising the interplay among cacti and succulents, and the home's tactile artworks and sculptural furnishings. Steps away from the pocketing living room doors, Terremoto shaped an outdoor patio with a fire pit to function as a viewing platform for enjoying the proximity to the Pacific Ocean. The sandstone hardscape reflects ‘a palette that would respond to the interior finishes’, Bush adds.

This holistic, multidisciplinary coordination, which unfolded over multiple years, demonstrates how the design team found common ground between homage and interpretation. ‘We tried to honour and respect the original intent of these indoor-outdoor spaces,’ Bush says. ‘We think Koenig would have appreciated this level of consideration and craft if he were practising today.’

jamiebush.com

For decades, one of architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg’s most intriguing works remained almost unknown outside of architectural circles. Sitting on a quiet stretch of Solana Beach, San Diego County, it was known only to the family who built it. Now, for the first time, the Chapman Residence has come to market (following Kellogg's Kravis Residence earlier this month), listed for $4.75 million, offering a glimpse of what happens when an ordinary tract house is transformed into a work of art.

In 1960, artists Wayne and Barbara Chapman purchased a modest suburban home. After marrying in 1969, they enlisted Kellogg to reinvent it. The transformation occupied much of the 1970s, turning an unremarkable house into something almost unrecognisable from its origins.

Kellogg worked closely with the Chapmans throughout the project. Wayne effectively acted as construction manager, recruiting friends to help source massive utility poles and thousands of board feet of rough-sawn redwood, while Barbara shaped the interiors. The result, therefore, is less a conventional architect-client relationship than a collaboratively hand-built home where, as Wayne later recalled, nearly every piece of timber bore his own fingerprints.

The roughly 3,900 sq ft, three-level residence is defined by Kellogg's signature organic architecture. Sculptural fireplaces anchor many of the interior spaces, while flowing, curvilinear forms dissolve the boxy logic of the original house. Redwood and glass dominate the material palette, complemented by hand-carved timber entrance doors. A dedicated ceramics studio was created for Wayne's practice, and arrival at the house unfolds through a sequence of Japanese-inspired gardens.

This experiential element was central to Kellogg's architectural philosophy. Drawing on Frank Lloyd Wright's principles of organic architecture, he pushed them into a more expressive, biomorphic realm. Here, structural elements evoke ribs and bones, while forms borrow from shells, plants and geological formations. Craftsmanship – in wood, stone and concrete – is inseparable from the architecture itself, and the relationship between house and garden is treated as every bit as important as the interiors.

Carved from the shell of an ordinary suburban house, with portions of the original structure retained even as its identity was completely reimagined, the Chapman Residence is unmistakably Kellogg. Yet it is equally a testament to the Chapmans, whose vision, labour and artistic sensibilities shaped every stage of its creation.

The Chapman Residence is listed with Keith York at Agents of Architecture.

A Lisbon townhouse, in the heart of the Portuguese capital, has been transformed into a calm oasis. The refresh was spearheaded by UK-based architects McLean Quinlan, who worked with the client, a couple with two children, who wanted a home centred on wellbeing.

Inside a wellness-inspired Lisbon townhouse

‘We wanted to create instant tranquillity, the moment you step through the front door,’ explains Will Mouland, associate architect and project lead at McLean Quinlan. ‘The space is enveloped by natural textures, diffused light and soft tones – I think it’s hard not to exhale deeply when you step into a space like that, particularly when it’s in contrast to the busy urban context.’

The client, the co-founder of a wellness company, asked McLean Quinlan to create an interior using natural materials and incorporate flexible family spaces; the façade must remain the same.

The firm began by reconfiguring the once uninspiring property. The residence was originally a series of subdivided homes that had been carved out of the property in the 1990s. During the process, McLean Quinlan discovered problems with the split-level floors, which left the house with echoes and bad acoustics.

Says Mouland, ‘The driving force behind the design was creating appropriately scaled spaces with an intentional flow. The aesthetic approach came from wanting to create a true oasis of calm, with an almost ethereal quality, distilled to the most limited palette of pale wood, stone, and natural plaster.’

The architectural firm settled on arranging the townhouse into a four-bedroom main house and a separate self-contained apartment above. The ground floor is centred on the client’s interest in wellness and meditation. This was achieved by creating distinct zones, including a massage room, a dedicated yoga space, and a gym.

However, it was important to step away from the functional feeling of a commercial gym, which led to the introduction of curtains and warm spotlighting for a more domestic atmosphere. There is also an additional custom cold plunge pool and an infrared sauna.

The use of Douglas fir throughout gives each room a cabin-like quality. The first floor is the main home entry and family area. A new kitchen, with a pantry, overlooks the garden, while Portuguese materials such as local tiles and lime-washed wall finishes are scattered throughout. The second floor, which is accessed by a repurposed Douglas fir staircase, accommodates family bedrooms.

‘There are so many spaces I love in this home,’ says Mouland. ‘The stairs, the wellness space, the pool changing garden room – but perhaps the space I’m most proud of is the relationship between the principal dressing room and bathroom.

'The dressing room is naturally lit, solely by borrowed light from other spaces, and yet it doesn’t feel dark. The chamfered wall to the bedroom and the glazed partition between the bathroom and dressing room, screened with the translucent linen curtains, are more successful than I anticipated.’

Stepping into this Lisbon townhouse, visitors are greeted with a moment of decompression. The light and soothing atmosphere that results from its organic materiality helps create a calming cocoon from the bustle of city life.

mcleanquinlan.com

New Mexico-based artist, and Wallpaper* US400 honoree, Johnny DeFeo has an excellent motto: ‘The more seriously you take a silly idea, the more silly it can be.' His biggest, boldest and silliest idea to date has been to build a rentable house in the shape of a giant coyote head, in the desert just outside Taos. ‘It's a place to recharge and not worry about your Wi-Fi, and just have a quiet time in a place that is visually novel and beautiful,' says DeFeo. And like many great ideas, this one came to him in a dream. ‘So clichéd!' he adds.

Tour Coyote house and its quirky, mesmerising interiors

Six years ago, the artist and his girlfriend were looking to move from Denver to New Mexico, because ‘it had always been a romantic place in our minds'. Following a visit to a large, bucolic property close to Vallecitos, he had a vivid dream in which he saw five houses shaped like different animal heads surrounding a black pond. DeFeo immediately sketched out this zoomorphic camp, and while the couple didn't purchase the property, the imaginative vision lingered.

It wasn't until June 2022, when he saw an Instagram ad for an Airbnb competition, that DeFeo saw an opportunity to turn his dream into reality. The OMG! Fund was seeking proposals for ‘really weird' rental properties, and offering $100,000 each to 100 winning applicants to realise their fantastical projects. ‘I almost didn't apply because I hated the name of it so much,' DeFeo jokes. But he did and, after submitting a short written description, sketches, a budget proposal and a construction timeline, The Trickster, also known as Coyote Casita, was finally selected as a winner.

Then came the challenge of actually building it. DeFeo found a site in Arroyo Hondo and interviewed several local architects and general contractors, but none of them truly understood his vision. Eventually, he was introduced to San Antonio-based sculptor Jacob Tobar of Mas Rústico, who specialises in faux-bois concrete and has experience fabricating large-scale public art projects, and they were ‘immediately on the same page'. Intrigued by DeFeo's model and proposal, Tobar visited the site and took a few measurements, then assured him that what they would build together was going to be ‘a lot better than the model'.

‘He's my hero,' DeFeo says. ‘He came with all the know-how for making a big, concrete, crazy sculpture, getting the permits, and making it look how we wanted.' The pair set about scaling up the maquette into a 30fttall structure that would look visually striking while also comfortably accommodating paying guests. The key structural elements were calculated and constructed just as a typical house would be built, then additional concrete was slowly added and shaped over the top.

Over 30 tonnes of concrete, countless rebar lengths, and ‘gallons of sweat and blood' later, the finished building really does resemble a coyote's head. Its sharp-toothed jaws form a cavern-like entrance that DeFeo likens to the tiger-shaped Cave of Wonders in Disney's Aladdin. ‘There was something about walking into the mouth that I just thought was whimsical,' he says.

A balcony from the loft bedroom extends atop the nose, creating a perfect vantage point for watching the setting sun illuminate the distant peaks in a ‘bright fuchsia' hue. Guests can also peer at the mountains through the coyote's nostrils. While the concrete head is highly sculptural and textured, the back of the building is smoother and more orthogonal. ‘I wanted the rest of it to feel quiet, and definitely Southwest, but not in a knock-off, hackneyed way,' says DeFeo.

Inside, the house is much more akin to a traditional New Mexican adobe home, evoking the textured mud-plaster walls and rounded corners found across the region. ‘I love the softness of the architecture,' says DeFeo. ‘You don't do 90-degree angles out here.' Through the mouth-accessed arched doorway is a small foyer that leads to an enclosed, light-filled bathroom with a shower lined with stones and pebbles.

Further down the coyote's ‘throat', the polished-aggregate hallway opens into a double-height space. A small kitchenette with terrazzo counters, a walnut dining table and chairs, and comfy sofas create a snug living area. ‘It has pretty high ceilings, but it feels very cosy,' DeFeo says. The loft bedroom is spacious enough to accommodate a king-size bed and an antique storage cabinet. ‘The fact that it's nice inside makes it funnier that it's coyote-shaped,' the artist says.

DeFeo is still adding to the interior décor. He recently purchased taxidermy coyote paws, which a friend has used to create moulds to produce cast-iron drawer handles. Many of DeFeo's own paintings also adorn the walls, most of which he created specifically for the house, and which feature coyotes within the Southwest landscape. ‘I usually paint animals that are ubiquitous and that everyone has a story about seeing,' he says. ‘And the coyote felt Southwest to me.'

The Trickster is the first of the five houses dreamt up by DeFeo, who is looking for financial backing to build the remaining rabbit-, doe-, bear- and fox-shaped guest houses. He readily acknowledges that the project is not for everyone. But in this part of the country, he notes, most people leave each other to their own business. DeFeo hopes that The Trickster encourages more artists to turn their offbeat ideas into reality, no matter the scale. ‘You don't have to build a box for a house,' he says. ‘You can just make something weird.' All in the spirit of serious silliness.

johnnydefeo.com

This 1970s apartment in Kifisia, in the leafy northern suburbs of Athens, sits among Beverly Hills-sized mansions and Michelin restaurants, and is itself located within a piece of cutting-edge 20th-century architecture. Rising above the capital’s ubiquitous graffiti-covered walls, the residential complex features a pair of twin towers that cantilever from central pillars like concrete umbrellas. In one of these is the newly remodelled home by Georgios Apostolopoulos Architects, as innovative as the building itself.

‘The apartment is part of the Stroggyli Polykatoikia (‘Round Apartment Building’) designed by architect Nikos Despotidis and built between 1973–1974,’ says Apostolopoulos of the pioneering building. ‘Despotidis explored new typologies of collective living, combining expressive form with rational construction. The concrete frame, continuous balconies and carefully choreographed circulation created a strong architectural identity – one that offered both structural freedom and spatial generosity.’

To complement this unusual site, Apostolopoulos reimagined the original one-bedroom apartment by completely reconfiguring traditional domestic boundaries. The process began with subtraction: all partitions were removed to reveal the apartment’s spatial potential and expose the existing structure.

The original layout comprised two long, narrow corridors leading separately to the bedroom at one end and the kitchen at the other, with the bathroom at the centre of the plan, and the living spaces confined to a small, elongated space with limited natural light. ‘Overall, the apartment felt fragmented, the bedroom was overly enclosed, the rooms were small, and daylight struggled to penetrate the interior,’ explains the architect. ‘Each function existed in isolation, reinforcing a sense of separation rather than continuity.’

The client’s challenging brief required fitting a kitchen, living and dining areas, plus two bedrooms, one bathroom and one toilet into this compact floor plan. For the architect, the answer lied in questioning the conventional role of room-making, resulting in a home conceived as ‘a continuous interior where light and movement flow without interruption’.

‘The client wanted to have a calm space within a busy part of the town and next to a busy road – a ‘cave like’ space that would accommodate all the functions that he needed,’ says Apostolopoulos. ‘To achieve this, we had to rethink how an apartment can be inhabited, questioning whether privacy is needed at all. This meant pushing the boundaries of conventional domestic layouts and exploring a more fluid, adaptable way of living.’

‘This idea required a high level of precision,’ says Apostolopoulos, which was only made possible by turning joinery into a key architectural element. ‘Danelis, the joiners we collaborated with, played a crucial role in realising this vision. Their craftsmanship made it possible to execute the movable elements and create the flexibility that we wanted,’ he continues. ‘The complexity increased further because all the air conditioning is hidden within the joinery, something that required careful co-ordination between design and construction.’

Equally key was the client’s willingness to agree to an unconventional concept with flexible, flowing spaces. The new floorplan includes a main bedroom that feels like a natural extension of the living area, with wardrobes acting as ‘layered filters’. On the other side of the apartment is a versatile space that can be used as a dining room, guest room or study thanks to an entire wall of joinery hiding a fold-down bed, integrated desk and storage.

‘When the joinery is closed, it reads as almost the room doesn’t exist, allowing the apartment to feel open and uninterrupted,’ says Apostolopoulos. ‘When needed, sliding doors create a private space, and the dropdown desk and fold-down bed allow it to shift effortlessly between a workspace and a bedroom. It is a room that appears only when required – and disappears when not required.’

At the centre of it all, replacing the old bathroom, is the new kitchen – ‘a social device treated less as a room and more as an inhabited object’. Anchoring the space is a large kitchen island overlooking the refurbished original fireplace, which is located between two floor-to-ceiling windows framing the balcony.

‘I was interested in the idea of concentrating all the kitchen functions into a single piece placed at the centre of the plan. Positioned this way, it allowed the kitchen to become the main socialising element, a place where cooking, conversation, drinking can happen. It also connects seamlessly with the living and dining.’

Slim-frame windows bring maximum light into the interiors, reinforcing the sense of continuity between spaces, while the simple, monochromatic palette – including microcement finishes across floors, walls and doors – allows Despotidis’ original structure to shine through.

georgiosapostolopoulos.com

In Victoria, Australia, a light-coloured brick pavilion is perched on a rare double-corner site. ‘The site itself was the main inspiration,' explains Emlyn Olaver, director of Olaver Architecture, a firm based in Australia. The result is the studio's newest project, Hanslope House.

‘Rather than treating its openness as a challenge, we explored how it could redefine suburban living by creating a home that is simultaneously open and private. The design questions the conventional suburban model of a single backyard, instead using a sequence of courtyards and gardens to create a richer relationship between house, landscape, and street.’

The reimagined dwelling was conceived to challenge conventional ideas of privacy and engagement with the street. The residence comprises two volumes connected by a corridor, which divides the garden into two courtyards. The tradition of a single backyard is replaced with multiple outdoor areas in which to seek refuge.

Step inside the brick pavilion that is Hanslope House

Says Olaver, ‘The greatest challenge was balancing openness with privacy while negotiating planning controls. With three street frontages, the house is unusually exposed, requiring careful consideration of views, orientation, and enclosure. Achieving approval for zero setbacks to the side and rear streets was a significant part of the process, ultimately allowing the project to better respond to its site and improve internal amenity.’

The front door is set back within the façade, shaded by an alcove entry, and opens into the kitchen, dining, and living spaces. Each space is divided by brick screens and offers a visual connection to the surrounding gardens. The rear pavilion accommodates further living spaces and children's areas, while the main bedroom is connected to the courtyard.

The central spine is Olivar’s favourite part of the house: 'It’s more than a corridor,’ the architect says, ‘it is the project's organising element – a quiet threshold between public and private life, inside and outside, activity and retreat. Framed by courtyards and changing light throughout the day, it embodies the central idea of the project: that movement through a home can be just as meaningful as the rooms themselves.’

Hanslope House’s materiality nods to the surrounding suburban environment; Olaver has injected a contemporary touch with lattices and terracotta gabled roofs.

It feels familiar, yet entirely new, as Olaver explains: 'We hope visitors immediately feel a sense of calm and refuge. The progression through the unfenced front garden, sheltered entry and central spine is intended to slow the pace of arrival, gradually revealing light, landscape and interconnected spaces. Rather than a single dramatic moment, the house unfolds through a sequence of experiences that feel generous, grounded, and deeply connected to the garden.’

olaver.com.au

A Blakely Island cabin was designed for immersive forest living among the mature trees of the San Juan Islands archipelago on the Salish Sea. This corner of Washington state is rich in nature, with the particular site nestled between a glacial erratic rock and Douglas fir trees. Within this leafy setting, Wittman Estes has designed a private retreat drawing on the most basic of architectural escapes, in the tradition of Thoreau’s Walden Cabin and Le Corbusier’s 1952 Cabanon.

Tour this Blakely Island cabin in Washington state

Led by architect Matt Wittman and landscape designer Jody Estes, the Seattle-based architecture practice was well placed to tackle the challenge of this commission, a tiny 400 sq ft guest house deep in the woods and offering sweeping views of foliage and water. The raised volume sits on stilts to minimise disturbance to its natural site.

The bijou structure measures a mere 16ft x 20ft. The boxy volume contains a small kitchen, one Murphy bed, one bath, and an open loft area with two bunk beds. The interior is a simple and flowing single space, guiding the eye outwards towards the magnificent vistas.

Made primarily out of timber inside and out (a Western red cedar main body is accessed by a suspended metal walkway), the interiors feel cosy and warm. Between the hardwood decking that continues the forest's material palette indoors and the large glazed openings (including a generous corner-bathroom window), there's synergy between indoors and outdoors.

The Blakely Island cabin was constructed using modular elements and off-site fabrication. The entire house was prefabricated at the contractor’s yard in Everett before being moved, in parts, and reassembled on-site.

'Local materials and small spaces distil living down to a simple essence; in the words of Thoreau, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life",' the architects explain.

wittman-estes.com

Sitting among tangles of oak and Monterey pine, on the lip of a canyon in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Owl House is part art, part architecture, its rich contradictions impossible to grasp at a glance. The redwood structure looks different from every angle, emerging onto the street like a fox's den hollowed out of the brush, or perched like a massive nest from the canyon behind. Where it looms largest, however, it is also generously glazed, giving it the all-seeing gaze of its namesake. Inside, it feels exposed, enclosed and, in some places, both. Sculptural, layered and textural, it offers a series of inhabitable collages that are rigorous in their geometry, reverent toward nature, but playful nonetheless.

Discover this refreshed Mickey Muennig house in California

Designed in the early 1970s by architect Mickey Muennig, the house was restored in 2024 by landscape architect Bernard Trainor of Ground Studio. Then last year, its interiors were renovated by Wallpaper* US400 honoree Nicole Hollis' San Francisco design studio for a pair of empty nesters, who use it as a weekend retreat. Like so many things that come to define the identity of a place, the house's Californian aesthetic was created by a transplant.

Muennig, who would come to be known as ‘the man who built Big Sur', moved to California from Missouri and the Midwest. Having studied under Bruce Goff, he travelled to the nearby Esalen Institute in 1971 for a Gestalt therapy workshop and never returned home. Instead, he began to design unusual buildings, using organic forms and local materials that bridge indoors and out. On a ridge above Big Sur, Muennig embarked on private architectural experiments that embraced nature, light and views: a stone and glass teepee with a bed suspended in its conical crown surveyed the sea, while a boxy house nearby featured tiered, spiralling redwood ceilings and a living room bisected by running water.

Meanwhile, he was also designing lush coastal homes and celebrated Northern California destinations: the Baths at Esalen, the Hawthorne Gallery, and the plush Post Ranch Inn, whose guest rooms took the form of treehouses and burrows with wildflower-sown roofs. Architecture became an extension, even a totem, of the landscape, a link between human and nature. The Owl House had presaged themes that Muennig would play with in much of his later work.

Also a transplant, from the southeastern coast of Australia, Trainor became a temporary steward of the house in 2023. His restoration stabilised and protected materials ranging from the copper roof to wooden decks. ‘It was a passion project that combined art and design, and it brought together years of learning along the way,' he says. In late 2024, when a longtime client bought the house, Hollis and colleague Adele Cunningham set to work with great restraint. The result is clarifying, drawing the architecture to the fore and making room for its new residents.

Essential to Muennig's design are moments of sculptural intensity. The entrance operates as a human-scale collage featuring radial trusswork, a semicircular skylight, layered doorways, cut-away walls, and a tilted demilune clerestory window. Wooden collages by Japanese artist Kishio Suga, chosen from the couple's existing collection by consultants Mary Zlot and Sabrina Buell, resonates with the house's language of fragmentation and flow.

To their credit, Hollis' team cleared the space instead of filling it. They opted for materials that complement rather than contrast, and fewer furnishings that, no matter their age, might have always been there. ‘It's a small house, so I didn't want to overwhelm or overthink it,' says Hollis. ‘You don't want to crowd that architecture. You want it to sing.'

Hollis understood the architecture as tactile as much as it is visually extreme. Texture here serves as a unifying principle, with expressive wooden ceilings and terracotta floor tiles. ‘We thought, are the tiles too busy? They're so graphic,' Hollis recalls. ‘But then we all got used to them, and now we can't imagine the house without them.' Harmonising with the redwood and the brass of the fireplace, colourful textiles add cosiness and energy to each room.

Like texture, geometry is palpable throughout, from the hexagonal tiles to the curving walls. In the kitchen, revitalised cabinetry is faced with vertical slats in varying widths, while a globe pendant and loop-base table echo the house's porthole windows. Because the plan resembles a nautilus shell (with bedroom walls curling into cylinders that contain baths), Hollis commissioned rugs from Vaheed Taheri and brought in rounded furnishings with circular or semicircular oversize pulls.

To keep the interiors relaxed, Hollis' team either met the house's whimsy halfway with curved pieces and happy hues, or stepped back to let it play out. They didn't touch the mushroom-shaped window above the kitchen sink, or the mezzanine's pony wall, cut away in a shallow arc that Hollis describes as ‘a smile'. But they brightened the living room with a green sideboard by Matthew Raw and a red sofa by George Smith: ‘Items that one might not want to live with every day,' she says, ‘but that help create an escape from everyday life.'

Outdoors, the garden continues to be a passion project for Trainor, who wove together plant species such as banksias and persimmons to make it feel ‘as if you were walking through a painting', and designed a cedar and brass fence that gambols across the undulating terrain, echoing the language of the house. The result is not a backdrop but a blossoming that feels as whimsical and wild as the architecture it embraces.

nicolehollis.com

bernardtrainor.com

This article appears in the August 2026, Creative America issue of Wallpaper*, available from 2 July in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

A Somerset retreat set within a quiet hamlet among rolling countryside, just a short drive south of Bath, this renovation project is the work of Daytrip, an interior design and architecture studio founded by Iwan Halstead and Emily Furniss Potter.

Based in Hackney, East London, the pair is known for their timeless yet distinctive projects, many of which draw on both contemporary and classic influences. For example, their Cloisters office in London blends Stuart-era features with modern designs, while a Highbury residence brings minimalist curves to a Victorian house.

Discover the leafy embrace of this Somerset retreat

For this Somerset scheme, the pair had to work with a much more recent building, Springfield Farm. Completed in the 1990s by architect Max Aitken, it is defined by its tiered form and weather-stained grey timber cladding that allowed it to recede softly into its setting.

Daytrip turned it into an idyllic 250 sq m second home by adding warmth to the interiors, which are now filled with bespoke pieces and Scandinavian classics, and by connecting the residence to a new garden and 12m-long swimming pool surrounded by wildflower meadows.

‘We are always interested in understanding what is already there and how we can build upon it rather than overwrite it,’ explains Halstead. ‘The house had a strong spatial logic and generous proportions, but it certainly felt like it had been designed by an architect in the 1990s – slightly cold and technical in places.

‘It lacked the warmth and emotional depth that we often try to bring to our interiors. Our approach was to introduce tactile layering through materials such as wide oak flooring, dark cherry timber, travertine and bronze finishes, bringing richness and softness while respecting the original architecture.'

Construction went smoothly until a fire damaged the house just before completion, and made Daytrip revisit and remake portions of their scheme. ‘In hindsight, that process reinforced the resilience of the design and gave us an opportunity to refine details even further,’ says Halstead.

Designed for entertaining, the flowing living spaces open directly onto the terraces and gardens, with large glazed doors left open in the summer. In contrast, midcentury-inspired wood veneers and deep shearling seating from Dagmar, as well as glass and brass wall lights by Max Ingrand, create a cocooning space for the long winter evenings.

Natural stone, bronze details, textured rugs and linen upholstery complete a material palette designed to bring a sense of tranquillity. ‘The challenge was less about correcting the architecture and more about deepening its relationship to the landscape – creating spaces that felt open, calm and atmospheric, with strong visual connections to their surroundings,’ says Halstead.

The living space, which opens directly onto the landscape, has ‘a wonderful quietness to it’, says the architect. ‘It transforms with the movement of sunlight throughout the day, and the views across the meadows are breathtaking. I enjoy the generosity of the room – the long timber steps lead down into the lounge, where a grand piano and sprawling sofas create a sense of ease and informality. The dark cherry timber wall panelling helps wrap the space and tie it together, while the travertine fireplace anchors the room.’

Daytrip collaborates closely with artists, designers, and makers to create spaces that feel timeless and distinctive, and this is apparent in this project too. Unique artworks dotted around the house, the majority of which are by East London artists represented by Partnership Editions, including Katarina Lalic and Mary West.

‘One of the most important aspects of the project was the layering of art, objects and collectable furniture,’ says Halstead. ‘The large sculptural bronze chandelier by Joe Armitage in the stairwell became a real focal point. At 3m in height, it represents a new direction in his design language – monumental yet delicate, with incredible presence and charm.’

Of course, the scenery framed by the large windows can also easily steal the show. The garden landscaping was designed around the swimming pool, which is placed so that it can be seen from all the key living spaces, and contrasts with the wildflower meadows.

‘We worked with landscape designer Pollyanna Wilkinson to develop the tiered stepping and planting that envelops the perimeter of the house, creating a natural journey down to the pool terrace and orchard,’ says Halstead. ‘A restrained planting language was chosen to flourish throughout the year, with grasses, Nepeta, Gaura and soft perennial species that feel both naturalistic and rooted in the English countryside.’

daytrip.studio

Ancient mountains and blue sea. Warm local stone. Marble sculpted by island artisans. Raw concrete. Monolithic abstractions. And a traditional Greek keli – a small rural shelter for shepherds and farmers.

These key elements shape this Tinos House, a contemporary residence that deeply harmonises with its rugged mountainside setting overlooking the sea, on wind-swept Tinos, a small Greek island in the Cyclades.

Tour this Tinos House on a rugged Greek mountainside

Designed by Athens-based architect Kelly Spanou, the house is angular and compact yet open in atmosphere. It flows across two light-flooded levels, with one bedroom and walls of glass framing views across the natural landscape and the blues of the Aegean.

The seed of the house was an original keli – one of hundreds of small dry-stone structures that have dotted the elemental landscape of Tinos for centuries, traditionally built for storage and shelter from intense sun and strong winds.

The dynamism of the ancient island landscape was a driving force in the house, commissioned by a Greek and French-Lebanese couple based overseas. Boundaries between inside and out are softened by a material palette which is tactile and natural, raw and elemental (in stone, concrete, marble, wood) – with open interiors anchored by a monolithic structure on the ground floor, serving both as kitchen island and sculptural abstraction.

The couple were drawn to creating a home on Tinos, due to its rich local culture, year-round sense of community in villages and the beauty of its landscape – in particular, the powerful contrast between ancient mountains and the blue waters of the Aegean Sea.

As Spanou tells Wallpaper*: 'One of the most memorable things the client told me was that he wanted to feel small in relation to the space. Not in an overwhelming way, but in a way that would constantly remind him of the landscape and the views around the house.'

Highlighting the intensity of the landscape, she adds: 'The island is shaped by powerful natural forces: relentless winds, rugged mountains, a rocky landscape and sudden mists. Some of these phenomena link back to mythology, crafting a landscape that feels very tactile and elemental.'

The house is rooted in a traditional keli thought to be over a century old, which was previously altered by former owners in the years before the project began – with Spanou’s design consciously retaining traces of its past.

'No one had previously lived there as a permanent residence,' says Spanou, a former associate lecturer at Royal College of Art. 'One of our first decisions was to remove as much plasterboard and as many unnecessary wall linings as possible, in order to reveal the original stonework wherever it survived.'

She adds: 'One of the challenges of the existing building was its geometry. Nothing in the plan was orthogonal; there was not a single 90-degree corner. Rather than correcting this condition, the design embraces it and uses it as a starting point for the spatial organisation to encourage a continuous flow through the house.'

Materials mirror the elemental drama of its setting, with a simple earthy palette rooted in a mix of stone, concrete and wood. Reclaimed marble was also incorporated into the design, sculpted with skill by local Tinos artisans.

Interiors juxtapose layers of textures and materials: there are expanses of raw-edged concrete in the form of clean-lined internal staircases, floors and walls, alongside local stones in earthy tones and organic forms, touches of marble and custom-built cabinetry in light steamed beech.

'Reclaimed marble was sourced from marble yards in Tinos and Athens and reworked in collaboration with local craftspeople to create sinks, countertops, and floor elements,' adds Spanou, who worked on the house with design collaborator Penny Alevizou. 'Beyond its material qualities, the marble establishes a direct connection with the island's long tradition of craftsmanship and stone carving.'

And centre stage is the house’s scene-stealing monolithic structure, sculptural and raw-edged. Resting on a sharp concrete box is a strong horizontal stone and concrete counter, complete with a sunken marble sink, its smooth, upper surface giving way to an underside which is deeply irregular and textured, echoing the elemental atmosphere of the surrounding mountains.

'Through its material palette of stone, concrete, and marble, the monolithic volume acquires a strong sensorial quality, reinforcing its role not only as a functional element but also as a physical and sculptural presence within the home,' says Spanou.

'We wanted to avoid a sense of “perfection” and instead make it appear almost unfinished by embracing the roughness of the materials. At the same time, it had to be a carefully designed functional object that could effectively accommodate both cooking and dining activities.'

The line between architecture and nature is softened further by its external landscaping elements – from the curved pathways and stairs mirroring the mountain contours to the swimming pool, which is discreetly cut into concrete.

For Spanou, threaded through all these architectural details and material ingredients is a sensory connection to the setting: “The focus was not on refinement or perfection, but on allowing materials to express their natural character, texture, and imperfections, creating an atmosphere that feels authentic and deeply connected to the landscape of Tinos.”

kellyspanou.com

Photographed amid a bed of snow during the Ontario winter, an elevated cabin-like structure emerges. The residence, titled Silver Heights, is nestled within the patchwork of Carolinian forests in the Trent Hills area. Architect Peter Braithwaite designed the home with a smooth façade and crisp angles, a gentle contrast to its context of rolling hills.

Inside the Ontario cabin, Silver Heights

Silver Heights is minimalist and elegant in its design, its simplicity so soft that photography looks like renders. It seemingly floats within its context.

The area offers an abundance of pristine nature – popular for outdoor activities – and access to the Trent-Severn Waterway, which can be seen from inside the residence.

The physical and visual connection to the landscape was at the core of the client’s design vision. The young family wanted a home that could welcome the outdoors in, while also offering a calming space for respite.

‘Rather than siting the home at the apex of a hill and thus maximising the view, it was decided to place the building slightly down the drumlin slope,’ says Braithwaite. ‘This positioning was intended to challenge how occupants felt within and around the building. Rather than sit the building as an object on the land, we intended to have the building become part of the slope – creating a more gradual, immersive experience with the land.’

The main volume offers a contemporary take on a hipped roof. Its ridged design blends into the rest of the facade, creating the illusion that it is one continuous piece. It looks almost like a bold, two-dimensional graphic gesture.

Meanwhile, the material palette was considered for its robustness to withstand the unpredictable Ontario climate. The architect settled on concrete, black metal, and rusted steel. White cedar adds warmth and a Scandinavian sensibility.

How the house is perceived on arrival was at the forefront of the architect’s mind. ‘Visitors begin their journey along a meandering path through a small stand of trees, across the drumlin apex, then down toward a well-marked, weathered steel entry,' he says.

'Once inside, you are guided along a view-focused corridor which culminates at a partially raised platform, maximising a feeling of connectedness to the land,’ continues Braithwaite.

The project offers visitors moments of spatial compression before the space opens up into a large, airy room that displays the landscape. Explains the architect, ‘This deliberate processional sequence was intended to transform the act of arrival into a measured experience of revelation.’

This skilful interplay of intimacy and openness carries a powerful emotional resonance. The elevated volume creates the sensation of floating within the view rather than merely observing it – encouraging a connection to the vastness of the landscape beyond.

peterbraithwaitestudio.com

The Dairy, the newest development by Echlin in London, offers that covetable but extremely rare combination: it brings together a central, yet very quiet and discreet location; a highly design-led interior; and a slice of Notting Hill history, set in a reimagined 19th-century former working dairy facility. The result is not only prime real estate, but also a carefully thought-out selection of eight homes.

Explore The Dairy by Echlin in London

The project was led by developer Black Treacle, with architecture by Frost Architects. Echlin conceived the interiors, sensitively restoring and reworking the industrial building's fabric to retain its character as much as possible, and adapt it confidently and delicately to the 21st century.

Keeping that balance was important to the design studio. 'Industrial buildings have an inherent sense of theatre – the scale, the light, the layers of history. They resist formula, which is exactly what makes them so compelling to work with. At The Dairy, our team's approach was to reveal and reinterpret that heritage rather than overwrite it,' said Samuel Pye, creative director at Echlin.

The result is a gentle composition that straddles rawness and sophistication, defined by neutral colours with bold accents and a material palette of exposed brick, steel and hard edges. The period structure's existing tall ceilings and big windows add drama to the interiors and ensure each apartment is completely unique, with its own personality.

There are barrel-vaulted ceilings and Crittall-style windows, but also a peppering of warm woods (oak herringbone flooring, for instance) and curated art that soften the atmosphere and create a play between rough and smooth. Limestone and quartzite surfaces in bathrooms and kitchens add texture and coolness.

Caring for the historic building was important to the team in more ways than one, explains Pye: 'Industrial reuse is one of the most sustainable models we have. The most successful examples treat industrial living not as a style, but as a framework for longevity.'

Featuring generous proportions and carrying a sense of restrained elegance, the Dairy's eight apartments have now started going on the market.

echlinlondon.com

thedairynottinghill.com

Fire Island Pines has retained its lustre as an enclave of sun, sea and sex, all wrapped up in modest but alluringly contemporary architecture by pioneers like Horace Gifford. An enduring association between privacy, modernity and contemporary queerness took hold of the Brookhaven hamlet early in the twentieth century, but it was the 1950s and 1960s that cemented its role as a decadent summer destination for New York’s gay community.

One of Gifford’s many residential projects in the hamlet, 122A Ocean Walk, is now up for sale through Compass. One of over 60 homes Gifford completed in the area – where he himself lived, this 1965 house is next door to Gifford's Lipkins House (1970), famed for its high-tech multicoloured lighting.

The house was originally built for the interior decorator Yale R.Burge, the son of Russian-born antiques dealers who trained at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. A founding member of what would become the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), Burge was also GQ magazine’s first dedicated home furnishings editor.

After Burge’s death in 1972, the house was taken on by protégé and business partner, Angelo Donghia. Donghia commissioned Gifford to expand the house. According to local architectural history site Pines Modern, Donghia and Gifford clashed after the interior designer was offended by having to meet with Gifford's deputy. Subsequent owners included the fashion designer Derek Lam, who commissioned Neal Beckstedt Studio to further expand, restore and update the property.

Like many of Gifford’s projects, the house has direct oceanfront access, with an elevated walkway leading to the beach and the Atlantic visible from all the principal rooms thanks to the glazed façade. The cedar cladding has been updated with black stone floors and bathrooms, and new interior joinery that expands the practicality and function of the space.

Located just a short walk from the Fire Island Ferry, the house is a remarkable survivor made all the more desirable through continuous maintenance and upgrades. Fire Island Pines continues to offer a sanctuary for contemporary architecture, but this particular property offers the practicality of contemporary architecture with a direct historical connection to the area’s cultural heart.

122A Ocean Drive, Fire Island Pines is offered at $2.995M. The listing agents are Esteban Gomez and Perry Goldsmith, @TheCreativesAgent, @Compass

During his career, Frank Lloyd Wright built only one house in Tennessee: the Shavin House, perched on Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga. Now, this unique piece of American architectural history is on the market.

The home, at 334 North Crest Road, was built in 1949 after newlyweds Seamour – a building materials salesman with an appreciation for modern design – and Gerte Shavin decided that, rather than buying an existing home, they would channel their savings into commissioning a residence from the era's most celebrated architect. They paid roughly $33,000 for the house and its Wright-designed built-in furniture, a considerable sum for the time.

Wright designed the home in his Usonian tradition – a design philosophy centred on the idea of the ideal American home: modest in scale, with open interiors, abundant natural light and a strong relationship between architecture and landscape. The Shavin residence embodies these principles, built from native Tennessee Crab Orchard stone and Louisiana cypress.

Wright himself never set foot on the Chattanooga site; construction was overseen by Marvin Bachman, one of his apprentices from Taliesin, Wright’s home, studio and school complex in Wisconsin. Bachman died in a car accident before the project was finished, but the house was nonetheless completed in 1952. It remained in the Shavin family for more than seven decades – Seamour, who also served as the home's general contractor, lived there until his death in 2005, while Gerte remained part-time until 2020.

Signature Wright touches are everywhere: a hidden entrance that reveals the main living spaces only after entry, clerestory windows, mitred glass corners that dissolve the visual boundary between interior and exterior, and a massive stone fireplace centerpiece. A dramatic cantilevered carport roof extends outward from the main building, while inside, Wright's signature built-in seating, shelving and cabinetry unify architecture and interior.

The Shavin House does depart from Wright’s usual style in one notable way: while many of his houses tuck into their surroundings, this one commands the top of Missionary Ridge, with sweeping views of the Tennessee River, Lookout Mountain and downtown Chattanooga. This distinctive character earned the home a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, and it became Chattanooga's first official local landmark in 1995.

With its entrance to market, the Shavin House offers the chance to steward one of fewer than 100 completed Usonian houses in existence. While it may not carry the fame of Fallingwater or the Robie House, many consider it one of the finest surviving examples of Wright’s residential philosophy.

The Shavin House is on the market with Sotherby’s International Realty for $1.6 million.

This apartment in Worli, Mumbai, is a calm oasis floating above the Indian city's central, upscale neighbourhood. As Mumbai is slowly and steadily densifying, evolving building norms have allowed more homes to be constructed on the same piece of land. As a result, a big part of its building stock from the 1980s is currently being transformed into bigger and taller towers to house more apartments. Taking advantage of this newfound space in the sky is designer Rajiv Saini and his namesake firm, who have transformed a private unit nestled on the 60th floor of a local high-rise.

Step inside this Worli apartment in Mumbai

Worli is a sought-after area, with its Arabian Sea views and blend of contemporary developments with traditional fishing villages. Saini worked closely with his client, who made his money in the international financial markets. ‘The request was to create an easy, timeless, and serene space to function as a respite from the urban chaos and cacophony that is Mumbai,’ explains Saini.

Currently residing in California with his partner, the client visits Mumbai several times a year for business. The apartment was conceived to serve as their base in India, and occupies the new 360 West by Oberoi tower, just one lane behind Mumbai’s coveted Worli Sea Face.

Even though we had never met before (the client reached out to me based on recommendations made by his friends who live in India) we seemed to hit it off from our first meeting itself,' says Saini. 'We had similar ideas about what the space should offer and we both immediately agreed that while the home would be super luxurious, it ought to be restrained and neutral, allowing us to layer the spaces with important artworks.'

While it was clear from the start that the ocean view would take centre stage, the interiors and layout were less certain. Originally planned as a four-bed apartment (it’s a little over 5,500 sq feet), Saini converted it to a spacious three-bed home.

Designer Saini has worked in this area before, having recently designed the twin NJM & PVM coastal apartments for two brothers, each with different aesthetic preferences. This Worli project also highlights the ocean views and embraces the open-plan nature of the apartment, which makes it perfect for entertaining.

In addition to the three bedrooms, there’s a family room, an office space, and a flowing living, dining and kitchen area. In the heart of the space is a cleverly positioned glass wall. This acts as a divide between living areas without breaking the eyeline and view of the sea. Further architectural details include a sunken ceiling in the dining area, which elevates the space and captures the eye.

The material palette is soothing. Cool cream tones are coupled with warming brown ones found in furnishings and textiles. Contemporary art pieces add dynamic movement to the interior space. The contrast of shapes and materials ensures the apartment doesn't feel clinical – but centres on a warm sense of minimalism.

The client, who enjoys hosting, can make use of the large terrace attached to the living room, which allows socialising to spill over into the outdoors. This comfortable outdoor deck effortlessly becomes a natural extension of the living room, providing animated views of downtown Mumbai.

rajiv_saini_associates.com

At Wallpaper*, showcasing exceptional homes from across the world is our raison d'être. That's why we've launched a monthly series, The Architecture Edit, dedicated to highlighting the diversity of contemporary residential architecture. Every edition rounds up the houses that caught our eye that month – projects defined by thoughtful design, inventive construction and outstanding craftsmanship.

This time around, our journey takes us to a brutalist complex in Paris and a Canadian lakeside, the Tuscan coast and the suburbs of south London. Come along as we explore the standout houses of June 2026.

A subterranean South London home

Stylus Architects tucked Green Lodge into an awkward plot behind a Victorian house in Roehampton, London. To keep the street façade single-storey and ease planning approval, the architects dug down, placing living spaces on the ground floor and three bedrooms below, with light coming from sunken courtyards and a stairwell roof-light. Exposed concrete, oak joinery and larch cladding define the interiors, while photovoltaics and an air source heat pump make this a notably low-energy home.

A Parisian brutalist duplex

This month, a 55.6 sqm duplex that sits atop the Marat building within Renée Gailhoustet and Jean Renaudie's celebrated 1975 brutalist complex came to market. Built between 1971 and 1981, the stepped, ziggurat-style scheme is known for the way it integrates green urbanism into mass housing. The apartment includes two small sleeping areas, a study on a half-landing and main living spaces reached by a sculptural staircase, as well as a private terrace with mature trees.

A curved Canadian retreat

Designed by Bryan Young of Young Projects, this concrete, wood and stone holiday retreat in the Canadian Rocky Mountains takes an intriguing, curved ‘cut-out’ form, which ‘embraces’ an entrance inspired by a boulder retained on site. A butterfly roof, meanwhile, defines the silhouette across the adjacent lake. Inside, an open-plan living, kitchen, dining and study area occupies the main level, with a primary suite and three guest bedrooms tucked into the slope below.

A sculptural concrete house

Architect Carlos Maia of Tetro Arquitetura describes Xingu House as a sculptural statement merging landscape, structural ambition and Brazilian modernist heritage. It crowns a forested hilltop in Nova Lima, Brazil, pinwheeling around a central axis on six faceted concrete pillars. One cantilevered wing houses the primary suite; two others meet the ground at the site's old stone terraces, now reimagined with reflecting ponds and a pool. The interior, meanwhile, pairs raw concrete with sculptural art, including a piece by artist Túlio Pinto.

A Québec lake house

Yh2 architecture's Counter-Slope House embeds into a sloping site on Québec's Lake Memphremagog, leading the architects to describe the result as ‘an architecture of subtraction that reveals more than it imposes’. Here, cedar cladding and white oak joinery age naturally with the site. The open-plan ground floor comprises stone, timber and floor-to-ceiling glazing, while the entrance level, reached via a bridge, houses three bedrooms beneath a butterfly roof, as well as a rooftop ‘belvedere’ for contemplating the lake.

A 16th-century Medici watchtower

Perched on Tuscany's Romito Coast, this 16th-century Medici watchtower later became Baron Sidney Sonnino’s seaside residence before standing empty for years. Architecture studio Tono has now restored it, preserving the stone, lime and travertine façade as well as the original Venetian terrazzo and marble flooring. Inside, a lapis lazuli-toned palette echoes the sea, which is visible from every room, and is paired with antiques and bespoke furniture.

A Costa Rican patio house

Mexican architect Manuel Cervantes designed this patio house around a central courtyard and pool, drawing on a Roman impluvium as inspiration. Four pavilion-like wings – two living spaces and two bedroom blocks – surround the courtyard, encouraging movement through thresholds rather than corridors. The house uses local materials and craft traditions, built from Pacific cedar, Nicaraguan brick and chukum plaster, while two sculptural pyramid forms rise from the pool.

A mixed-reference Australian home 

Coy Yiontis Architects designed Glenblaith as a ‘forever home’ for a retiring couple in Manifold Heights, Australia, mixing brutalist and modernist references within a suburban streetscape. A moveable timber screen reveals an introverted courtyard core anchored by a 4.8m oculus that nods to John Lautner’s Hope Residence. Monolithic concrete columns frame an atrium with a lily pond, dividing the home into separate wings for living and entertaining. Unexpected details, like a barricaded brick window, add moments of unexpected charm.

A national park-inspired home

Designed by Tenille Teakle of Studio Gritt, this 409 sq m home in Perth's Wembley Downs draws on the textures of Karijini National Park. Seven-metre rammed-earth walls and weathered face brick echo the gorge rockfaces, while burnished concrete floors recall blackened sand. Upstairs, lighter hemp render mimics the experience of climbing out of a gorge into daylight. The design also incorporates recycled concrete, repurposed materials and native planting, creating a calm, cocoon-like sanctuary.

A dwelling within a barn

In order to leave the host structure unaltered, Prague-based Facha Architekti simply inserted a compact, self-contained timber dwelling into an old agricultural barn. Clad in black asphalt, the box sits slightly elevated above the barn’s original floor, with a concrete threshold joining interior and exterior. Inside, birch plywood dominates, and a single black-dyed MDF block consolidates the kitchen, bathroom and storage. Underfloor heating keeps things warm, while the barn itself acts as a passive buffer against summer heat and winter cold.

For the first time in three decades, one of La Jolla's most celebrated architectural treasures is coming to market. The Thomas C Kravis, MD Residence – a remodel completed between 1976 and 1987 by the organic architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg – sits on Vista Del Mar Avenue, steps from the legendary Windansea Beach.

Although the home dates to the 1940s, its story truly begins in the 1970s, when physician Thomas Kravis purchased the property and turned to Kellogg (1934-2024) to reimagine it. At the time, Kellogg was at an early stage of his career – before the sweeping, almost sculptural fluidity that would define later works, such as the Doolittle Residence in Joshua Tree and the Yen Residence in La Jolla. Working within the constraints of a standard city lot, he demonstrated here that organic design doesn’t require a grand scale to make an impression.

The property announces itself through its stacked wood fascia, which frames the rooflines and signals something a bit different from the surrounding streetscape. Inside and out, Kellogg deployed his signature textured concrete – a recipe entirely his own – that originates at the interior fireplace and flows outward into the landscape through planters, water features, garden walls and seating areas. Natural wood and earthy tones lend the home a particular warmth, a quality that has made it a perennial favourite on the La Jolla Modern Home Tour.

The residence gained a further dimension in 1998, when the parents of the current owner – architect Yum Kee Fu and his wife Susan – undertook a two-year renovation that wove nature-inspired Asian detail throughout. Their most exquisite contribution is the upstairs suite, where artisan-crafted interior doors feature intricate wood inlays. The work was guided by Yum Kee Fu's philosophy that any design should 'create and meet the peaceful environment and peaceful nature of life'.

The residence comprises three bedrooms and three bathrooms, with ocean and sunset views throughout. The primary suite – accessible via an exterior stairway and complete with its own rooftop deck – functions equally well as a self-contained one-bedroom apartment.

The Kravis Residence is a home shaped by three distinct creative hands across five decades, each leaving its own mark. Available off-market, it is a rare opportunity to own a work of enduring architectural significance in one of Southern California's most coveted coastal neighbourhoods.

The Kravis Residence is listed with Keith York at Agents of Architecture.

A fan of the architect? Tour another Kendrick Bangs Kellogg California gem

A minimalist, new virtual house design by Miami-based studio Oppenheim Architecture allows you to try-before-you-buy in an immersive experience that celebrates design and digital advances. Initiated by client Swiss frameless door and window specialists Sky-Frame, the project, which launches today (29 June 2026) explores the boundaries of digital design and virtual worlds through the practice's sophisticated aesthetic.

Take a taster tour of this virtual house by Oppenheim Architecture

The project is a subtly abstract house design - a single-level, long and linear residence clad in seamless glazing. The residence features a pared-down aesthetic (the Swiss manufacturer is famous for producing virtually frameless openings) and a sculptural timber and concrete look.

The design was developed as a somewhat 'infinite' design, conceived to allow the creativity to run wild and potential to be imagined. As a result, the house can be seen in two distinct settings - visitors can experience it in a sun-drenched Miami beach scenery, or a snowy Swiss peak, the Matterhorn in the distance.

'The brief was to create an experience that captures the essence of Sky-Frame: openness, continuity and a seamless connection between inside and outside. By collaborating with Oppenheim Architecture, we were able to explore these ideas without physical constraints and demonstrate the emotional power of architecture in an entirely new way,' says Andrea Zürcher, CMO at Sky-Frame.

'Evolving the original thinking, together with Beat and Rasem, into this virtual dream world, was a really fun experience right from the start. We enjoyed working creatively to build our own ‘dream house’, as much about the beautiful design, as the conceptual thinking - and we enjoyed the process of being the client!'

The idea is that prospective clients - customers, including contractors, designers, architects and the general public - can book an appointment for a private viewing, where they can explore the look and feel of Sky-Frame's product through Oppenheim Architecture's sleek design.

'The brief was deliberately open, which is both a gift and a discipline,' says Oppenheim Architecture's Beat Huesler. 'Sky-Frame asked us to design a house that was architecturally rigorous but not site-specific. A residence that could exist anywhere, yet feels entirely at home in each location. The only non-negotiable was the landscape: every space had to earn its relationship to the view. That is very aligned with how we at Oppenheim Architecture (OA) approach architecture more broadly. We started with two concrete planes and let everything else follow from that discipline - services hidden, structure quiet, the frame of the window becoming the frame of the world outside.'

'We value Oppenheim’s visionary architecture and their philosophical approach to light, space, and integration with the surroundings,' says Zürcher. 'When approached, they immediately understood both the challenge and the opportunity of the project. The collaboration was based on a shared perspective and mindset on architecture.'

The architects were also challenged and pleased by the project. Huesler adds: 'The freedom to design without the constraints of a real site, a real budget, or a real planning authority and then to discover that this freedom actually demanded greater discipline, not less. When you remove every practical excuse, you are left with pure architectural intention.'

'The collaboration with The Boundary also pushed us to think about how architecture is experienced sequentially, almost cinematically. Miami Beach and Zermatt - each setting asked the house to perform differently, and watching it hold its identity across all three was genuinely satisfying.'

oppenoffice.com

sky-frame.com

Bridging that gap between traditional London townhouse and the metropolis's rich offering of purely contemporary homes, Vabel Townhouse is the newest development created by Vabel – the design and development studio founded in 2009 by Daniel Baliti and Jeremy Spencer. The business has been making its mark on the capital with its design-led, architecturally rich projects, and the latest, set on the south end of Queensway, a stone's throw from Hyde Park, follows this creative approach to the T.

Discover Vabel Townhouse in London's Queensway

Inspired by the timeless nature of Victorian townhouses and terraces and following the rhythm of the street's massing and facade grids, Vabel Townhouse scales up the single-family home property into a boutique, just 28-home new build structure clad in elegant light brick.

Upon stepping inside, the visitor is greeted by a calming, block-surface and richly minimalist lobby. Warm, dark timbers balance out the vibrant, immersive pink and green stone on the floors and walls. It is all symmetrically placed in a manner that draws on the art deco grandeur of interiors such as Eltham Palace, around a contemporary fireplace, with a discreet reception desk to one side.

Upstairs, units range from one- to three-bedroom ones, including apartments and maisonettes. Two penthouses crown the top. Green spaces, from the rear garden (accessible to all, and leading to the residents' gym) to the planted roof at the front, where the building is set back, enrich the living experience, adding private outdoor areas which complement the nearby, public, leafy expanses of Hyde Park.

The Vabel creative team designed all interiors and crafted different iterations and moods with the first five of nine fully furnished apartments that Vabel Townhouse will offer. The high level of bespoke attention ensures every interior is brimming with personality - with not only joinery and built-in furniture and elements such as kitchens, but a lot of the furniture, too, being tailored to the specific project, or sourced especially.

'From the beginning, our ambition was to create homes that are differentiated and offer an elevated living experience. Every element of the design has been carefully curated to create a sanctuary of calm, but also to energise and inspire, from the architectural language of the building through to the bespoke joinery, natural stone, landscaping and interior finishes within each residence,' says Spencer, who is also the creative director at Vabel.

'What makes this project particularly special is the extraordinary level of attention to detail that has gone into every decision. As a fully integrated design and development studio, we have been able to oversee every aspect of the process, ensuring that the original vision has been nurtured through to completion without compromise. The result is a collection of homes defined by exceptional craftsmanship, beautiful materials and cutting-edge design – enriching the human experience.'

The scheme also features work by award-winning design consultancy Greenspace, which has completed a comprehensive brand and strategy programme for Vabel, refreshing its corporate masterbrand identity.

The project follows Vabel Lawrence in Seven Sisters, and is only one of the two projects Vabel has in Queensway. Further up the road, a second Vabel residential development is currently in the works.

vabel.co.uk

This project defies easy categorisation – it’s not quite a renovation, not quite a new construction, but something in between. Prague-based practice Facha Architekti has inserted a compact contemporary dwelling into the body of an old agricultural barn: structurally independent and entirely self-contained. ‘Box in a Barn’, as the project is aptly named, serves as a retreat for a client whose family works the surrounding farmstead.

Early conversations explored renovating the farmstead's existing residential wing, but the brief gradually evolved toward something much more interesting, with the goal of leaving the host structure completely unaltered: a new living unit placed inside the barn itself.

What makes the outcome so arresting is the refusal to soften the relationship between box and barn. No attempt has been made to modernise the surrounding structure, nor to make the new volume defer to it. The new insertion is unmistakably contemporary – a simple timber box clad in black asphalt, its form derived from the barn's geometry yet held in deliberate tension with it. The unit sits slightly elevated above the original floor, which continues uninterrupted beneath. At its threshold, a concrete plane flows inward from the courtyard, dissolving the boundary between interior, open barn and the garden of old apple trees beyond.

Inside, the approach is deliberately understated. Birch plywood dominates – its warmth and grain providing texture without ornament. A single built-in block of black-dyed MDF consolidates the kitchen, bathroom and storage into one element, keeping the remainder of the plan open and unencumbered.

Though conceived for seasonal use, underfloor heating and insulation make year-round occupation totally viable. The barn itself functions as a passive climatic buffer, moderating both summer heat and winter cold for the volume within.

Architecture is full of renovations and replacements. Moments of genuine adaptation are far harder to find. 'Box in the Barn' is simple in its premise – and wonderfully clever in the execution of that premise.

A sublimely minimalist Belgian penthouse by architecture studio Merckx-Holvoet is just the thing for those long, hot summer days when easy living and going back to basics are in order. The project, titled V Penthouse, was crafted in an existing unit by the Antwerp-based architects Marc Merckx and Sébastien Holvoet and their team, and blends contemporary chic with the glamour its established seaside resort, Knokke-Heist, is known for.

Explore this Belgian penthouse by the sea

The client, a couple and their two young children, came to the studio with the desire to create a coastal pied-a-terre, a space that can allow for carefree time over weekends and holidays. The project would acts as a refreshing counterbalance to their busy urban lives in a Belgian city the rest of the year.

As a result, the architecture team focused on opening up to the surrounding landscape and, at the same time, bringing hints of the context in. Compositions are framed towards large windows, which create long views of the beach and sea. Meanwhile, the project's materiality takes its cues from local, natural colours and materials, and the shifting hues of the North Sea.

To achieve the textures of its setting, in a refined, polished way that is befitting of 21st-century family life, Merckx-Holvoet clad the walls and floors of the main living spaces in a unifying way, using sandblasted Travertino Noce stone. The ceiling's plaster gives a subtly sandy finish.

Timber elements bring smoothness and warmth to the composition, such as the main, solid oak-built staircase at the heart of the home. Bespoke millwork also features in the kitchen cabinets and its generous island.

A balcony acts as an extension to the living space. When the glazing is drawn back fully, living room and outdoors become one, highlighting the long views across the North Sea waters.

The ultimate aim? The architects write: 'More than a temporary retreat, it becomes a quiet extension of the coast itself, a place shaped as much by atmosphere as by function.'

ericpetschek.com

A new private home draws on the drama and natural feel of the Karijini National Park, set within the vast, open landscapes of Western Australia. The project, fittingly titled Karijini House, was designed by Tenille Teakle, design director at Gritt Studio. Her goal? 'To create a home that offers the same sense of solitude and connection to nature [as the national park],' she explains.

Explore a house inspired by Karijini National Park

The property is located in the Perth suburb of Wembley Downs. Inspired by the materiality, tactility and wild feel of the Karijini nature, the 250sq m house (spanning two above-ground levels and a basement) features 7m-high rammed-earth walls and large glass windows that connect it to the outdoors at every turn.

Explaining the connection between her inspiration and the home's context and reality, Teakle writes: 'Horizontal banding in the imperfect and damaged face brick (weathered by age) evokes the carved Karijini rockfaces. The undulating texture of the rammed concrete walls echoes the tactility of the rockface. Burnished concrete floors and soffits are reminiscent of blackened sand.

'Upstairs the lighter hemp render and palette replicate the experience of re-emerging onto the plains from a hike down the gorge, being bathed in natural daylight, no longer in the dark and dank and mysterious. Large, banded iron boulders feature as architectural monuments, sparking curiosity and storytelling.'

The creative team sought to craft a home that feels like a sanctuary, a solitary cocoon, cool and calm – making the everyday appear like a holiday, even in Karijini House's dense urban and suburban broader setting. '[It evokes] the experience of traversing a gorge,' she says.

The creative team took into account sustainability principles, as well as questions around provenance and longevity. As a result, the home features recycled rammed concrete walls, repurposed second-hand local materials, and a rich green garden of native planting that allow the local wildlife to thrive.

Teakle highlights: 'To distil the Karijini experience into identifying features, they would be scale, grandeur, light and shade, horizontal banding and privacy.'

@gritt_studio

What happens when brutalist and modernist references unite? Coy Yiontis Architects’ Glenblaith house is the answer – a quirky concrete residence in the prestigious Manifold Heights neighbourhood in Victoria, Australia.

Tour Glenblaith, a residence where brutalism and modernism collide

The single-storey residence was designed as a ‘forever home’ for a professional couple. Its façade is smooth, geometric and mysterious, with a timber entry that acts as a moveable screen to slowly unveil its introverted core.

‘The client approached us after following the work of the practice for over ten years,’ explains the firm’s director, George Yiontis. ‘Armed with magazine clippings of our previous projects, there was a clear focus on the courtyard house typology and use of robust, natural materials.

'Concrete and timber were the protagonists in the vision of their new home, integrated with a prominent and lush landscape to satisfy her green thumb and provide a focus in retirement years.'

The home's anchor is the 4.8m oculus, a subtle nod to midcentury design hinting to the fluid curvature of The TWA Flight Center and architect John Lautner’s 1979 Hope Residence. This architectural ode foreshadows the intricate design codes within the rest of the home.

Yiontis notes, ‘The building’s appearance from the street is unassuming but different; the low-lying concrete form is recessed from its fenceless boundary and the lush front yard contrasts the endless stretch of newly volume-built and post-war neighbours with their pitched roofs and fenced, manicured lawns. While conforming to planning guidelines, the house is an anomaly in the streetscape.’

In this context, Glenblaith was conceived to challenge the traditional conventions of suburbia and its landscape. The architecture firm made sure to utilise unorthodox materials and small nooks to keep an element of surprise.

The monolithic concrete columns frame the large atrium-cum-courtyard space, complete with a lily pond, offering a central green utopia with the residence. Beyond this, the house is divided into separate wings; one intimate, one for living and entertaining.

Other unexpected design details include a small alcove in the bedroom, which has been utilised as a desk space, while a window has been artfully barricaded with an intriguing brick pattern, allowing the shadows to dance on the floor below.

Coy Yiontis Architects has redefined suburbia, stepping away from the white-picket-fenced, cookie-cutter mould, and presenting a new benchmark for living: a vibrant garden house that doesn’t shout or demand attention, but is slowly discovered and enjoyed.

coyyiontis.com.au

The aspirational charms of remote living are laid bare in gestalten’s new monograph, Northern Exposure. Although the blurb promises a ‘shift away from rustic clichés toward an architecture of profound ecological responsiveness and sensory clarity,’ we all know that monographs like this exist to soothe the existential angst of everyday life by transporting us to a warm, wood-lined cocoon perched on the edge of a pristine wilderness.

In this respect, the book does not disappoint. Across 32 projects, the reader is treated to sylvan retreats, back-to-basics construction and neo-vernacular experiments. Some will be familiar from our pages, like Bishop McDowell’s Lawrencetown House on the Nova Scotian coast and Quinzhee Architecture’s Chez Léon retreat in Charlevoix, and you’ll certainly recognise many of the featured firms, which include Omar Gandhi, Pierre Thibault and Mackay-Lyons Sweetapple.

When assembled in the context of a monograph, the FOMO is almost overwhelming, with endless sylvan vistas framed by picture windows, kitchen countertops that overlook rocky shores and decks beneath dark skies and wide horizons.

The editors describe the featured projects as representing a ‘shift away from rustic clichés toward an architecture of profound ecological responsiveness and sensory clarity,’ and in practice this comes across as a new form of rural minimalism. It’s not an architecture of white walls and rough concrete, but of natural materials, modest proportions and a desire to be more attuned to the landscape instead of dominating it.

Often the sense of splendid isolation is an exaggerated one, created by careful siting and orientation, bolstered by the photographic framing, be it on the ground or from the air. Nevertheless, these contextual images give a sense of the scale of the Canadian landscape, emphasising how important it is for rural architecture to tread as lightly as possible on the surrounding environment.

Northern Exposure: The New Canadian Cabin, €50 / £45 / $75, Gestalten.com, @Gestalten

Communing with its tropical jungle context, this new patio house in Costa Rica was conceived as an experimentation on its time-honed typology. The project, created by Mexican architect Manuel Cervantes for a private client, is a personal home but also an architectural exploration, seeking to blend the warm comforts of a residence with the leafy landscape of its setting – all, centred on the idyllic waters of a pool set right at the heart of the design.

Tour this sculptural patio house in Costa Rica

True to its patio identity, the house is arranged around a generous central courtyard. This open-air space becomes the heart of the home, connecting physically and visually different parts of the project, from creating a flow between al fresco rooms and circulation areas to bringing them all together around its blue swimming pool.

The ancient Roman impluvium provided ample inspiration, Cervantes explains: 'The courtyard acts as a climatic, spatial, and social condenser, collecting light, air, reflections, and human activity at the centre of the composition.'

The home's internal layout is organised around this central space – each 'wing' housing a distinct family of functions, and each of these contained within an interconnected, yet somewhat independent, 'pavilion.' So, rather than journeying between rooms, the residents are invited to cross thresholds and transition through different internal experiences as they inhabit the residence.

Spanning over 400 sq m in total, the project includes two generous living spaces, housed in two discrete volumes placed opposite each other. The other two 'pavilions' contain private areas – five large bedrooms with an en suite bathroom each. Everything is accommodated on a single ground level, with just an underground garage tucked under one of the volumes.

The structure's tactile textures – Pacific cedar, Nicaraguan brick, and chukum plaster – not only bring an organic feel to this very contemporary house but also connect it to its setting; they are all local materials and building techniques, perfected through centuries of indigenous skills. It is one more way for this private, 21st-century home, to be linked meaningfully to its green, natural island setting.

The architect writes: 'The project seeks to recover certain spatial values deeply rooted in Latin American domestic architecture. The courtyard, the shaded corridor, the thick wall, the intermediate space, and the constant presence of nature are reinterpreted through a contemporary architectural language. The objective is not nostalgia, but continuity; not the reproduction of historical forms, but the preservation of relationships between climate, culture, and habitation.'

And while a swimming pool at its heart might scream 'luxury' in some settings, here, the feature feels organic and entirely of its place. The architect adds: 'The pool is conceived not as an isolated amenity but as an extension of the central court itself, a reflective plane that amplifies light and reinforces the collective character of the house.'

'Emerging from this surface, two inhabitable pyramids introduce a sculptural dimension to the composition. These elements function simultaneously as landscape, architecture, and infrastructure, blurring conventional distinctions between object and building.'

A new waterfront house in Miami Beach exemplifies the region’s sun and sea lifestyle. Designed by KODA (Kean Office for Design and Architecture), a local practice set up by architect Wesley Kean, the Pine Tree Residence enjoys its own private water frontage, creating a sanctuary away from the hustle of downtown and the densely arranged residential context.

Explore this new Miami waterfront house

Kean and his team have divided the 6,350 sq. ft residence into a series of zones, starting with the public/private street frontage, then moving through into an internal garden courtyard before leading out onto the rear deck. This sequence of space not only creates an interior realm for the client but helps cross breezes filter from the water through the entire house.

Arranged on an east-west axis, the house is set across two floors. The ground (first) floor has a processional entrance that rises up from street level and the two-car garage, beneath one of two oversailing bedrooms wings to the main entrance. This living, dining and lounge area is the heart of the house, flanked by glazed walls that open onto the outdoor rear terrace.

A separate family room also has direct access to this terrace, along with an outdoor kitchen and the pool area, beyond which lies the waterfront. Upstairs, the twin bedroom wings wrap around this internal landscape, which is densely planted with tropical specimens to create a rich backdrop.

‘Rather than orienting every space outward to the water, the design balances expansive views with a quiet interior landscape that anchors daily life,’ say the architects, ‘This approach creates a layered living experience where architecture, nature, and family life converge around a shared central garden.’

The ‘west bedroom wing’ contains three ensuite bedrooms as well as a shared balcony, utility room and ‘loft’ seating area (separate staff accommodation is located downstairs adjacent to the garage). A corridor links the two wings, past the staircase, to the principal suite, which incorporates extensive wardrobe space, a private waterfront balcony and direct access to a study/media room (that can also double up as another bedroom).

Downstairs, there is also a separate outdoor courtyard on the west side of the plot, accessible immediately upon entering the house – this adds to the sense of a continuous relationship between architecture and landscape. It also helps orientate the visitor to the house, with views of the water beyond and the sense of the accommodation contained within the upper levels.

‘The courtyard becomes both threshold and destination, an outdoor room that welcomes guests while orienting them within the spatial organization of the home,’ say KODA.

KODAMiami.com, @KODA_Miami

They say dogs look like their owners. But what about houses? When Madeleine Blanchfield Architects was approached to craft a residence for an artist and his family, the studio leaned into sculpture to mould a contemporary Australian house on the outskirts of Sydney. Raw and rooted in its hillside context, the building is cubic and angular, with echoes of brutalist architecture, but softened by locally sourced, earthy-toned Krause ‘Bronte’ bricks and oak, and is devoid of finishes.

Step inside a sculptural house in Australia

Sculptor Aaron Crothers worked with the architect to create the three-storey house that evokes an artwork itself – and is fittingly titled 'Sculpted' – nodding to the owner’s work in ceramic and timber. Collaborating closely with his architect, Crothers even added the personalised finishing touch, carving the house number into a raw brick before it was laid within the wall.

‘The main conceptual principle was to build a home with zero superfluous layers,’ says practice director Madeleine Blanchfield. ‘The project explores materiality in its rawest form while taking on board our core values of solar-passive design, rigorous planning and finessed detailing, while delivering the same joie de vivre we seek in all our work.’

The team was sensitive to the site's context too. The intention was to create a space that drew on its location (the ancestral home of the Cammeraygal People of the Eora Nation) while also acknowledging neighbouring buildings. Blanchfield explains: ‘The home is immersed in the native landscape and [gives the feeling of] living outdoors when opened up. Light floods in from all directions throughout the day.’

The residence is accessed from the ground level. The first floor hosts the kitchen, equipped with a pink ‘Patagonia’ honed quartzite island and bench, as well as the dining and living areas. A second lounge to the south showcases the building's high ceilings and houses a monolithic concrete fireplace at its core. A terrace stretches out from this part, shaded by the canopy of a tree, the sun trickling through the leaves occasionally to cast golden beams across the interiors.

The concrete floor acts as a structural foundation, anchoring the building to the ground, while the brick walls are exposed, bearing the house's 'bones'. ‘It is very unusual for the slab to be the finished floor, and there is no room for error,' says Blanchfield. ‘After the pour, the wind blew gum leaves onto the concrete in the girls’ bedrooms. Nature’s accidental marks became akin to a ceramicist’s intentional stamping process, and are embraced as part of the house’s story.’

The sculptural touches don’t end there. Each interior furnishing is a considered choice – from the Michel Boyer brutalist coffee table to a vintage ‘Le Bambole’ B+B Italia sofa. A Max Lamb lounge chair, an ‘Albireo’ sofa from De La Espada, and a daybed by Skupa finish the living room.

The garage has become home to Crothers’ sculpture studio, a place for him to hone his craft, such as his new ‘Interconnected’ series of stoneware ceramic sculptures. This entire residential design is a thoughtful example of how a house can reflect not only its context or a sole architect's formal experimentation, but also the person who resides there. Sculpted House perfectly echoes the creative, collaborative spirit that birthed it.

madeleineblanchfield.com

The ocean breeze from Tuscany’s Romito Coast cloaks the Castel Sonnino in a mysterious veil. The building’s origins date back to the 16th century when the Medici family built a watchtower to overlook and protect the town of Livorno. After centuries as a military garrison, the castle finally became a residence at the end of the 1800s.

Tour this restored Italian castle

At the time, Baron Sidney Sonnino was looking for a summer home that allowed for secluded intimacy with the sea and its surrounding context. The Italian statesman fell in love with the location and decided the watchtower would be his eponymous home – he now rests here forever, his tomb located in a natural cave overlooking the cliffs.

After Sonnino’s passing, the castle remained closed for years – until now. A recent restoration led by Tono architectural and interior design studio has revived the mysterious coastal property.

The project, which was officially completed in 2025, was spearheaded by the Florence- and Livorno-based studio that wanted to give the windswept walls a new lease of life. His aim? To reimagine the castle through a contemporary lens.

The exterior remains historic. Perched on a hill, the building's façade offers textural details of stone, lime and travertine. However, beneath its regal, period shell, its interior is far from dated. The Italian design studio carefully tiptoed between old and new, restoring the existing Venetian terrazzo and marble flooring, and repairing the bastion, from where guards would once have watched out for enemies.

The sea is visible from every room. Its lapis lazuli shades offer organic inspiration for the internal colour palette, seamlessly blending the interior and exterior. Windows frame the views, while the space is accessorised with carefully selected antiques and custom-made furniture.

The castle’s restoration has reignited its mysterious and whimsical quality, adding energy to its long-overlooked spaces to bring Castel Sonnino into the 21st century.

tono-design.com

This lakeside retreat's authors, Marie-Claude Hamelin and Loukas Yiacouvakis of yh2 architecture, have long experience of building in the Potton region of Québec. The architectural design studio, which was founded in 1994, takes a workshop-led approach, minimising the number of projects it takes on in order to dedicate itself to the holistic scope of each individual building, regardless of scale or programme. The award-winning studio has also worked in India, but its speciality is creating residential works that feel embedded in their surroundings.

Explore a lakeside retreat on the shores of Lake Memphremagog

The Counter-Slope House is a case in point. Set on a sloping site in a prime location on the shores of Lake Memphremagog, the house is embedded in the hillside, with a multi-functional windowless basement (containing stores, a gym and a cinema room) set beneath an expansive ground floor.

Here you’ll find an open-plan living area, with floor-to-ceiling glazing that takes advantage of the sloping site to make the room feel immersed in the forests at the water’s edge. With polished stone floors and exposed timber beams, one half of this floor is given over to living, with the other half occupied by the main bedroom suite. The staircase bisects the two areas, while the lake-facing façade is edged with a generous terrace.

The terrace includes a spa and dining area, with the cantilevered upper floor providing a sheltered courtyard in the heart of the plan. The upper floor is also the entrance level, given the way the site slopes away from the access road, with a bridge reaching across to a glazed entrance hall adjoining the stairwell.

There’s a separate deck up here (the ceiling of the living space below), from where there are uninterrupted views of the lake. A butterfly-roofed structure houses three bedrooms, two of which double up as offices when the house isn’t fully occupied.

According to the designers, ‘the project unfolds as a response to the dramatic nature of the site, an attempt at respectful coexistence with the expressive qualities of the terrain’. Unusually, the house doesn’t reveal itself all at once, with the roof of the main volume serving as what the architects call a ‘belvedere’, a space that is ‘threshold, reception area, and visual vanishing point’. It creates a rare horizontal space in a crowded, steep wooded site, a place to pause and contemplate the landscape.

Internal joinery is finished in white oak, while the exterior is clad in natural cedar, which will weather as the house ages. The combination of unusual vantage points and close integration with nature throughout the living spaces create ‘an architectural meditation on landscape’.

‘[The Counter-Slope House] questions how architecture can inhabit a site not as an object, but as a condition for experiencing place,’ say Hamelin and Yiacouvaki. ‘[It is] an architecture of subtraction that reveals more than it imposes.’

yh2architecture.com

Designed by architect John Lautner in 1962, in the Los Angeles suburb of Beverly Crest, the instantly recognisable Sheats-Goldstein Residence has long played a starring role not only in architecture history books, but also in popular culture (from The Big Lebowski to Helmut Newton photographs). Originally commissioned by the Sheats family, the house and estate were acquired in 1972 by businessman and basketball fan James Goldstein, who, recognising its importance, bequeathed it to LACMA in 2016.

Explore the Sheats-Goldstein Residence by John Lautner

The modernist architecture fabric's longevity and the site's continuous functionality and health owe much to Kristopher Conner and James Perry, of LA firm Conner + Perry, who have overseen works and designed additions there since 2015 (both had worked for Lautner's associate Duncan Nicholson, who continued working at the property following Lautner's death in 1994).

Putting their intimate knowledge of the estate to good use, the pair not only worked on the restoration of the main residence, but also completed the most recent phase of the ongoing entertainment complex project, known as Club James, which is tucked underneath the estate's infinity tennis court on an adjacent site bought by Goldstein.

It now complements the residential element perfectly, providing users with a fully functioning nightclub, including a VIP room/library, offices for the owner and his assistants, an outdoor terrace with dining and kitchen facilities, and a pool and spa.

Conner and Perry are becoming the go-to architects for Lautner restoration, having recently completed the refresh of another of the modernist's masterpieces from the early 1980s, Lautner's Castle, a private home in California.

‘What Lautner understood, and what working on the Sheats-Goldstein house proves every day, is that great architecture isn't a finished object. It's a living idea,' Perry says. ‘We've been privileged to be part of that conversation and the continuously evolving work.'

conner-perry.com

On the crest of the forested slopes that form the suburbs of Nova Lima, a town in the south-eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, sits Xingu House, the most accomplished private residential project to date from Tetro Arquitetura. For the studio, based in nearby Belo Horizonte, this was a dream commission, starting with a completely blank slate and a client willing to push boundaries to make a bold statement.

Step inside Xingu House, a contemporary home in Minas Gerais

‘The client initially approached us before even owning the site,' says Tetro's Carlos Maia. ‘He asked us to help him find a very special plot with abundant nature in Nova Lima. Together, we visited a number of options and eventually found this site.' The 8,000 sq m plot was occupied by an old, rundown house. The bulk of the original structure was demolished, but some key elements, such as the garden walls that divided the landscape into terraces, were retained, thus ensuring the new house felt embedded in its plot from the outset.

Above all, the new owners sought a house with a dramatic presence. ‘The client wanted something genuinely different and innovative,' says Maia. ‘He has a strong interest in sculpture, and the idea of a house with a sculptural presence was part of the brief from day one.' Given the breadth of this request, there was no immediate programmatic solution; instead, the architects continuously iterated the design. ‘We developed it through a long process of study, especially using physical models,' says Maia. ‘We tested how the building could both sit on the existing terraces and keep a direct relationship to the ground, so that daily life could naturally extend outdoors and one could step straight onto the terrain.'

In part, the form was dictated by the available views. ‘There's an extraordinary panorama from the higher portion of the site, looking out to the mountains and hills of Minas Gerais,' Maia says. ‘We wanted the architecture to preserve and amplify that experience.' The result is a house that pinwheels around a central axis, raised up above ground level, with the living and sleeping areas arranged in three wings.

One of these wings, housing the primary suite, is cantilevered over the slope, while the other two touch the ground lightly at the top of the site. This form is supported by six hefty concrete pillars, whose faceted forms give an angular brutality to the ensemble, while also housing key elements, such as the stairs, bathrooms and an lift. The pillars can clearly be seen through the glass façades of the upper level, their ‘inhabitable thickness' anchoring the house to the terrace and the site.

Concrete was the most appropriate choice for the construction, especially given the relationship between the thick, cast-in-situ pillars and the existing stone terraces. The latter have been repurposed as a generous outdoor living space, complete with sitting and dining areas, a kitchen, two reflecting ponds and a swimming pool. A grotto embedded in the existing walls is now the wine and cheese cellar.

Despite the effortless appearance of the new house above its weathered site, Tetro faced numerous obstacles during construction. ‘The pillars are highly complex, organic geometries, developed through a triangulated “faceting” logic,' says Maia. ‘We had to design and coordinate the pattern triangle by triangle, and the on-site formwork required real precision.' Wherever raw concrete is visible, both outside and in, the finish is meticulous. The large floor and ceiling slabs also had to be poured in place.

With the primary suite occupying the house's most dramatic component, along with a secondary suite, two more bedrooms, an office and a self-contained guest suite are located in the other wing. The hollow concrete columns that puncture the floor slab house bathrooms and staircases, with roof lights bringing daylight into these cavernous forms. Meanwhile, a separate structure houses a spa, sauna and gym.

A linear kitchen occupies the central part of the plan, with an extended concrete counter that becomes the dining table. From here, one heads to the main living wing, which extends to the final tip, with a ribbon of glass offering up views across the site and beyond, culminating in a balcony. Key pieces of art and furniture are interspersed around the generous 1,800 sq m floor area, including a striking balancing sculpture made of steel and glass by Brazilian artist Túlio Pinto.

Acknowledging that the house ‘embodies the client's boldness and desire for innovation', Maia and his co-founders, Débora Mendes and Igor Macedo, along with the rest of the Tetro team, describe it as a demonstration of the practice's search for freedom of approach within every project. ‘Xingu House represents one of our most significant formal investigations to date,' Maia concludes. ‘[The project] brings together our recurring interest in the relationship between architecture and landscape with a new level of structural and sculptural experimentation.'

Rising dramatically above its site, the house is a contemporary take on the geometric exuberance of high Brazilian modernism, sensuous and sculptural yet also implicitly tied to its location.

tetro.com.br

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The central vertical void that runs through this Kuwait home, Faye House, is architect Abdulaziz AlHumaidhi’s favourite architectural element. ‘It is both the architectural and emotional core of the project,’ he explains.

‘Beginning as a focused skylight at roof level, the void descends through the building, gradually opening and expanding in section until it resolves at the ground floor ceiling as a wide, organic form. What might otherwise have been an unbroken horizontal plane of white ceiling becomes, instead, a sculptural moment of vertical depth, drawing light downward and anchoring the ground floor around a single, quietly powerful gesture.’

Step inside this modern Kuwait home

The new-build, contemporary home is located in Kuwait City’s Shamiyah neighbourhood and its form is a response to its corner-plot setting. AlHumaidhi, founder of his namesake firm, was inspired by the idea of creating a smooth and symbiotic relationship between inside and outside, as he tells Wallpaper*, ‘The corner plot offered a generous setback condition that allowed us to place a lush private garden at the heart of the composition, and from there, the entire design logic followed.’

The ground floor is an open-plan space, housing the kitchen, dining and living areas. However, it is the transition to the upper level that brings in that considered approach to the outdoors that AlHumaidhi values – achieved through recessed openings and layered façades. The roof terrace overlooks the garden and the vertical void below. Says the architect, ‘Nature is never absent from the experience of the home.’

However, the project did pose its challenges, some of which influenced its development. 'Two challenges defined the project, and both influenced the design equally,’ shares AlHumaidhi. ‘The first was reconciling transparency with privacy. Exposed on two street edges, we wanted the interiors to feel bright, open, and deeply connected to the landscape – while still offering the residents genuine shelter from the surrounding city.’

The answer, he discovered, emerged in the form of a curved travertine wall. Rather than approaching privacy as a problem to be solved by concealment, the architecture team instead approached it as a design opportunity. ‘The wall became both sculptural and functional – filtering views, casting moving shadows across the interiors, and creating a protective edge that never makes the house feel closed. From within, the vein-matched stone curves around the pool and becomes a luminous backdrop, its surface animated throughout the day by light reflected off the water.’

The second challenge was more programmatic. In Kuwait, multigenerational living is common. AlHumaidhi didn’t want to design a home for a specific moment in time, but rather to create a space that would evolve with its inhabitants’ lives.

This was addressed with the building’s upper floor, which was designed as a family space, accommodating guest suites and play areas. The architect designed this level to be flexible, and, he says, when the time comes, the floor can allow for two fully independent living units. He says: ‘The challenge was making that latent future invisible – so that the house feels entirely complete today, with no trace of what it is quietly waiting to become.’

Faye House is a residence that rewards slowness. Its balance of natural light, soft materials and greenery generates an immediate sense of calm. ‘And beyond all of this, there is meant to be a subtle sense of discovery,’ notes AlHumaidhi. ‘The feeling that the home reveals itself gradually, as the eye begins to move through layers of light and shadow and registers the quiet spatial dialogues between levels.’

alhumaidhiarchitects.com

A new rural house engulfed by peaceful Australian nature sits nestled in the Red Hill area of the Mornington Peninsula, Australia. Set in a part of the world rich with indigenous greenery and distinguished natural beauty, the home, simply titled No 41, was conceived as just that; a contemporary rustic idyll and the home of a family looking to revegetate its 2.5 hectares of landscape, establishing a garden of indigenous species centred on a large natural pond.

Step inside this new, idyllic, rural house in Australia

No 41 was designed by architect Tristan Burfield, who jumped at the opportunity to create a piece of residential architecture within such a layered and serene setting. From wine production (the local Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are renowned) to truffle and berry farms, markets and walking trails, the plot is surrounded by nature - yet a number of Monterey Pines, brought into Australia in the 19th century and since smothering local vegetation, causing environmental concerns in Australia, also thrived on site.

Burlfield and his team removed the invasive species and crafted a new landscape (this was worked on by specialist Sam Cox), while forming a leafy environment offering views of the native garden, lake and Red Hill nature beyond.

Within this context, dominated by foliage, flowers and fruit, the architect designed this rural house in a simple, minimalist style, working with a restrained palette of materials - namely brick, timbers and a bit of steel for the battens. The neutral colours - grey blocks, black shou sugi ban spotted gum cladding and warm brown cypress - make for a fitting choice that lets the organic growth around it take centre stage.

Inside, spaces are composed to favour a generosity of scale - in their comfortable ceiling heights, the luxury of the natural materials used, and the openings that frame the surrounding landscape. A circulation space pierces the rural house's core, with kitchen and living areas flanking it on the main ground level.

The upstairs contains a primary bedroom suite and a study, with terraces offering an elevated view of the wider area. A wing extending off these main areas hosts guest rooms and secondary, breakaway rooms.

'In many ways the design and construction of this home took a backseat to its landscape. The home pushes its occupants outside, literally and figuratively. It goes without saying for all my work, but there is something particularly special about this project in seeing just how well it has grown into being a facilitator of life and living both within and on the greater site beyond,' the architect writes.

tristanburfield.au

Cut Out House's distinct geometry is not random; nor was it an architect's flight of fancy or a purely aesthetic gesture. Set in the foothills of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, this home, a family's holiday retreat, posed the challenge of navigating shelter and openness – offering the protective, all-mod-cons cocoon of a comfortable 21st-century residence, and connecting with the site's dramatic natural setting.

Explore Cut Out House in the Canadian Rocky Mountains

As a response to this brief, its author, architect Bryan Young and his New York-based team at the creative collective Young Projects, composed a structure that opens to the landscape but also features a 'cut out' element, forming a curved opening – an embrace, where the home encircles nature while also creating an inviting, protective space away from winds and the wilderness. This concave shape is informed by a large boulder found – and retained – on site, which now signals the entrance to the residence.

The 3,320 sq ft Cut Out House is striking – respectfully rivalling its context, a sweeping, lush natural landscape and the point where the local forest and mountains meet. A butterfly roof becomes another key feature in this project, defining its overall volume as seen across the nearby body of water from a distance.

Internally, the house balances serenity and dynamism, orientated towards its long vistas, which are framed through large openings on the opposite side of the rounded entrance patio. Behind those openings, a main piano nobile spans an open-plan living, kitchen, dining area and a study. One primary suite and three further guest bedrooms are nestled underneath, into the slope.

The material palette was conceived to mirror the home's natural setting, using primarily textured concrete, light wood, and warm stone. Furnishings and colour tones nod to midcentury architecture icons, blended with contemporary pieces from companies such as B&B Italia, Bocci and Bloc Studios.

A fast-emerging and extremely versatile studio, Young Projects has a strong focus on material explorations and work that plays with form, textures and scale to dramatic but also highlight function-driven effect. Past work includes the playful Six Square House in Long Island – while the studio has more underway, including private residential, retail and hospitality work.

young-projects.com

Aficionados of concrete construction will surely recognise the brutalist architecture of Étoiles d’Ivry. This monumental apartment building in the Parisian suburb of Ivry-sur-Seine was designed in 1975 by architects Renée Gailhoustet and Jean Renaudie, a sprawling complex of stepped terraces and jaunty angles, with a relentless palette of concrete offset by a vivid planting scheme.

Explore this brutalist duplex for sale

In fact, it’s as a piece of green urbanism that the scheme is usually remembered, rather than as an intimidating example of brutalism at its least human. The complex was under construction from 1971 to 1981, during which time Renaudie died and the late Gailhoustet (who died in 2023) completed the scheme.

Gailhoustet was a rare woman architect in post-war France, but her work has more than stood the test of time. Living in Ivry-sur-Seine until her death, she had worked in the town since 1969, when she was appointed Chief Architect for the renovation of the city centre.

As well as winning the 2022 Architecture Prize from the Royal Academy of Arts in London, specifically for her contribution to social housing in Franc, she was also awarded the French Ministry of Culture’s Lifetime Achievement Award later that year.

This modest 55.6 sq m sits on the top floor of the Marat building, one of 40 interlocking housing units that make up the complex along with office spaces, stores, a school and more. As well as two small sleeping spaces on the upper level (originally designed as a single bedroom), the duplex includes a study area and office on a half-landing, with the main living spaces on the entrance floor, reached via a sculptural staircase.

Here you’ll find a living room, lounge and dining area, as well as a compact kitchen and access to the 20 sq m terrace, complete with mature trees and views across the rest of the apartments. The apartment also comes with its own garage area. Ivry-sur-Seine has direct access to central Paris in 20 minutes thanks to the Line 7 metro and the RER C Line.

Gailhoustet and Renaudie’s vision was for mass housing integrated into the heart of the city centre, not isolated towers with no ground floor facilities. The buildings that make up the Étoiles d’Ivry complex all take a stepped, ziggurat-style approach, with a modular triangular grid system create a sense of consistency across the whole project.

From the balconies and terraces, down to ground floor planters, passageways and public areas, the whole complex remains an intriguing and inviting urban landscape.

This free approach to planning also plays out in the apartments themselves, which revel in unconventional plans and unexpected nooks and crannies.

The duplex is available from Architecture de Collection, priced at €315,000, for more information visit ArchitecturedeCollection.fr, @ArchitecturedeCollection