The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is recognizing 14 exceptional residential designs with its 2022 Housing Awards. AIA’s Housing Awards program, now in its 22nd year, was established to recognize the best in housing design…

Built for clients who surf and are stalwart environmentalists, this carbon-positive house is inspired by the jungle that surrounds it on Costa Rica’s Pacific coast. The home is made entirely of locally harvested teak, and it engages with the jungle on each of its three levels. It was envisioned as an open-air surfer’s…

Overlooking a dramatic bend of Oregon’s McKenzie River, the Divine House is a case study in crafting a compact, well-built structure. Built over a year by a small team of local carpenters with only the most basic elemental materials, the Divine House explores the area in which familiar form and construction methods intersect…

This tripartite home in the mountains just west of Mexico City splits a traditional home’s program across its densely vegetated site. All living functions are scattered across three porous, green-roofed buildings that appear to emerge from the landscape. All three collect rainwater, channeling it into a reservoir for on-site treatment and storage. The…

Goatbarn Lane is a full-time residence for the architect’s father, who sought to live simply and respectfully amid Colorado’s unique mountain landscape. Its architecture explores the power of less and, in doing so, the impact of each of its elements grows. Throughout, the home demonstrates that minimal design can connect us to places,…

This jungle hideaway on the cusp of Rio de Janeiro’s Tijuca National Park was built for clients looking to retreat from the city’s urban core to enjoy books, art, and, most importantly, the beauty of the natural landscape. The home is intentionally small in scale, and its architecture provides a minimal protective “uniform”…

Standing as a counter-proposal to the contemporary Tudor mansions and French chateaus that dominate Dallas’ Highland Park neighborhood, this project eschews exterior grandeur for an extraordinary interior environment. The central concept of the home was to provide a compelling setting for an active family with three young children and a significant collection of…

The owners of this historic rowhome in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood purchased it so they could enjoy an urban, walkable neighborhood closer to their place of employment. A thorough renovation has transformed the house into a modern, light-filled, and open dwelling. Visually unchanged at the street, the home still respects the context of…

In contrast to immodest new homes and significant additions to existing dwellings that have altered many of central Austin’s neighborhoods, the single-story Pemberton Residence revels in its dynamic interior world. Nestled between the gables of its neighboring houses, the residence, built for empty nesters interested in trading unoccupied bedrooms for proximity to Austin’s…

After leaving a cherished modernist residence they called home for more than a decade, the architects and owners of this project purchased a student rental on an unusual 80-foot-wide lot. While it accommodates their growing family, which includes a set of twins, this home also offers a compact and efficient space that is…

Permanent supportive housing, like this project in Los Angeles, serves the recently unhoused and those living with mental illness, two populations most impacted by a lack of access to care and climate change. Flor 401 Lofts is distinguished by its design, which optimizes architecture’s potential to support health and well-being for these populations…

Chandler Tiny Homes Village for the Homeless, designed, permitted, and built in just over three months, is helping Los Angeles place people in “bridge” shelters as they await permanent housing. An example of the city’s primary emergency response to homelessness, the project is an aggressive and timely template for addressing Los Angeles’ crisis...

Ohringer Arts repositions a former furniture department store as an arts incubator and housing for artists in one of the remaining structures from Braddock, Pennsylvania’s industrial heyday. The project represents the culmination of a vision to bring arts to this town just east of Pittsburgh while providing a unique opportunity for the artists…

This new affordable housing project in Washington, D.C., provides short-term housing for up to 50 families that need emergency shelter. In addition, it supplies wraparound services for the families with space for a federally qualified nonprofit health center that offers services for the rest of the surrounding neighborhood. The project is much needed…

aMews House demonstrates the role of design in transforming an undesirable, restrictive Atlanta lot into a humane and beautiful space. The project follows earlier research featured at the 2017 Bi-City Biennale for Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzen, China, which explored the untold potential of leftover lots in cities worldwide...

In the midst of Seattle’s dense Queen Anne neighborhood, the Perch forms a quiet sanctuary, floating above the street in its own private realm. The client’s brief was a tall order for Lisa Chadbourne and Daren Doss, AIA, who designed the 5,500-square-foot house. While the lot has coveted western views of the Olympic…

It seems fitting that Alan Barlis’ client, who spent some 40 years at Ralph Lauren, was drawn to the pastoral hamlet of Waccabuc when he went looking for a place to build a country house. The site he found, in Westchester County, was originally part of a 19th-century farm compound in the town…

Rising waters will eventually inundate many desirable seaside locations, and there are as many ideas about how to cope with this new reality as there are clients who still want to enjoy those properties. Previous flooding events on this site in Sag Harbor, New York, had all but consumed an existing house built…

Rising waters will eventually inundate many desirable seaside locations, and there are as many ideas about how to cope with this new reality as there are clients who still want to enjoy those properties. Previous flooding events on this site in Sag Harbor, New York, had all but consumed an existing house built…