This remodel for a Stanford University professor with a lifelong passion for design celebrates the utilitarian and the abstract. Staying within the existing footprint, the design simplifies and opens up the interiors: A bedroom blends into a kitchen, which blends into living rooms both inside and out. Minimal details and neutral finishes anticipate an evolving composition of the client’s art and design collection. The courtyard, once closed off from the house, is now its undisputed heart. The home’s open and connected spaces ultimately flow to the client’s workshop, a new separate structure dedicated to unbounded exploration. The shop’s industrial frame, wrapped in wood and glass, offers a clever reply to local pitched-roof mandates, while also providing a raw and tough space that is ready for anything. Outside, a landscape of drought-tolerant plantings resides in playful dialogue with the home.