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Ten months of work later, we present to you an architects list unprecedented in its scope and diligence, representing firms in 42 states plus the District of Columbia. These are the nation’s finest practitioners of the creation of “home,” and the residential specialists best suited to help you build the setting for your life’s most meaningful experiences—all vetted and at your fingertips. — Forbes
The list includes some familiar names to Archinect readers. Past RIBA Stirling Prize winner Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Bestor Architecture, D.U.S.T, and Waechter Architecture were included. West Coast heavyweights Olson Kundig Architects, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, and Brooks + Scarpa were joined... View full entry
A new residential project in Mexico from Rogelio Vallejo Bores’ HW-STUDIO Arquitectos that combines domestic serenity with an excavation-like approach to infill housing is worth a closer look following the project’s completion earlier this summer. The design for Casa Emma was inspired by... View full entry
Montreal-based practice Maurice Martel architecte has completed a rural rustic home in Mandeville, Canada. Set within a forest and bordered by a river, the Rustic Grade chalet is described as “the ideal mini-home to escape the hustle and bustle of daily life in the outside world.”... View full entry
Olson Kundig has completed a series of custom single-family homes in West Hollywood. Collectively named ‘The Houses at 8899 Beverly’ the eight homes seek to be “harmoniously linked yet individual” with architectural forms “combining natural materials such as wood, steel, glass, concrete... View full entry
Omar Gandhi Architects has completed a house on Canada’s Atlantic coastline that “emerges from rocky terrain.” Named Rockbound, and located in Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia, the home was commissioned as a place of refuge for a busy client. Image credit: Ema Peter Photography Image... View full entry
Montreal-based interior designers Indee Design have completed what the studio describes as “a playhouse for kids (and adults!)” in the city. Named Atelier Chabot, the scheme saw the transformation of an existing duplex into a single-family home featuring curated furnishings themed around play... View full entry
Each home was considered to be built to shelter-in-place standards, with ignition-resistant construction and materials—a cutting-edge approach for the time, though the standards have since been adopted into state and local codes. They are little fortresses of tile roofs, stucco walls, hardscape patios, and covered eaves. [The] heavy fortification gives the communities—both the structures and the people who shelter in them—an extra chance to survive. — MIT Technology Review
The state is in a bind caused by its dire need to quickly enact affordable housing and the movement of populations into liminal wildland-urban interface zones, both of which are placing more people in the fight or flight predicament that’s leading to more innovations in residential design... View full entry
Canadian studio ACDF Architecture has shared photos of their recent residential project in the country’s heavily-forested Lanaudière region. Deep in the heart of rural Quebec, the home was designed for an urbanite family looking for an ultra-modern bucolic respite situated on a... View full entry
The latest data from the American Institute of Architects shows a continued increase in a homebuilding trend that began in the throes of the pandemic and has not abated in the face of supply-chain shortages and several countervailing trends in the residential construction market. According to... View full entry
Valencia-based architecture firm Fran Silvestre Arquitectos has completed a compact, open, single-level home in Spain as part of a project that seeks to simplify and streamline the production of good design and construction. Called NIU, the system integrates all of the necessary phases of... View full entry
A multidisciplinary team led by Haptic Architects has won the £10,000 first prize in the inaugural Davidson Prize, a competition calling for new ideas that rethink the design of the contemporary home. Titled HomeForest, the winning proposal comes from a diverse team. In addition to those... View full entry
The overall size of new homes peaked in 2016 for this cycle and for the last three years has continued to moderate, according to new survey results from the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
The Home Design Trends Survey for the second quarter of 2019—focusing on home and property design—also found that homeowners continue to place a priority on accessibility features.
— AIA
"With home sizes plateauing and lot sizes continuing to decline, it isn’t shocking to see where that additional focus is going," commented AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. "Homeowners want more flexibility in their space, both inside and outside the house, and they want to use... View full entry
For decades, Open Concept, and the togetherness-loving, friend-filled lifestyle it was supposed to bring, has been a home buyers’ religion, the one true way to live. Go to Houzz, the home remodeling site, type in “open concept,” and up come 221,569 photos. Over on HGTV, DeRon Jenkins, costar of the popular “Flip or Flop Nashville,” will tell you, as he recently told the Globe, that an open floor plan “allows the love to flow.” But now, experts say, people are starting to openly yearn for walls. — Boston Globe
Uninterrupted space. This is what real estate agents, interior designers, and almost every host on HGTV have promoted for the past decade. However, design experts are saying that people are beginning to miss walls. Homeowners realize they don't want to live in this "fantasy of uninterrupted... View full entry
Nobody is actually using their formal living and dining rooms. Families actually spend most of their time in the kitchen and the informal living room or den.
Yet we continue to build these wastes of space because many Americans still want that extra square footage, and for a long time, that want has been miscategorized as a need.
— Curbed
McMansion Hell creator, Kate Wagner, makes a passionate case against wasting precious square footage (and associated resources) on formal living and dining rooms in our homes. Her plea is backed by data from a recent UCLA study which suggests that entertaining rooms, instead of bringing families... View full entry
A flowing, connected interior—once a fringe experiment of American architectural modernism—has become ubiquitous, and beloved. But it promises a liberation from housework that remains a fantasy. — The Atlantic
In his piece for The Atlantic, Ian Bogost takes a closer look at the evolution and challenges of what has become a mainstay in American home design (and redesign) from Wright to Neutra to HGTV: the open-plan kitchen. Or, as Bogost calls it, a "prison without walls." View full entry
