Color: Luminaries-Naturals-Altea
Living room - mid-sized contemporary living room idea in Chicago with beige walls

This house was designed to maintain clean sustainability and durability. Minimal, simple, modern design techniques were implemented to create an open floor plan with natural light. The entry of the home, clad in wood, was created as a transitional space between the exterior and the living spaces by creating a feeling of compression before entering into the voluminous, light filled, living area. The large volume, tall windows and natural light of the living area allows for light and views to the exterior in all directions. This project also considered our clients' need for storage and love for travel by creating storage space for an Airstream camper in the oversized 2 car garage at the back of the property. As in all of our homes, we designed and built this project with increased energy efficiency standards in mind. Our standards begin below grade by designing our foundations with insulated concrete forms (ICF) for all of our exterior foundation walls, providing the below grade walls with an R value of 23. As a standard, we also install a passive radon system and a heat recovery ventilator to efficiently mitigate the indoor air quality within all of the homes we build.

Located above the coast of Malibu, this two-story concrete and glass home is organized into a series of bands that hug the hillside and a central circulation spine. Living spaces are compressed between the retaining walls that hold back the earth and a series of glass facades facing the ocean and Santa Monica Bay. The name of the project stems from the physical and psychological protection provided by wearing reflective sunglasses. On the house the “glasses” allow for panoramic views of the ocean while also reflecting the landscape back onto the exterior face of the building. PROJECT TEAM: Peter Tolkin, Jeremy Schacht, Maria Iwanicki, Brian Proffitt, Tinka Rogic, Leilani Trujillo ENGINEERS: Gilsanz Murray Steficek (Structural), Innovative Engineering Group (MEP), RJR Engineering (Geotechnical), Project Engineering Group (Civil) LANDSCAPE: Mark Tessier Landscape Architecture INTERIOR DESIGN: Deborah Goldstein Design Inc. CONSULTANTS: Lighting DesignAlliance (Lighting), Audio Visual Systems Los Angeles (Audio/ Visual), Rothermel & Associates (Rothermel & Associates (Acoustic), GoldbrechtUSA (Curtain Wall) CONTRACTOR: Winters-Schram Associates PHOTOGRAPHER: Benny Chan AWARDS: 2007 American Institute of Architects Merit Award, 2010 Excellence Award, Residential Concrete Building Category Southern California Concrete Producers

Located above the coast of Malibu, this two-story concrete and glass home is organized into a series of bands that hug the hillside and a central circulation spine. Living spaces are compressed between the retaining walls that hold back the earth and a series of glass facades facing the ocean and Santa Monica Bay. The name of the project stems from the physical and psychological protection provided by wearing reflective sunglasses. On the house the “glasses” allow for panoramic views of the ocean while also reflecting the landscape back onto the exterior face of the building. PROJECT TEAM: Peter Tolkin, Jeremy Schacht, Maria Iwanicki, Brian Proffitt, Tinka Rogic, Leilani Trujillo ENGINEERS: Gilsanz Murray Steficek (Structural), Innovative Engineering Group (MEP), RJR Engineering (Geotechnical), Project Engineering Group (Civil) LANDSCAPE: Mark Tessier Landscape Architecture INTERIOR DESIGN: Deborah Goldstein Design Inc. CONSULTANTS: Lighting DesignAlliance (Lighting), Audio Visual Systems Los Angeles (Audio/ Visual), Rothermel & Associates (Rothermel & Associates (Acoustic), GoldbrechtUSA (Curtain Wall) CONTRACTOR: Winters-Schram Associates PHOTOGRAPHER: Benny Chan AWARDS: 2007 American Institute of Architects Merit Award, 2010 Excellence Award, Residential Concrete Building Category Southern California Concrete Producers

This house was designed to maintain clean sustainability and durability. Minimal, simple, modern design techniques were implemented to create an open floor plan with natural light. The entry of the home, clad in wood, was created as a transitional space between the exterior and the living spaces by creating a feeling of compression before entering into the voluminous, light filled, living area. The large volume, tall windows and natural light of the living area allows for light and views to the exterior in all directions. This project also considered our clients' need for storage and love for travel by creating storage space for an Airstream camper in the oversized 2 car garage at the back of the property. As in all of our homes, we designed and built this project with increased energy efficiency standards in mind. Our standards begin below grade by designing our foundations with insulated concrete forms (ICF) for all of our exterior foundation walls, providing the below grade walls with an R value of 23. As a standard, we also install a passive radon system and a heat recovery ventilator to efficiently mitigate the indoor air quality within all of the homes we build.

Sarah McGovern
Mid-sized trendy light wood floor entryway photo in Seattle with brown walls and a dark wood front door

Modern Farmhouse is a contemporary take on a tradition building type, the Connecticut farmhouse. Our clients were interested in a house that fit in with the landscape while providing plenty of daylight with views to the surrounding property. The design uses simple gables arranged in a picturesque manner. It balances clean modern lines, traditional forms, and rustic textures. The new house is bright and light while also feeling personal and unique. There was interest early on to compress the construction time and to design a building that would not take a lot of energy to run. To achieve these goals, the design of the main house used modular construction and a high performance envelope. To articulate the surfaces of the spaces, the owner assembled a group of designers and artisans. Natural textures and tones were layered over the volumes to give a sense of place and time. The modular units of the house are produced by Huntington Homes in East Montpelier, Vermont. In addition to the main house, there is a pool house that sits symmetrically on the main axis of a long swimming pool. A glass enclosed living room fits between two concrete volumes that house a bathroom and storage spaces. An outdoor shower faces south, with an oculus that lets light in when the door is closed. The simple forms of the pool house sit below a green roof, which protects the glassy room from the summer sun and integrates the building into the hilly landscape.

The photograph is composed as a deliberate enfilade study, framing the dining room through a deep, mahogany-cased cased opening that functions as both proscenium and threshold. This heavy portal — with its substantial reveal, plinth-like jambs and crisply mitered head casing — establishes a strong rectilinear armature that compresses the foreground and, by contrast, releases the eye into the luminous volume beyond. The plan reads as a classic pre-war apartment sequence: an axial sightline runs from the gallery floor, across the field of the dining room, and terminates at the window wall, where a curtained bay borrows daylight from the street. The ceiling is articulated by shallow beam drops or applied soffits — a coffer-adjacent treatment that registers the building's structural grid while lending the room a subtle sense of enclosure and datum. Geometry is orchestrated around opposing figures: the orthogonal rigor of casings, valance, beam lines and picture frames set against the centralized circular table, whose radial symmetry anchors the room's midpoint directly beneath the chandelier. Furnishings are held in a loose, non-touching arrangement, with generous circulation clearance at the perimeter, so that the room's volume — rather than its contents — remains the primary subject. Secondary sightlines to the left, toward a mirrored console and gilt-framed panel, and to the right, toward a picture-lit artwork, quietly widen the perceived footprint and imply adjacent rooms beyond the frame. The material narrative is built on a controlled tonal ascent from dark to light. The foreground is dominated by richly figured, warm-red mahogany millwork and a chevron-laid oak parquet whose bleached, honeyed grain reads with a slight gray wash — a directional pattern that visually propels the viewer toward the interior. Within the dining room, the palette shifts to a low-saturation envelope of chalky off-white plaster walls and putty-toned textiles: floor-length linen or silk-blend drapery panels with a faint slubbed weave, gathered beneath a tailored, flat-front upholstered valance whose crisp horizontal band imparts an atelier precision. Underfoot, a natural sisal or seagrass rug with a linen tape border introduces a coarse, granular tactility that grounds the refined upholstery above; its woven, matte texture is deliberately calibrated against the smoother satin sheen of the dining chairs' subtly striped fabric. The room's tonal fulcrum is the antique carved pedestal table — a near-black, deeply modeled Anglo-Indian or Colonial Revival piece whose pierced apron, scrolled tripod base and paw feet supply the composition's only ornamental exuberance and its darkest value. Accents are chosen for restraint: silvered leaf on the console's fretwork facing, water-gilt on the framed panel, polished nickel or silver on the chandelier and the flower vessel, and the cool white of massed oriental lilies. Undertones remain uniformly warm — greige, ecru, taupe, oatmeal — with cool relief supplied only by the metals and the daylight itself. Lighting is layered with quiet discipline. Natural light enters as a diffused, north-facing wash through a sheer-veiled window, its intensity softened by roller or Roman shading so that the glazing reads as a luminous plane rather than a view; this creates a gentle contre-jour that silhouettes the chandelier and the table's carved base. The multi-arm chandelier — a silvered, pagoda-crested fixture with slender candle sleeves and faceted drops — serves as sculptural punctuation more than as a working source, its warm 2700K glow registering as ambient sparkle. Accent illumination is deployed with curatorial intent: a picture light grazes the framed work at right, while the recessed downlights and the darkened foreground casings produce a chiaroscuro that heightens the sense of arrival. The cumulative atmosphere is one of hushed formality — composed, aerated, and almost monastic in its refusal of visual noise. Stylistically, the room synthesizes into what might be termed Transitional Classicism, or Warm Neutral Modern Traditional: the bones and millwork are unmistakably pre-war Beaux-Arts-derived, yet the flat-front valances, unadorned wall planes, natural-fiber flooring and simplified parson-back chairs reflect a contemporary editorial sensibility. The single antique table operates as a considered anachronism — a note of patinated gravitas within an otherwise pared-back, texturally driven interior — demonstrating a designer's confidence in restraint punctuated by one authoritative gesture.

The owner wanted a Tuscan feel to het kitchen, Ronald used a product that he imports from Italy, a hand applied self mottling glaze, that is plied by a brush and then using a trowel he compresses the material to create the color variation.

A seaside community centred around the local wharf. The village is home to a general store, outfitter, post office, a handful of very tasty cafes, two pubs, and a smattering of small operations aimed at servicing visitors to the great outdoors. SCALA Participated in this exiting Tri-point properties Project, working along with other consultants on the Project Management, Design Coordination, and Construction Management. The Villages of Loreto Bay were constructed of adobe, compressed earth blocks that were a traditional building material. The Company evolved to become the world’s largest user of Rastra, a recycled styrofoam and concrete system which cut heating and cooling costs by 60%”. All designed in courtyard-style architecture. Phase II, Agua Viva, right along the Sea of Cortés with a vibrant confluence of human habitation and a series of regenerated estuaries. Built from 2003 to 2010 Development area: 3,200 Acres Houses: 6,000 Type: Villages, Golf course, beach custom homes

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This sculptural bangle table is made from solid Mahogany lumber. Embedded within the lumber core are dual steel cables with turn buckles tightened to compress the circumference of each bangle to avoid fracturing of the end grain. Our craftsman spent over 100 hours carefully sculpting every inch of each bangle to create the final textured, organic look – which was inspired from a tree seen on a hike in Aspen, Colorado. The interior of bangle is wire brushed, exposing the organic texture, then coated in chrome paint, exposing a silver core. The intersecting 3 forms are strategically placed to provide balance and stability.

Dale was chosen to participate in the 2013 Hampton Designer Showhouse, sponsored by Traditional Home Magazine, because she has built a reputation for precise, elegant, and livable design work in Manhattan. The challenge of the showhouse, essentially a blank canvas with an imaginary client, was not beyond her. The room she was given is the Terrace Level Lounge; she chose a program to embrace a burgeoning art collection, and devise areas of repose to enjoy the work. And Ms. Cohen’s early training as a painter and photographer clearly are clearly a great asset in this particular room. Her method is to analyze the room as an architectural proposition. A Yale Architectural School graduate, she is able to cast a few intelligent moves to make the room a stage rather than a hallway. Creating a platform for her creative collaboration and designing the Monumental Lantern with artist John Houshmand. The seating areas are a series of compressed compositions with shapes and forms of chairs, a Minotti sofa, a Valerie Goodman Gallery coffee table, and the Holland and Sherry geometric throw pillows that evoke the early modernist paintings of Jean Arp. Accented by ceiling panels covered in a Maharam wallpaper. Her next big move was enrolling the work of artist and furniture maker John Houshmand. Ms. Cohen thrives on creative collaboration and designing the Monumental Lantern that with Houshmand, that she boldly placed in one entire corner of the room. Few designers would welcome a giant rough sawn luminaire but Ms. Cohen’s early apprenticeship with Richard Serra is evident in this wonderful juxtaposition of scale. Ms. Cohen’s reputation as a brave designer has been established with the inclusion of Houshmand’s piece. Ms. Cohen’s method is to analyze the room as an architectural proposition. A Yale Architectural School graduate, she is able to cast a few intelligent moves to make the room a stage rather than a hallway. The stairway was divided into two events, one behind a scrim and the other revealed. This gave the sitting area a theatrical backdrop as well as choreographing a Hollywood-style entrance for the visitor walking down the stairs. In fact Ms. Cohen uses a series of fabric backdrops throughout the space to denote different spatial conditions. The color palette, if said aloud, is the prototypical Hamptons beach house cheery; though Ms. Cohen’s take is altogether different. With a sea blue as her base, she treats the envelope of the space with tinted whites and grays, and just as you are comfortable with this resolve she infuses the space with drops of chartreuse. The optic shock of an electric green is a sign of strength in Ms. Cohen’s tool box. The result is a perfect balance of whimsy and sophistication. Whimsy, bravery, and compositional sophistication will not be evident or sufficient without Ms. Cohen’s razor sharp rigor. Her attention to detail is what makes one want to sit in the Fritz Hansen chair, under the reading light, with cashmere throw at its side. Ms. Cohen’s embrace of the luxury of detail is what makes for valuable moments in the design world and what sets her work apart.

Built for the Bluff, A Sea Ranch Home is Remade from the Inside Out The house had always been grounded, on an ocean bluff at The Sea Ranch. It sits unencumbered, adjacent to one of the most dramatic stretches of the Sonoma coast with protected commons meadow to the east, uninterrupted Pacific views to the west, and a bluff trail running alongside. What it lacked was the feeling of home, one that could hold up its own against the natural landscape. The owners are entrepreneurs with deep involvement across tech, real estate, and development and they know how things are built. The Sea Ranch house had been in their lives for years, a second residence and a place for family to gather. Built for a different time, it felt more compromising than comfortable. Sitting in a closed off nook, the kitchen fit one cook at a time and turned its back on the rest of the house. The entry was dim and compressed, divided by a structural column that presented itself at exactly the wrong moment. The primary suite was small relative to the view outside it. A large rear bedroom sat behind a lowered ceiling with a bathroom that had never been added. The house was certainly worth the trouble of doing it right. What followed was not one project but four, each with its own design challenge, each addressed over a period of time. Where the House Meets the Ocean The most complex piece of the project, in both structural and spatial terms, was the kitchen expansion. The existing room was a single-person galley squeezed in as an afterthought with no meaningful connection to the dining room, the living space, or the deck outside. To make it useful for a family that cooks and gathers, it needed to grow outward into an existing patio and flow into the rooms around it. A big challenge was the roofline. Several planes at different pitches and angles converged directly where additional volume was needed. A new form had to join that geometry without reading as a correction. The solution found the simplest possible connection between the existing angles, a roofline that from outside the structure, appears entirely original. From the bluff trail where the addition is visible, there is no discernible seam. Inside, the kitchen is now open to the living and dining rooms without interruption. A large sliding glass door connects the space onto the rear deck. The deck itself was expanded and oriented so that the body of the house shields it from the coastal wind which is a common consideration that determines whether outdoor space at The Sea Ranch actually gets used. The result is a room that works for large family gatherings where no one feels cutoff, and one that makes the boundary between being inside and outside easy to ignore. Welcoming Light A structural column stood at the convergence of eight distinct roof planes in the entry. It was load-bearing, but it was also the reason the entry had always felt like a hallway rather than a welcoming arrival. With the structural engineer, a custom steel connector was designed to receive beams from six separate directions, redistributing the load through a single new continuous beam. The column was surgically removed. Three triangular skylights were then cut into the roof above, their shapes drawn from the existing geometry of the planes around them. The entry is now bright and open. The skylights feel native to the structure because they follow the logic already present in the roof. Two Suites, Two Views At opposite ends of the house, the two bedroom suites were each reconfigured, and each found a different way to introduce more of the landscape into the room. An addition to the primary suite extended the structure outward to create a wraparound plan with a loop from the bedroom through bath and closet that had not been possible before. The expansion opened a slot view from the tub and shower toward the ocean. The view is precise and private. The ocean view is present and deliberate. The rear bedroom absorbed an adjacent storage room to transform it into a full second suite with a vaulted ceiling, a large bathroom with a tub, a shower, and a sauna. A private fenced garden courtyard sits just beyond the glass bringing the outdoors inside. The tub was placed so that, looking past the courtyard and through the bedroom beyond, the ocean is visible at the far end. It is a long view and it makes the room feel larger and more settled than its footprint would suggest. Glass on Four Sides, Fire at the Center The main living and gathering room had always been caught between two competing facts: glass on four sides meant exceptional views but at The Sea Ranch, it also meant a cold room. A 360-degree cylindrical fireplace was added at the center on a raised stone base, providing radiant heat in every direction and giving the room a focal point around which a group naturally orients itself, whether that means two people at the end of the day or the whole family after dinner. Owners Who Picked Up the Tools The owner was not a passive client. they came with construction knowledge, specific ideas, and the desire to be an active part of the process, a dynamic that other architects may had found difficult, which Klopf Architecture accepted as an asset. They took it upon themselves to complete some of the work during construction, including the installation of a new radiant heating system beneath the floors. The radiant system added to the older and less-desirable forced-air setup. At The Sea Ranch, that change matters as the house sits close enough to the ocean and moving air competes with the sound of it, where radiant heat does not. Solar panels were added to the roof as part of the new system. Insulation was upgraded throughout the walls, roof, and crawl space. The house that had always had the right setting now holds warmth the way a house on the bluff should. They were also deeply involved in the design and selections throughout, and the finished house reflects both of them in ways that are specific rather than generic. The process took longer and moved through more iterations than a more arms-length relationship might have allowed. The result is more defined and personal because of it. The Landscape Holds Priority Every exterior decision was shaped by The Sea Ranch Design Standards, which require that buildings defer to the landscape around them rather than compete with it. Because this house sits on the bluff and is visible from the public trail, the additions faced a close review. Existing materials were matched. Geometries were resolved. The additions had to become indistinguishable from the original building. From the trail, the house reads exactly as it always has — low, cedar-clad, secondary to the meadow and the water. The setting holds priority. Inside, the house has been remade. Klopf Architecture Project Team: Geoff Campen and Trenton Jewett
Contractor: Shawn Bettega Construction
Photography: ©2025 Mariko Reed
Year Completed: 2023
Location: The Sea Ranch, CA

Color: Luminaries-Dark-Mono-Massive
Mid-sized elegant l-shaped cork floor eat-in kitchen photo in Chicago with raised-panel cabinets, light wood cabinets, black appliances and an island

Located above the coast of Malibu, this two-story concrete and glass home is organized into a series of bands that hug the hillside and a central circulation spine. Living spaces are compressed between the retaining walls that hold back the earth and a series of glass facades facing the ocean and Santa Monica Bay. The name of the project stems from the physical and psychological protection provided by wearing reflective sunglasses. On the house the “glasses” allow for panoramic views of the ocean while also reflecting the landscape back onto the exterior face of the building. PROJECT TEAM: Peter Tolkin, Jeremy Schacht, Maria Iwanicki, Brian Proffitt, Tinka Rogic, Leilani Trujillo ENGINEERS: Gilsanz Murray Steficek (Structural), Innovative Engineering Group (MEP), RJR Engineering (Geotechnical), Project Engineering Group (Civil) LANDSCAPE: Mark Tessier Landscape Architecture INTERIOR DESIGN: Deborah Goldstein Design Inc. CONSULTANTS: Lighting DesignAlliance (Lighting), Audio Visual Systems Los Angeles (Audio/ Visual), Rothermel & Associates (Rothermel & Associates (Acoustic), GoldbrechtUSA (Curtain Wall) CONTRACTOR: Winters-Schram Associates PHOTOGRAPHER: Benny Chan AWARDS: 2007 American Institute of Architects Merit Award, 2010 Excellence Award, Residential Concrete Building Category Southern California Concrete Producers

TAMKO® - EverGrain® - Cedar Saddlebrooke
Example of a deck design in Other

Kevin Wells, www.kevinwellsphoto.com
Inspiration for a contemporary landscaping in Portland.

This house was designed to maintain clean sustainability and durability. Minimal, simple, modern design techniques were implemented to create an open floor plan with natural light. The entry of the home, clad in wood, was created as a transitional space between the exterior and the living spaces by creating a feeling of compression before entering into the voluminous, light filled, living area. The large volume, tall windows and natural light of the living area allows for light and views to the exterior in all directions. This project also considered our clients' need for storage and love for travel by creating storage space for an Airstream camper in the oversized 2 car garage at the back of the property. As in all of our homes, we designed and built this project with increased energy efficiency standards in mind. Our standards begin below grade by designing our foundations with insulated concrete forms (ICF) for all of our exterior foundation walls, providing the below grade walls with an R value of 23. As a standard, we also install a passive radon system and a heat recovery ventilator to efficiently mitigate the indoor air quality within all of the homes we build.