The top interior design is all about creating meaningful, powerful, and sensual experiences for ourselves and our clients. It is more than creating luxury interiors of residences or choosing the right cushion color for your living room. It is about creating experiences that address, protect, and respond to the need of humans.

Placed on a large site with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy at the rear boundary, this one story residence presents a modest, composed public façade to the street while opening to the rear yard with two wings surrounding a large loggia or “outdoor living room.” With its thick walls, overhangs, and ample cross ventilation, the project demonstrates the simple idea that a building should respond carefully to its environment. Laura Hull Photography

Located overlooking the ski resorts of Big Sky, Montana, this MossCreek custom designed mountain home responded to a challenging site, and the desire to showcase a stunning timber frame element. Utilizing the topography to its fullest extent, the designers of MossCreek provided their clients with beautiful views of the slopes, unique living spaces, and even a secluded grotto complete with indoor pool. This is truly a magnificent, and very livable home for family and friends. Photos: R. Wade

The Treehouse serves as an artist’s studio. The natural light filtering through the northern, woodchip wall provides excellent illumination for art production. The space is divided into three platforms that respond to three functions: entrance, art production, and research/reading/contemplation. The structure is positioned at the threshold of a forest and a field. In one direction a horizontal window frames a green pasture, in the other direction vertical windows frame the forest of trees.

This single-family plus ADU project started out as a remodel. Through a very difficult and contentious planning process (over three years), it became a demolition and rebuild to appease neighbors, yielding a three-bedroom main house and a two-bedroom basement ADU. The design responds to the context using a sloped anterior roof that aligns with the neighbor’s to accentuate the dramatic views of downtown San Francisco.

As the space is multi functional between a dining table and an island, the space required seating that was dynamic. Responding to this, the designer went with these comfortable mid height cloth barstools. With dark painted legs and beige upholstery, the chairs bring the warm beige tones of the porcelain tile flooring up to the dining table, connecting and balancing the palettes of the room.

The design of this new 1,900 square foot home adjacent to a working vineyard in Sonoma, CA begins with a simple, one-story rectangular “box” floor plan, not unlike any number of recent prototypes for low cost, sustainable single-family homes. Yet while these new designs have been successful in many regards, they are typically less flexible in their ability to respond with nuance to their sites and particular environmental conditions. This project embraces the notion of an economy of means, but argues that within this economy, there is still great potential to customize the relationship of a home to its site. Image by Matthew Millman.

Weighted hedging mirrors the architecture of this traditional English Tudor cottage. The garden entrance lines up with a bay window whose dimensions are replicated in the brick-banded landings on either side of the lawn ellipse. Chiseled boxwood hedges respond to the graduated steps and English Ivy banding. The purity of the lawn ellipse is juxtaposed by irregular stepping pads while an elliptical holly mirrors the timbering present in the home's façade. Handmade ironwork features custom designed flanking shields while a perennial garden gives soft contrast to the rigid hedging, offering a perfect balance between the formal and informal elements in the English cottage garden.

Located overlooking the ski resorts of Big Sky, Montana, this MossCreek custom designed mountain home responded to a challenging site, and the desire to showcase a stunning timber frame element. Utilizing the topography to its fullest extent, the designers of MossCreek provided their clients with beautiful views of the slopes, unique living spaces, and even a secluded grotto complete with indoor pool. This is truly a magnificent, and very livable home for family and friends. Photos: R. Wade

This single-family plus ADU project started out as a remodel. Through a very difficult and contentious planning process (over three years), it became a demolition and rebuild to appease neighbors, yielding a three-bedroom main house and a two-bedroom basement ADU. The design responds to the context using a sloped anterior roof that aligns with the neighbor’s to accentuate the dramatic views of downtown San Francisco.

This single-family plus ADU project started out as a remodel. Through a very difficult and contentious planning process (over three years), it became a demolition and rebuild to appease neighbors, yielding a three-bedroom main house and a two-bedroom basement ADU. The design responds to the context using a sloped anterior roof that aligns with the neighbor’s to accentuate the dramatic views of downtown San Francisco.

BEFORE, the 2-tier deck responded to the home's architecture, but the (wobbly!) staircase was the first thing you saw as you walked up from the lake. The space under the deck was unusable, just an area of dark, wet mulch...

This single-family plus ADU project started out as a remodel. Through a very difficult and contentious planning process (over three years), it became a demolition and rebuild to appease neighbors, yielding a three-bedroom main house and a two-bedroom basement ADU. The design responds to the context using a sloped anterior roof that aligns with the neighbor’s to accentuate the dramatic views of downtown San Francisco.

Perched on a hillside cul-de-sac lot in Brentwood CA, the Gagne Residence enjoys an unusually private street condition and views toward the ocean, city, and surrounding tree lined hills. To maximize dwelling and garden area on the mostly sloped site, the house is broken into two general volumes, one volume responding to the level and orientation of the street, the other, wrapping and descending along the hill’s contour, acting as retainer while providing a third dwelling level and preserving ample area for a garden. Photo credit: Eric Staudenmaier

Architectural design for a new contemporary, single-story, high-performance Energy Star certified home and detached garage with workshop for a rebuild as a result of the Marshall Fire disaster. The simplicity of the design assisted with controlling construction costs to balance the insurance settlement driven budget and responded to municipal regulations regarding wildfire resistive construction methods and passive fire protection. A detached and uninsulated garage contributed to significant construction cost savings, by eliminating the requirement for the high-performance envelope and residential fire sprinkler system. Future upgrades to a photovoltaic energy system results in a Net Zero home. Our client desired a high-performance home. The design includes Passive House principles of responding to solar orientation, a compact and simplified footprint, and maximizing natural light within the primary living spaces. Mechanical systems such as a heat pump water heater, a geothermal radiant heat system, and Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) were carefully selected to improve indoor air quality and maximize the Federal and local tax credits available for our client. Energy Star Certification and an all electric design maximizes additional significant rebates from both Excel Energy and the State of Colorado.

Our inspiration for this home was an updated and refined approach to Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Prairie-style”; one that responds well to the harsh Central Texas heat. By DESIGN we achieved soft balanced and glare-free daylighting, comfortable temperatures via passive solar control measures, energy efficiency without reliance on maintenance-intensive Green “gizmos” and lower exterior maintenance. The client’s desire for a healthy, comfortable and fun home to raise a young family and to accommodate extended visitor stays, while being environmentally responsible through “high performance” building attributes, was met. Harmonious response to the site’s micro-climate, excellent Indoor Air Quality, enhanced natural ventilation strategies, and an elegant bug-free semi-outdoor “living room” that connects one to the outdoors are a few examples of the architect’s approach to Green by Design that results in a home that exceeds the expectations of its owners. Photo by Mark Adams Media

This LEED Platinum certified duplex is a modern mix of brick, stucco, panel and wood. The south unit is sloped for solar panels and the north side lets tons of natural light into the 2 storey open riser staircase. Xeriscaping is complimented with drought tolerant plants as well as turf; a rain garden captures a large percentage of rainwater coming off the roof.

Located overlooking the ski resorts of Big Sky, Montana, this MossCreek custom designed mountain home responded to a challenging site, and the desire to showcase a stunning timber frame element. Utilizing the topography to its fullest extent, the designers of MossCreek provided their clients with beautiful views of the slopes, unique living spaces, and even a secluded grotto complete with indoor pool. This is truly a magnificent, and very livable home for family and friends. Photos: R. Wade

Leeton is all about the subtle details. This transitional style responds to current trends with 2 1/2" rails and a beaded, recessed center panel. 5 piece drawer fronts paired great with simple knobs gives this kitchen a little personal touch. The soothing yellow cabinets in Honeysuckle calm everyone for a nice meal.