This landmarked brownstone on Prospect Park West already had extraordinary bones—and the rare advantage of windows on three sides. That natural light allowed us to rethink the traditional parlor-floor layout into something more open, connected, and reflective of the way the family lives today, while still honoring the building’s historic character. The original sequence—a front parlor, a formal dining room in the center, and a closed-off kitchen at the rear—was replaced with a single, flowing main level anchored by a generous slate-blue kitchen. The cabinetry forms a C-shaped configuration that maximizes storage, creates a natural dining zone, and maintains easy circulation to the backyard through the existing glass French door. A full-height marble backsplash with brass inlay adds subtle drama, extending to the ceiling around the windows, and a built-in desk niche creates a casual workspace that feels fully integrated into the design. Because storage was a priority, the kitchen includes multiple pantry cabinets and deep pull-outs to keep daily life efficient and uncluttered. The living room now occupies the center of the plan, serving as a shared hub between the kitchen and the front of the home. Just inside the entry, we designed a custom reading nook framed by floor-to-ceiling bookcases with integrated bench seating—an intentional space for the couple and their teenage daughter, who value reading and wanted their books to be both displayed and actively used. The entry itself was also reimagined. Now separated from the main living space by a wall and door, it functions as a true vestibule with a built-in storage wall for coats and shoes. Tucked beside it is a playful powder room featuring a green vanity, floral wallpaper, and a grey-and-white mosaic tile floor—continued throughout the entry to visually tie the front of the house together and add a moment of personality within the historic shell. The result is a garden level that remains rooted in its 19th-century architecture but fully supports modern life—light-filled, functional, and thoughtfully layered.

SDH Studio - Architecture and Design Location: Golden Beach, Florida, USA The Architecture is conceived as an ensemble of vertical and horizontal planes that guide the user through a sequence of spatial and visual experiences. Our clients’ passion for the outdoors is embedded in the entire project. Also, the use of color is an important feature that highlights certain accents along the design.

This custom water feature fountain is multi-tiered and outfitted with specialized plumbing throughout. Our fountain design includes various water distribution styles in the upper and lower bowls. The bubblers erupt just above the surface of the lower bowl while foam fizz jets add a unique water disturbance. Arcing streams of water course through the air and crisscross the center cascade nozzle. The water feature has a custom control panel with pre-programmed sequences and LED, color-changing, underwater lights. Speak with a custom sales expert today about your next water feature project 407-426-7674.

This Spanish Revival takes its place among the graceful and genteel tradition of Santa Barbara architecture. Located in a secreted area of Montecito, the house is tucked amidst a wooded glen along a riparian creek bed. Carefully sited at the top of a rolling green, the building provides a strong form in the natural landscape. With its reference to historical precedent, the house is both undeniably familiar and tangibly rich. Site sensitivity and pure spatial relationships combine in new ways, showing that what’s old can be new again. An entry courtyard concealed behind a pair of wooden doors of Moorish design begins the entry sequence. The courtyard, wrapped around an existing mature oak tree, creates an outdoor room, which establishes an interplay between interior and exterior spaces, a theme that recurs throughout the house. An exercise in scale and proportion, the 5,000-square-foot residence is imbued with classic detail and richness found in the Spanish Colonial architecture characteristic of George Washington Smith and others. Interior spaces are created through pure and varied geometric volumes, and are elaborated by opened beamed ceilings, groin vaults and Moorish arches.

Classic New England materials such as fieldstone, cobblestone and bluestone compliment this extended cape. The combination of evergreen groundcover, boxwoods, and flowering hydrangea provide an elegant entry. Working on a historically valued home in Andover, it was important to us to elevate the presentation of the front entry in a way that complements the architecture. Originally, the chaotic landscape simply did not do justice for the home, designed by renowned architect, Royal Barry Wills. Simplifying landscape elements aided in transforming a confusing and dysfunctional arrival sequence into one of elegance and clarity. Thoughtfully orchestrated bluestone walkways create a clear hierarchy of movement between two front doors; subtle bluestone steppers in the lawn lead to the owner’s private entry while a bold bluestone path sweeps through planting beds to guide guests to the main entrance.

This new home, perched on an incredible river overlook surrounded by nature, evokes a sense of balance between contemporary design and classical massing. A white-painted brick exterior perfectly frames large-format, black fenestration. Two-story, monumental windows bring the natural world into bedrooms above and living spaces below. The scale of each opening creates compositional tension within the silhouette of a simple gable roof. Inside, the angled entry sequence flows into a multi-faceted, vaulted living area filled with wonderful interior and exterior connections. River views take precedence on all floors, including the luxurious office space on the lower level. While moving from the living room to the spacious screen porch or glassy dining area, the focus on the valley beyond remains unbroken. Construction: Jordan Construction Interior Design: Wendy Barry, W-Design Interiors

Main level great room of a ground-up new construction home in the Berkeley Hills, CA, as featured on America ByDesign on CBS. Photographed at dusk, panoramic San Francisco Bay views. The complete spatial sequence of the main level is visible in a single frame: terrazzo waterfall island with slim white cylinder pendant at right, flowing through the open living zone with cognac leather sofa, bentwood oak lounge chairs, and fluted walnut side table, through full-width sliding glass doors to the rooftop deck with outdoor dining furniture and cable railing beyond. Birch plywood ceiling panels throughout. New Construction - Fold House - Berkeley Hills CA - CB Architecture + Design

Patrick C. Fletcher
Home design - modern home design idea in Minneapolis

Located on a marsh in the upper reaches of the Lieutenant River in Old Lyme, the existing house was well-sited and well-built, but the design failed to exploit the views and more importantly was a confused combination of contemporary and traditional elements. The new homeowners, a successful businesswoman and an accomplished artist and photographer, were interested in creating a fully-contemporary environment to open up space, connect indoors with outdoors, display artwork and showcase the husband’s distinctive photographs. One glaring deficiency was the curb appeal and approach sequence: the grade sloped down and the path to the house followed, but this led to an uncomfortable dip and abrupt rise to the front door. By creating a virtual “moat,” occupied by a grid of raised-bed grasses contained in aluminum-clad boxes, and spanning the moat with an ipe bridge, the approach becomes level and engaging. The façade of the existing house was blank and bland, and with no cover. Adding a deep overhang with a wide porch creates a welcoming, covered condition, accentuated by a 6’ wide pivoting front door that feels more like a moving piece of wall. Another deficiency was the connection to the outdoors. By adding glass to the front and back of the house, and removing interior walls selectively, the house takes on a diaphanous quality that allows one to see through to the marsh beyond, even when in the driveway. The raised-bed grasses act as abstract, geometric versions of the marsh beyond. A large, pyramidal skylight establishes a spatial hierarchy around which the rooms revolve. The house featured several tray-ceilinged spaces – living room, kitchen, and master bedroom – that were poorly-proportioned and with panels at the top that resembled inset flat panel doors. The solution was to use a different strategy for each: the bedroom turns the ceiling into an eggshell through the use of a creative trim detail; the living room has an oversized sculptural, backlit lighting element; and the kitchen has a collage of painted rectangular forms that support or include lighting pieces. A palette of concrete, blackened steel, stainless steel and colors carefully chosen by homeowner and architect create an interior and exterior environment punctuated by moments that are as artistic as the featured works in the black-ceilinged gallery.

design: Studio TOOP, 2008 location: Driebergen, NL status: built in 2008, Tuinvreugd photo: Jolanthe Lalkens, 2010 A letter from the town of Driebergen explaining that there were subsidies available if residents wanted to build a rainwater catchment in their garden was the impulse necessary for Ben and Ine to finally redo their garden. About to start retirement they had more time to garden and enjoy being at home. Ine hd been a gardener for years and looked for the opportunity to spend more time on the hobby and Ben was already working out the technical details of the rainwater catchment and ponds. Studio TOOP helped them translate their wishes and interests into a clear design that made smart use of the small elevation change in the garden. Sequences of steps and raised beds separate each section of the garden. Three lines - a row of three ponds, a row of crab apple trees and a rose covered pergola - emphasize the gardens length. Each pond is 15 cm lower than the next, allowing the water to flows from one to another, and then to another lower lying pond at the end of the pergola. Under a lid that works as a bench integrated into two of the raised beds are the rainwater tanks.

New 2-story residence consisting of; kitchen, breakfast room, laundry room, butler’s pantry, wine room, living room, dining room, study, 4 guest bedroom and master suite. Exquisite custom fabricated, sequenced and book-matched marble, granite and onyx, walnut wood flooring with stone cabochons, bronze frame exterior doors to the water view, custom interior woodwork and cabinetry, mahogany windows and exterior doors, teak shutters, custom carved and stenciled exterior wood ceilings, custom fabricated plaster molding trim and groin vaults.

Before and After sequence. Custom vanity! Island design for the vanity is very luxurious. Almost complete. 90% construction - unpacking and almost moved in. Final photos pending.

New 2-story residence consisting of; kitchen, breakfast room, laundry room, butler’s pantry, wine room, living room, dining room, study, 4 guest bedroom and master suite. Exquisite custom fabricated, sequenced and book-matched marble, granite and onyx, walnut wood flooring with stone cabochons, bronze frame exterior doors to the water view, custom interior woodwork and cabinetry, mahogany windows and exterior doors, teak shutters, custom carved and stenciled exterior wood ceilings, custom fabricated plaster molding trim and groin vaults.

One suite bath within our ongoing work at a private estate in Denver's Polo Club, where Divergent serves as general contractor. The existing room was original to the house — rojo alicante counters, a travertine shower, and basketweave mosaic that had aged past repair. Rather than refinish, we rebuilt the room around a several slabs of Emerald Quartzite. Every stone surface in the room comes from those slabs, sequenced and mitered so the veining runs uninterrupted: the vanity deck, the full-height integral backsplash, both basins — carved and mitered rather than dropped in — and the shower jambs, which wrap the opening in a continuous 3" return. Nothing about it is off-the-shelf. Around the stone: hand-troweled plaster walls, a limestone floor set on the diagonal with inlaid walnut banding, custom millwork tying the ceiling line to the mirrors, backlit mirrors integrated flush into the millwork, and painted inset cabinetry built to fit the room. The coordination here — stone fabricator, plaster artisan, trim carpenter, and lighting all landing to a shared tolerance — is the same discipline we bring to full custom homes and estate renovations on the Front Range. [Brayton Interiors] · [YK Stone] · [Underwood Concepts]

The principles of the Fibonacci sequence has been used by countless artists and architects since the Renaissance in proportioning their works to approximate the golden ratio with the belief that this proportion is aesthetically pleasing based on its harmony, proportion, and mathematical order.

Full home renovation of a Burnaby single-family home completed over nine months. The project involved a complete structural rework of the main floor to create an open-concept layout, including steel beam installation to remove load-bearing walls, a full kitchen renovation, 4.5 bathroom renovations, new HVAC throughout, and structural repairs across the home. The scale and complexity of this project required careful sequencing — structural work, mechanical systems, and finish trades coordinated across an occupied neighbourhood site over a nine-month build. Every scope was managed under one process by Roka Projects, from engineer coordination and permit applications through to final finishes. Photography by Tracey Ayton Photography, interiors by JJ Interiors.

Sculptural front yard custom build red front entrance door in hedge, tree, wood panel privacy screen.
Minimalist entryway photo in San Francisco

This 1967 home has been transformed. LANTERN HOUSE is located at the edge of the forest, the edge of urbanity, where the glass and metal clad entry and stair volumes glow like lanterns in the night. The sloping, trapezoidal site posed challenges, resulting in a very unique geometry with a courtyard, a bridge, and a new stair tower link old to new. A new porch and foyer create a gradual entry sequence into the existing main house. A new roof form provides vaulted ceilings in an open plan concept. The primary living spaces are connected to private outdoor spaces for entertaining and everyday living, and the main addition contains a private master retreat with secluded access from the stair tower. The connection with nature is ever present throughout the house with intentionally placed glazing framing views to the surrounding trees.

Staircase - huge modern staircase idea in Boston