'Pebbles' laser cut screening and framing by Entanglements metal art. Decorative balustrade creating privacy from neighbors

Brad Peebles

Paul Bardagjy

A local Houston art collector hired us to create a low maintenance, sophisticated, contemporary landscape design. She wanted her property to compliment her eclectic taste in architecture, outdoor sculpture, and modern art. Her house was built with a minimalist approach to decoration, emphasizing right angles and windows instead of architectural keynotes. The west wing of the house was only one story, while the east wing was two-story. The windows in both wings were larger than usual, so that visitors could see her art collection from the home’s exterior. Near one of the large rear windows, there was an abstract metal sculpture designed in the form of a spiral. When she initially contacted us, the surrounding property had only a few trees and indigenous grass as vegetation. This was actually a good beginning point with us, because it allowed us to develop a contemporary landscape design that featured a very linear, crisp look supportive of the home and its contents. We began by planting a garden around the large contemporary sculpture near the window. Landscape designers planted horsetail reed under windows, along the sides of the home, and around the corners. This vegetation is very resilient and hardy, and requires little trimming, weeding, or mulching. This helped unite the diverse elements of sculpture, contemporary architecture, and landscape design into a more fluid harmony that preserved the proportions of each unique element, but eliminated any tendency for the elements to clash with one another. We then added two stonework designs to the landscape surrounding the contemporary art collection and home. The first was a linear walkway we build from concrete pads purchased through a retail vendor as a cost-saving benefit to our client. We created this walkway to follow the perimeter of the home so that visitors could walk around the entire property and admire the outdoor sculptures and the collections of modern art visible through the windows. This was especially enjoyable at night, when the entire home was brightly lit from within. To add a touch of tranquility and quite repose to the stark right angles of the home and surrounding contemporary landscape, we designed a special seating area toward the northwest corner of the property. We wanted to create a sense of contemplation in this area, so we departed from the linear and angular designs of the surrounding landscape and established a theme of circular geometry. We laid down gravel as ground cover, then placed large, circular pads arranged like giant stepping stones that led up to a stone patio filled with chairs. The shape of the granite pads and the contours of the graveled area further complimented the spirals and turns in the outdoor metal sculpture, and balanced the entire contemporary landscape design with proportional geometric forms of lines, angles, and curves. This particular contemporary landscape design also has a sense of movement attached to it. All stonework leads to a destination of some sort. The linear pathway provides a guided tour around the home, garden, and modern art collection. The granite pathway stones create movement toward separate space where the entire experience of art, vegetation, and architecture can be viewed and experienced as a unity. Contemporary landscaping designs like create form out of feeling by using basic geometric forms and variations of forms. Sometimes very stark forms are used to create a sense of absolutism or contrast. At other times, forms are blended, or even distorted to suggest a sense of complex emotion, or a sense of multi-dimensional reality. The exact nature of the design is always highly subjective, and developed on a case-by-case basis with the client.

The Eagle Harbor Cabin is located on a wooded waterfront property on Lake Superior, at the northerly edge of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, about 300 miles northeast of Minneapolis. The wooded 3-acre site features the rocky shoreline of Lake Superior, a lake that sometimes behaves like the ocean. The 2,000 SF cabin cantilevers out toward the water, with a 40-ft. long glass wall facing the spectacular beauty of the lake. The cabin is composed of two simple volumes: a large open living/dining/kitchen space with an open timber ceiling structure and a 2-story “bedroom tower,” with the kids’ bedroom on the ground floor and the parents’ bedroom stacked above. The interior spaces are wood paneled, with exposed framing in the ceiling. The cabinets use PLYBOO, a FSC-certified bamboo product, with mahogany end panels. The use of mahogany is repeated in the custom mahogany/steel curvilinear dining table and in the custom mahogany coffee table. The cabin has a simple, elemental quality that is enhanced by custom touches such as the curvilinear maple entry screen and the custom furniture pieces. The cabin utilizes native Michigan hardwoods such as maple and birch. The exterior of the cabin is clad in corrugated metal siding, offset by the tall fireplace mass of Montana ledgestone at the east end. The house has a number of sustainable or “green” building features, including 2x8 construction (40% greater insulation value); generous glass areas to provide natural lighting and ventilation; large overhangs for sun and snow protection; and metal siding for maximum durability. Sustainable interior finish materials include bamboo/plywood cabinets, linoleum floors, locally-grown maple flooring and birch paneling, and low-VOC paints.

McDunn Construction, Inc., Berkeley, California, 2022 Regional CotY Award Winner, Entire House $500,001 to $750,000

Nestled in the heart of Cowes on the Isle of Wight, this gorgeous Hampton's style cottage proves that good things, do indeed, come in 'small packages'! Small spaces packed with BIG designs and even larger solutions, this cottage may be small, but it's certainly mighty, ensuring that storage is not forgotten about, alongside practical amenities.

Charles Hilton Architects, Robert Benson Photography From grand estates, to exquisite country homes, to whole house renovations, the quality and attention to detail of a "Significant Homes" custom home is immediately apparent. Full time on-site supervision, a dedicated office staff and hand picked professional craftsmen are the team that take you from groundbreaking to occupancy. Every "Significant Homes" project represents 45 years of luxury homebuilding experience, and a commitment to quality widely recognized by architects, the press and, most of all....thoroughly satisfied homeowners. Our projects have been published in Architectural Digest 6 times along with many other publications and books. Though the lion share of our work has been in Fairfield and Westchester counties, we have built homes in Palm Beach, Aspen, Maine, Nantucket and Long Island.

Modern Desert Home | Main House | Imbue Design

Shifting the two modules creates a covered breezeway between the house and the site built garage. Alpinfoto

Dickson Dunlap Photography

This is the renovated design which highlights the vaulted ceiling that projects through to the exterior.

This cozy lake cottage skillfully incorporates a number of features that would normally be restricted to a larger home design. A glance of the exterior reveals a simple story and a half gable running the length of the home, enveloping the majority of the interior spaces. To the rear, a pair of gables with copper roofing flanks a covered dining area that connects to a screened porch. Inside, a linear foyer reveals a generous staircase with cascading landing. Further back, a centrally placed kitchen is connected to all of the other main level entertaining spaces through expansive cased openings. A private study serves as the perfect buffer between the homes master suite and living room. Despite its small footprint, the master suite manages to incorporate several closets, built-ins, and adjacent master bath complete with a soaker tub flanked by separate enclosures for shower and water closet. Upstairs, a generous double vanity bathroom is shared by a bunkroom, exercise space, and private bedroom. The bunkroom is configured to provide sleeping accommodations for up to 4 people. The rear facing exercise has great views of the rear yard through a set of windows that overlook the copper roof of the screened porch below. Builder: DeVries & Onderlinde Builders Interior Designer: Vision Interiors by Visbeen Photographer: Ashley Avila Photography

This Sears craftsman in the Del Ray part of Alexandria, VA was restored with a complete exterior renovation.

This 1,650 sf beach house was designed and built to meed FEMA regulations given it proximity to ocean storm surges and flood plane. It is built 5 feet above grade with a skirt that effectively allows the ocean surge to flow underneath the house should such an event occur. The approval process was considerable given the client needed natural resource special permits given the proximity of wetlands and zoning variances due to pyramid law issues.

The cottage is snug against tandem parking and the cedar grove to the west, leaving a generous yard. Careful consideration of window openings between the two houses maintains privacy for each. Weathering steel panels will patina to rich oranges and browns.

Guest House entry door. Image by Stephen Brousseau.