A sprawling roof extending over indoor/outdoor spaces has cutouts that make space for mature trees.
Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.
From the Architect:"A Forest in the House proposes an alternative approach to harmonizing the built form with its natural surroundings. Rather than treating existing trees as obstacles, the project embraces them as fundamental guides that shape the spatial program. The trees delineate the relationship between occupied spaces and voids, freeing the structure from conventional grid systems and establishing a dynamic rhythm that reflects the patterns of nature. This nonorthogonal disposition of the pillars contributes to the structure’s lateral stability. The solid volumes are constructed using compressed earth blocks, reinforcing the project’s commitment to a material dialogue with the landscape.
"Vertical structural elements are carefully arranged among the trees. By aligning themselves so as not to interfere with the roots, they recede visually and integrate into the background, blending with the natural logic of the surrounding trunks. This conscious integration generates a dialogue in which artifice and nature speak the same language.
"The spatial composition unfolds across two distinct horizontal planes. The primary plane, the floor, rises subtly, allowing tree roots to evolve freely over time. In parallel, the secondary plane, the ceiling, replicates this geometry to form a terrace that invites occupants to enjoy panoramic views of the treetops.
"Ultimately, the project imagines a future in which the boundaries between architecture and nature dissolve: a future in which the built environment is as organic as its natural context. This vision not only proposes a different spatial solution, but also offers a reminder of the potential for coexistence and balance. Thus, in unison, all the elements of the house compose a big band that, depending on the season or time of day, plays the music that best accompanies the experience."
The recently renovated NoHo flat comes with an overhauled kitchen, a communal roof deck, and a collection of vintage doors.
Location: 21 Bond Street, Unit 3, New York, New York
Price: $4,250,000
Year Built: 1900
Footprint: 3 bedrooms, 2 baths
From the Agent: "Situated on one of NoHo’s most storied cobblestone blocks, this full-floor loft at 21 Bond Street offers an authentic downtown living experience within a landmarked Renaissance Revival building. Occupying the entire third floor, the home spans a long and gracious footprint. It has a curated collection of vintage doors, each with its own storied provenance. The layout flows naturally from generous entertaining spaces to more private bedroom wings, offering both openness and separation. The primary bedroom is quietly positioned and comfortably proportioned, offering excellent wall space and natural light. Two additional rooms function seamlessly as bedrooms, guest rooms, or home offices, making the layout highly adaptable to a variety of living needs."
The loft is located in a co-op, and the sale includes ownership of one-fifth of the ground-floor storefront, and access to a communal rooftop terrace.
Photo by Alejandro Leon of DDReps
Since purchasing the home in 2009, the current owner has gradually renovated the space.
Photo by Alejandro Leon of DDReps
The living room is located a step down from the rest of the loft.
In an intensive week-long session, architects, contractors, and community groups convened to develop plans that will allow the city to bump up the number of living spaces while retaining its historical character.
Charleston, South Carolina is the quintessential historic village, a place where brightly colored rowhomes foreground church steeples; where building ornaments are at ease in the low-rise, treelined environs. Here, the built environment reflects the city’s character, and mayor William Cogswell doesn’t want to mess with that. As a lifelong Charlestonian who worked in the private sector in property redevelopment prior to entering public office, Cogswell knows what makes his city special—but he’s also acutely aware of the challenges it faces. Charleston, like many other American cities, has underbuilt even as the population has exploded over the past 15 years. They need more homes, and fast.
To meet housing demands, the city launched Project 3500, an initiative that will build 6,000 new homes by 2032, more than half of which will be reserved as affordable housing. But this strategy isn’t following the typical housing motivators like Requests for Proposals, design competitions, or policy changes. Instead, Project 3500 has taken care of the early-stages legwork, namely locating sites and acquiring entitlements, and strategically securing financing partners. Crucially, they held a design charrette—a design and planning workshop open to stakeholders and the public—this month. The week-long event assembled a team of local and international architects, including Christian Sottile (Sottile & Sottile) from Savannah, GA, Ben Pentreath (Ben Pentreath Ltd) and Hugh Petter (ADAM Architecture) from the United Kingdom, Vince Graham (LOCI Design) from South Carolina, and architects at Historical Concepts from Atlanta, to create a design scheme that will not only be pre-approved but deeply conscious of Charleston’s historic fabric. It’s a major undertaking, but perhaps emblematic of how deep the housing crisis goes: A city located in a deep-red state led by a Republican mayor is devoting public resources to develop homes affordable to working people.
Project 3500 is the result of a year-long collaboration with pro-bono consulting firm Bloomberg Associates, which generated a report on the state of the city’s housing. The findings, per the study summary, show a population growing in numbers and wealth: Not only has the area median income doubled in the past 12 years, but the city’s population has increased at a rate about twice the national average. Building hasn’t kept up, as the report states: over the past seven years, the city has only constructed 399 new units. It has created significant pressures on working households: Home prices in the city have increased significantly—nearly 20 percent since 2021—and while rental prices cooled somewhat last year, on the whole they’ve increased since 2020 and are now more than seven percent higher than the national average.
Groups toured Charleston to observe the city’s residential architecture (left). Ben Pentreath gave a lecture on relevant learnings from his work in the U.K. (right).
Courtesy City of Charleston
The problem isn’t unique to Charleston, and many cities have opted to change their regulations and requirements to address it, using legislative tools like upzoning to encourage new multifamily construction; others have loosened regulations around accessory dwelling units and parking requirements, or have pursued broader "cut the tape" initiatives to remove lengthy review processes. All of these require some degree of negotiation—and compromise—and often leave it up to the private sector to take advantage of those reforms to meet housing needs. Cogswell notes that they’ve tried the policy angle, but it hasn’t made it easier to remedy a dire situation. "Charleston is one of the world renowned built environments, and it’s also an extremely difficult place to build in," he says. Multiple review boards that are "very strict" and climate-related flooding make development especially arduous.
Cogswell had traveled to the U.K., Denmark, and the Netherlands to tour social housing projects, and along the way met with Pentreath and Petter to see their work, which is known for its adherence to historic precedents. Visiting Pentreath’s work in the town of Poundbury, Cogswell saw echoes of Charleston’s character; he aspired to the area’s mixed-use buildings and scattered-site affordable dwellings that, while constructed over the past 20 years, look and feel like historic buildings.
Back in Charleston, the city decided to devote its resources to constructing new units. Officials examined parcels of underused land they already owned (or were owned by a city-related entity like the school district or housing authority) and vetted them for feasibility based on access to transit, jobs, and services. They settled on four sites, all located in the city’s peninsula. They then brought Pentreath and Petter over to participate in the design charrette, opting to do a one-week, ultra-focused series of meetings with residents, city officials, and community groups to develop plans for these sites.
The William Blacklock House at 18 Bull Street (left) was one precent home the group used as a reference. The Colonel John Ashe House at 32 South Battery Street (right) was another.
Photos from Library of Congress
The charrette, architect Sottile explains, condenses a process that can drag on for years into one week. They aren’t uncommon practices in redevelopment, especially when designers are seeking engaged public input, yet can be another step in the already-extensive building process. But when combined with builders, regulators, and potential financers, a charrette can actually expedite a project through tough hurdles. Important to the Charleston process were the technical meetings, says Sottile, where they met with contractors and prefabricators to strategize around building elements that can be assembled quickly without sacrificing quality, as well as developers who came in from across the country to participate. The ultimate goal was to generate plans for thousands of new affordable units that would be essentially indistinguishable from the city’s market rate, classically-designed homes.
"We can reframe the way a development team approaches a project where they might spend years working through design, approvals and all the bureaucracy or the technical requirements, the neighborhood meetings," says Sottile. "The city’s taking all of that and saying, why don’t we cast our own vision and work with the development community to shorten that process so that we have projects that can be ready to develop."
Shortening the timeline dramatically changes the way capital can be brought in to do the work, he adds. The city has been working closely with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to secure tax credits, Sottile explains, while also using city, state, and local dollars. It might seem counterintuitive to create housing that matches the city’s historic charm—one built incrementally over generations—through a rapid-fire design process, but this is where the architects’ expertise in classical design shined.
Architects actively worked on plans for the city during the charette.
From the Agent: "This fabulous Pacific Heights residence, exquisitely renovated with designer finishes, has just under 5,000 square feet of interior space, a lovely garden, and an exceptionally walkable location. Built in 1902 on a 50-foot-wide lot, this stately home is introduced by a grand stone archway, brick facade, mature trees and hedges, and a black-and-white marble entry vestibule. Inside, contemporary interior design is thoughtfully layered with bold color drenching and respectful nods to the home’s curved lines and classic architectural details, preserving the striking entry column, stained glass windows, and original wainscoting. Ascending the curved main staircase past stained glass windows and wood paneling, the second level houses four bedrooms and three bathrooms on one level, an ideal arrangement for families."
Photo by Lunghi Studio
The living room is warmed by woodburning fireplace with a Calacatta marble heath.
Shingles, vertical planks, and a generous window arrangement bring a touch of the famous Northern California community to the Long Island home.
When it’s summer in the Hamptons, an unpopulated beach is a rare luxury. For Kelly and Rob, even if a run-down house they were looking to buy wasn’t itself love at first sight, its proximity to a quiet stretch of sand and sweeping sunset views were convincing. But the 2,000-square-foot, two-bed, two-bath Sag Harbor home also had enough room for hosting, and offered a way for the family to escape a hectic schedule in Manhattan, where Kelly, an an art curator, and Rob, an artist, both work. "The house was not in great shape," says Kelly. "But it had great bones, as they say."
Wanting a weekend retreat for their family, New York couple Kelly and Rob bought a home in Sag Harbor that architecture firm New Affiliates renovated for $272,250.
Photo by Hanna Grankvist
After purchasing the home in 2021, Kelly and Rob tackled an interior renovation first, keeping costs down thanks to Rob’s contracting skills. Rob tore out old carpet, squared off rounded wall edges, built bookshelves, and refinished popcorn-textured walls. He also patched and cleaned out holes in the walls, covered by curtains, where the previous owners stored a surprising cache of relics: dishes, roller skates, shoes. "It was really bonkers—a really strange situation," says Kelly. After that initial renovation, the couple spent time simply living in the house, seeing how they would use it, and brainstorming what other changes they might want to make.
In 2024, the couple were ready to refine the exterior, hoping to create something closer to the clean modernism and nature-oriented architecture of Sea Ranch. Through her career as a curator, Kelly had previously collaborated with architects Ivi Diamantopoulou and Jaffer Kolb, the cofounders of New York firm New Affiliates, on several exhibition designs. They had remained friendly over the years, making the studio an easy choice for a renovation.
$6,200
Site Protection & Preparation
$64,000
Structural
$7,000
Wall Finishes
$13,000
Electrical
$16,400
Plumbing
$20,600
Landscaping
$1,000
Kitchen & Bath Fixtures
$2,500
Lighting Fixtures
$14,000
Windows & Glazing Installation
$30,000
Windows & Glazing Procurement
$25,000
Exterior Decking & Railing
$5,500
Permitting
$10,000
Project Supervisor
$40,000
Architect/Design Fee
$15,500
Demolition
$1,550
Final Cleaning
Grand Total: $272,250
The firm added larger doors and windows to bring more natural light into the 2,000-square-foot, two-bed, two-bath plan, and to bring its aesthetic out of the 1970s.
Photo by Hanna Grankvist
It cost $20,000 to replace the fence and add blue stone pavers.
Trump’s ballroom plan gets the green light, Fannie Mae launches crypto mortgages, and more.
In Mexico City, entire buildings are being cleared out, sometimes overnight, as landlords illegally oust tenants to make way for luxury housing and short-term rentals. With rents soaring and the FIFA World Cup approaching, heated protests in response to evictions are only becoming more commonplace. (Bloomberg)
Fannie Mae is now offering crypto-backed mortgages, allowing buyers to leverage Bitcoin and other digital assets for a down payment. Here’s how the company is planning to turn an untapped wealth of cryptocurrency into home sales—and how it could benefit the buyer. (The Wall Street Journal)
In Los Angeles, a boom in backyard homes is colliding with a stubborn obstacle: overhead power lines that limit the height and placement of units. Because burying lines is expensive, designers are instead embracing constraints by shifting layouts, contouring roofs, and cantilevering spaces in what one architect calls "the electric slide." (Dwell)
Mayor Zohran Mamdani just introduced a new program to fast track affordable housing in NYC.
Photo by Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, just launched a program to speed up affordable housing construction on city-owned land, starting with three sites expected to deliver 300 units. Here’s how the city aims to build up to 1,000 homes in the next two years. (The Architect’s Newspaper)
So far, the White House ballroom project has amounted to one big game of red light, green light. This week, a federal judge ordered construction on the White House ballroom to stop, ruling that Donald Trump likely lacks authority to overhaul entire sections of the historic building without congressional approval. But now, it’s back on. (Bloomberg)
Architect Ira Rakatansky designed just six houses in the state, and this one comes with a butterfly roof, a bright-red front door, and a monolithic fireplace.
Location: 58 Hill Street, Lexington, Massachusetts
From the Agent: "The house was commissioned by the Dunn family. Friends of theirs, the Starrs, also commissioned architect Ira Rakatansky, to build the house next door. These two are among only about a half dozen homes built in Massachusetts from Rakatansky designs. The Dunn House’s siting, orientation, and carefully placed windows provide privacy and a connection to nature. The formal living spaces on the upper main floor are organized around a sun-filled living room with a sculptural fireplace and two walls of glass. The adjacent dining room opens through a glass door to the screened porch. The primary bedroom suite includes a large bedroom and an en suite bathroom. As drawn in the original plans, the large space is currently divided with open shelves into a sitting/dressing area with a wall of closets and a sleeping area with a tall, east-facing window. Three lower-level bedrooms from the original Ira Rakatansky design are currently used as an office, a guest bedroom, and an extra room for music lessons."
The butterfly roof is a defining feature of the home.
