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The Double-Height Atrium Is Still the Best Part of This Revived ’70s Australian Home

WOWOWA Architecture turned an upstairs storage area into a study with a view of the signature feature.

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Project Details:

Location: Glen Iris, Australia

Architect: WOWOWA / @wowowaarch

Footprint: 3,229 square feet

Builder: The Carbonist

Structural and Civil Engineer: R.I Brown

Landscape Design: MJB Landscapes

Photographer: Sean Fennessy

From the Architect: "Published in Belle Magazine August 1978, WOWOWA x Borland Crossman House is a restoration, repair and adaptive heritage reimagining of a Kevin Borland modernist gem in Glen Iris, on Boon Wurrung/Bunurong and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country. Designing with the angel of Borland on our shoulder, WOWOWA carefully disassembled the moments of the house that no longer served a contemporary family and stitched them back together in a way that feels both fresh and deeply respectful.

"The home’s double-height, fern-filled internal garden atrium remains its most recognizable feature, filtered by an east-facing slatted shade structure. Beige curved brick walls funnel visitors from the street, through a lushly landscaped garden hosting plants protected and cared for throughout construction. The clients saw themselves as custodians rather than owners, with a commitment to circularity and craftsmanship so strong they were willing to pay more to reuse than replace.

"Spatial interventions were executed with precision. A faceted half-circle window suite was shifted to allow an eight-person dining table, while a new sunken lounge honors the removal of a non-compliant spiral staircase that once blocked light and severed the visual connection to the garden. By reducing overlooking, the house was transformed into a more private sanctuary. Noninvasive reorientation of the pantry, laundry, and powder room aligned with the home’s 45-degree-loving structural logic. This was so faithfully observed that even the lights pivot to 45 degrees.

"For WOWOWA, the study is the hero moment. Formerly a mechanical room turned storage, a section revealed an opportunity for new sight lines into the atrium. Timber lining was carefully removed and replaced with a matching facade curtain wall, allowing a crafted coved joinery desk to mitigate the low ceiling height and visually connect through the void to the revitalized internal garden.

"Existing timber linings were removed, sorted, repaired, and reinstalled alongside new boards color-matched through a replicated whitewash oil process—completed by the clients themselves. Brickwork was on-site cleaned and reused in the back deck and workshop. Joiner Mood relaminated the original kitchen benchtop into a new form, repaired doors, veneers and bedheads, while fixtures, handles, basins and lights were retained, repaired and reused.

"Wearing puffer jackets indoors through winter galvanized the clients’ sustainability efforts: Brick walls were fully relined and insulated, glazing upgraded to thermally broken double glazing matching Borland’s original fin profiles, and a destratification fan installed. Gas was removed, heat pumps installed, and rainwater fully harvested."

See the full story on Dwell.com: The Double-Height Atrium Is Still the Best Part of This Revived ’70s Australian Home

This $550K Seattle Condo Is at the Top of Its Class

Set inside the historic 1896 West Queen Anne School, the Victorian-era classroom has graduated to become a lofty one-bedroom with an A+ kitchen.

Location: 1401 5th Ave W #305, Seattle, Washington

Price: $550,000

Year Built: 1896 (with additions through 1920)

Architects: Warren P. Skillings and James M. Corner

Renovation Date: 2024

Footprint: 714 square feet (1 bed, 1 bath)

From the Agent: "Originally an elementary school classroom in Seattle’s historic West Queen Anne School, this one-of-a-kind residence has been thoughtfully transformed through an extensive renovation that preserves the building’s architectural character while improving its functionality. The redesigned layout opened up the living space and completely reworked the kitchen and bathroom, creating a home that balances historic details with contemporary updates.

Original features, including soaring ceilings, expansive classroom windows, and other historic architectural details, remain central to the home. Carefully selected finishes, exposed brick, a custom rolling library ladder, and Victorian- and Edwardian-inspired elements reference the building’s history. The home also comes with secure garage parking and a dedicated storage unit within the building, and it sits on the school’s landscaped 1.76-acre grounds in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, minutes from parks, cafes, downtown, and transit."

The one-bedroom, one-bathroom condo occupies a former elementary school classroom inside the West Queen Anne School, built in 1896.
Photo by Noah Gabrielson/Image Marketing Studio

Photo by Noah Gabrielson/Image Marketing Studio

According to the seller, "The afternoon sun pours through the large, west-facing windows, filling the home with light all year round."
Photo by Noah Gabrielson/Image Marketing Studio

See the full story on Dwell.com: This $550K Seattle Condo Is at the Top of Its Class
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Can Traditional Tattoos Help Us Understand Architectural History?

Designer and professor Monique Lizardo discusses how Indigenous body markings—plus ceramics, weavings, and other art forms—can reveal a lot about how past societies looked and functioned.

In April 2023, Vogue premiered its oldest cover model: 106-year-old Apo Whang-Od, an Indigenous Kalinga tattoo artist who was preserving the ancient practice of traditional batok in the Philippines. The hand-tapped etchings of diamonds and woven patterns on Whang-Od’s body stood out to Monique Lizardo, a Filipino-Canadian architectural designer and professor, when she saw the magazine, but it wasn’t until she went back to the Philippines in December of that same year to get tattooed by Whang-Od that her research on the traditional tattoos as viable architectural and historical archives began to take form.

It turns out that the markings on Whang-Od’s body were the same patterns commonly found etched onto doors, furniture, and even traditional clothing in the northern Philippines. As Lizardo began learning more about the meanings of each pattern—certain ticks and dashes that symbolized headhunting success, beauty, or protection—she found that they helped tell a story about the lived experiences of people in ancient Kalinga societies. These symbols could be read as indicators of their bearers’ specific environmental and social conditions, rather than only artistic preferences. Perhaps, she thought, she could connect the dots between architecture and tattoos, treating the body as a map to help trace what was important to folks at that time and better understand their realities.

I spoke with Lizardo about her research, and how, yes, tattoos, but also ceramics, blankets, and other art mediums can be studied as living artifacts that can orient us to a specific time and place, and in some cases, give insight about what it might’ve felt like to be there.

Filipino-Canadian architectural designer and professor Monique Lizardo traveled to the mountain village of Buscalan in the Philippines to receive traditional Kalinga hand-tapped tattoos, or <i>batok</i>, from <i>mambabatok</i> (traditional Kalinga tattoo artist) Apo Whang-Od. — Filipino-Canadian architectural designer and professor Monique Lizardo traveled to the mountain village of Buscalan in the Philippines to receive traditional Kalinga hand-tapped tattoos, or *batok*, from *mambabatok* (traditional Kalinga tattoo artist) Apo Whang-Od.
Photos courtesy Monique Lizardo

Being trained in architecture gives you a specific perspective, but I love seeing your personal history and culture as an entry point to connect your interests. Can you describe the type of work you’re doing: the what and the why of it?

Monique Lizardo: I initially developed this methodology of looking at art history as a means of studying traditional architecture by looking at traditional tattoos. This led to looking at other case studies, such as ceramics near Chihuahua, Mexico, and African-Canadian quilts from the interwar years and what they resemble, to start to reconfigure what architecture might have looked like at that time period in that specific place. By looking at symbols in traditional craft, we can start to think about what these spaces looked like beyond colonial history.

Since you’ve started broadening the scope of what you look at, has there been a particular piece of art that has fundamentally changed the way that you’ve approached this work?

One of the tattoos that really stuck out was these sort of dash tick mark tattoos. These stand for headhunting and are typically found up north in the mountains in the Philippines. Back in the day, warriors would have these tick mark tattoos closer to their face: behind the ear or centered on the chest or on the face. Each tick mark meant that they were successful in killing one person. This tattoo was really important to my research, not just its existence or how crucial it was to the culture of that specific area, but because people don’t get that tattoo anymore. The reason why that’s so interesting is because it means that these tattoos have meanings and that if people aren’t killing for safety anymore, that reality isn’t necessary for 2026. If people are still tattooing a pattern for rice paddies or mountain peaks or python scales, that means that it’s still true to the values or the reality of today.

By looking at each of the tattoos of our many elders we can start to understand the architecture in broad terms, but also just how spaces felt…not just built architecture, but imagining a space in relation to what these tattoos meant. For example, a space where warriors who were really successful and had a lot of these tattoos probably meant your area was very safe, or if a lot of people had rice paddy tattoos, could signify that they were in abundance during that time.

I’m reminded of this SWANA (Southwest Asia and North Africa) tattoo technique called deq, which literally translates to knocking, that resembles the technique you’re referring to here. It’s basically a type of stick and poke that also carries different, specific meanings. It’s interesting that this thread is found across several Indigenous cultures, while also being really specific to the landscape that you’re looking at in the Philippines. What else can this type of spatial or embodied information reveal to us that maybe conventional archives or mapping tend to leave out?

One case study that might show how far, or maybe another direction, we can push this, is an example that I’ve taken from this exhibit that David Woods curated called The Secret Codes: African Nova Scotian Quilts. This exhibit showcased different quilts that people would put outside of their door as if they’re hanging laundry, but what it would actually do is secretly code to other Black folks routes to safety or freedom. They’d have markings symbolizing things like, "You’ve arrived at a decision point, multiple routes to freedom, choose a path," or things like, "Travel in disguise, change identities, move between the clothing of a slave and the clothing of a free person." So looking at this exhibit, I’ve created some speculative landscapes or speculative landscape renderings of what an environment might look like if someone comes across each one of these 1930s quilt patterns.

What we’re delving into now is what it means to study architectural history beyond looking at dates and listening to individualized stories. By looking at Indigenous art, we can incorporate their voices and put ourselves in a first-person perspective to understand, or at least start to understand, what it might’ve felt like to be there.

Traditional tattoos in the Kalinga province in the Cordillera Mountains feature various symbols and patterns with specific meanings, like rice paddies, which according to Lizardo symbolize beauty for women, and python scales, which she says are worn by women to preserve youth. — Traditional tattoos in the Kalinga province in the Cordillera Mountains feature various symbols and patterns with specific meanings, like rice paddies, which according to Lizardo symbolize beauty for women, and python scales, worn by women to preserve youth.
From left: Photo by John Warburton-Lee/Alamy; photo by Christian J. Kober/Alamy

How do you think this research and its findings challenges the more traditional modes of what record keepers deem "relevant" or "accurate"?

I think the biggest thing that it challenges is what even counts as architecture; architecture isn’t just about buildings or even landscape. Architecture is space. If we’re looking at speculative landscapes for someone who may have had a headhunting tattoo, it could be a space that defines where they might have met or congregated with their group. Architecture is the way that we form natural ground. Architecture doesn’t just look at a singular building, but its impact at the urban scale, how accessible a certain site is, and how people arrive at it.

I’m really curious how you’ve brought your traditional training and way of thinking as an architect and designer to things like bodies, textiles, and objects. How do you think other architects/planners/designers could change their practices if they began treating cultural artifacts as more than aesthetic references, but as spatial archives?

Architects are super suited to read social implications and impacts when looking at images. So for instance, if an architect is looking at a floor plan, we would instinctually see that the living room, dining room, and kitchen should be next to each other and all the quiet "programs" are probably like a hallway away, things like libraries or bedrooms. Maybe if we look at an elevation drawing, an architect might see it as more than dimensions and directions, but a relationship of how the sun affects the pedestrian experience due to the height, size, or the shape of a building. Architects are trained to read these insights from images and now it’s just about translating that into looking at art.

Land acknowledgements are a start, but we can build upon them with information about what the space used to be called or was used for. I think in doing this exercise, buildings can become an immersive teacher about what spaces were like. We can use these insights to be more structural about how we acknowledge Indigenous voices. This research has helped me understand women and elders as knowledge bearers. It’s also helped me consider the planning of shared public spaces. Like, how can we design these third spaces to allow for people of different walks of life to enjoy spaces safely and together? Maybe it means having light at night so it feels safer. Maybe it means that there are no hidden corners so that women or children feel safer because they’re seen. This is something everyone can engage with simply by being curious and asking where things are from.

Lizardo’s research looks at other traditional arts and crafts as a way of studying history. The prehistoric archaeological site of Paquimé in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico, (right) had an extensive ceramic production full of recurring symbols and motifs related to their surroundings, according to the architectural designer.
From left: Photo from Getty; photo by David G. Houser/Alamy

See the full story on Dwell.com: Can Traditional Tattoos Help Us Understand Architectural History?
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The Fight Over the Kennedy Center Continues—and Everything Else You Need to Know About This Week

Governor Gavin Newsom sets safety standards for homes damaged by wildfire smoke, Airbnb launches a $250 million housing fund, and more.

The Kennedy Center’s board voted to close the struggling venue for urgent repairs after part of its ceiling collapse. The vote came after a federal judge blocked President Trump, yet again, from adding his name to the building, prompting him to threaten to pull support for its renovation via Truth Social and berate Representative Joyce Beatty during a heated board meeting. (The Atlantic)
U.S. existing home sales fell for the third straight month in August as mortgage rates neared seven percent, and prices hit a record high for the month. More homes are lingering on the market, giving buyers who can still afford to shop a wider selection and a little more leverage when negotiating. (The Los Angeles Times)
California has created the nation’s first science-based pair of laws for testing and cleaning wildfire smoke-damaged homes, now thought of as a "curse in disguise" by homeowners whose houses survived the flames but remained unsafe. Insurers must cover testing and living expenses until a home is deemed safe to live in. (The New York Times)

"We want to make sure that our investments are catalytic and are demonstrating proof of concept about new models that can work," Airbnb Chief Executive Brian Chesky told *WSJ* regarding the company’s decision to finance affordable and mixed-income housing projects.
Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for Airbnb

Airbnb is launching a $250 million fund to help finance affordable and mixed-income housing projects, starting with a development in Austin, Texas that will have around 200 units. Here’s what prompted the initiative. (Wall Street Journal)
A recent study by the National Association of Realtors found that data centers can have drastically different effects on housing in different areas, with impacts varying widely by market. In Abilene, Texas, workers building the $500 billion Stargate Project have packed nearby rentals and hotels, helping push the median home price from about $250,000 to $342,000 in six years. Here’s why the same facilities driving up housing demand in one city may barely move the market in another. (NPR)

Top photo by Mehmet Eser/Anadolu via Getty Images

Chip and Joanna Gaines’s Texas Castle Just Listed for $2.7M

Meticulously restored by the design duo, the 135-year-old Waco landmark brings Gothic drama to cowboy country—and every piece of furniture comes with it.

Meticulously restored by Chip and Joanna Gaines, the 135-year-old Waco landmark brings Gothic drama to cowboy country—and every piece of furniture comes with it.

Location: 3300 Austin Avenue, Waco, Texas

Price: $2,699,000

Year Built: 1890

Renovation Designers: Chip and Joanna Gaines

Footprint: 6,176 square feet (4 beds, 3.5 baths)

Lot Size: 0.815 acres

From the Agent: "Renovation duo Chip and Joanna Gaines meticulously designed, renovated, and restored the 135-year-old Waco castle, with the goal of honoring its past while making it a home again. The interiors combine historic details, including gorgeous millwork, antique tile floors, and diamond-paned windows, with spaces designed for everyday living and entertaining. Along with a formal dining room, living room, and renovated kitchen, the home includes a moody card room, formal library, and distinctive conservatory. Elegant bedrooms are joined by fully renovated spa bathrooms that make for luxurious sanctuaries. Lush landscaping around the house completes the picture-perfect scene. All furnishings, accessories, and decor have been thoughtfully selected to complement the home’s design and are included with the sale, creating a truly turnkey opportunity."

In a 2019 note republished on the Magnolia blog, Joanna Gaines describes the building as looking — In a note republished on their Magnolia blog, Joanna Gaines describes the castle as looking "as if, once upon a time, somebody in Europe packed up a fairy-tale fortress and shipped it off to begin a new life in the American West."
Photo by Lisa Petrole

Brighter rooms offer a refreshing contrast to the dark millwork. — The Gaineses purchased the castle in 2019 and completed its renovation in 2022.
Photo by Lisa Petrole

See the full story on Dwell.com: Chip and Joanna Gaines’s Texas Castle Just Listed for $2.7M
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This Filmmaker Loves Movie Homes So Much, He Built a Mini One in His NYC Condo

Lee Leshen produced a documentary about what it’s like to live in a famous on-screen property, so naturally he made his own place an homage to some of his favorites.

Welcome to Different Strokes, a look at unique home design choices that beg for further explanation.

Filmmaker Lee Leshen has more than a passing interest in famous on-screen houses that are just as iconic as the media they appeared in. He produced the 2024 documentary, The House From…, about what it’s like to live in a movie- or TV-famous house, like Home Alone’s Georgian Colonial, the Golden Girls Palm Beach Regency, or Walter White’s ranch-style home from Breaking Bad. So when he decided to buy his own piece of real estate in New York City after riding out the pandemic in a 250-square-foot West Village studio, he knew it was going to be a creative project, not just a regular renovation. "When I was thinking about my next apartment, I thought, What if you had a nice apartment in Toontown sprinkled with a bit of Pee-wee’s playhouse?" Lee says. "It was going to be more Acme-themed."

In the open living area of his West Village condo, filmmaker Lee Leshen devised a gallery wall with around 40 collectibles from throughout his life—a screen print of Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in <i>Tombstone</i> done by Kilmer in 2021; a stunt cane used by the Riddler in <i>Batman Forever</i>; three of Don Draper’s business cards from <i>Mad Men</i>, and so many more bits from the movies and series he loves (he’s cataloged it all). — In the open living area of his West Village condo, filmmaker Lee Leshen devised a gallery wall with around 40 collectibles from throughout his life—a screen print of Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in *Tombstone* done by Kilmer in 2021; a stunt cane used by the Riddler in *Batman Forever*; three of Don Draper’s business cards from *Mad Men*, and many more bits from the movies and series he loves. (He’s cataloged it all.)
Photos by Em Cullum Photography, courtesy Lee Leshen

Once he saw what’s now his 1,000-square-foot condo with 14-foot ceilings in the same neighborhood, a new idea clicked: he’d build a 312-square-foot house inspired by a beloved movie house within the unit. He closed in 2022, and moved in 2023. Although the condo renovation was supposed to take just six weeks, it ended up lasting more like six months.

The "house" inside his condo is complete with real shutters and windows. A red front door on the lower level opens to a small closet full of shoes, and a set of stairs (carpeted with turf) leads to his lofted sleeping area and bathroom. There’s a mini balcony on the "facade" overlooking the kitchen; Lee put fake tulips and a white picket fence around it and decorated it with toy houses from Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story and a Lego Christmas tree. There’s even a political lawn sign. It feels a bit like a movie set.

<span style="font-family: Theinhardt, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;">Lee sits on the turf-covered stairs of the mini — Lee sits on the turf-covered stairs of the mini "house" within his condo.
Photo by Em Cullum Photography, courtesy Lee Leshen

It’s not a conventional use of the space, but Lee loves it. "I’ve talked about maybe one day, depending on how long I live here, taking down the siding and putting up something that looks more like a beach house, and then making it a summer house," he says. "But right now, everything works."

We talked to Lee about how he made his West Village condo accommodate a mini home inside of a home. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The turf-covered stairs of the mini — The stairs lead to Lee’s lofted bedroom. The wood paneling is an homage to his original vision of putting a tree house inside of the condo.
Photo by Em Cullum Photography, courtesy Lee Leshen

See the full story on Dwell.com: This Filmmaker Loves Movie Homes So Much, He Built a Mini One in His NYC Condo

The Bay Area Home of a Famed Experimental Physicist Just Hit the Market for $1.4M

Architect Donald Olsen drew inspiration from the Bauhaus as he designed this clean-lined midcentury set on a wooded Berkeley hillside.

Location: 775 San Diego Rd, Berkeley, California

Price: $1,425,000

Architect: Donald Olsen

Year Built: 1952

Footprint: 1,904 square feet (3 beds, 2 baths)

Lot Size: 0.4 acres

From the Agent: "At 775 San Diego Road, directly across from John Hinkel Park, the Kip House is one of the remarkable early residential works of Berkeley modernist Donald Olsen. Designed in 1952 for UC Berkeley physicist Arthur Frederic Kip, the house belongs to a formative moment in Olsen’s career, when the principles of European modernism, particularly the Bauhaus, were finding a new expression in California. Olsen embraced the Bauhaus’s emphasis on clarity, functional planning, and the elimination of unnecessary ornament. Those ideas would remain fundamental to his work, but in Berkeley they took on a distinctly Californian character: more open to landscape, more informal in their organization, and deeply responsive to climate and site. More than seventy years later, it is striking how modern the Kip House feels. Its clean geometry, expanses of glass, and remarkably fluid plan still read as contemporary. Olsen used the slope of the site to create a sequence of subtly changing levels. The approach leads to an intermediate level containing the kitchen and dining spaces. The kitchen opens directly to the dining room and continues outward into a secluded English garden. From this central level, the plan rises to a raised living room and study, while two of the bedrooms occupy the lower portion of the house. The Kip House makes the ideas of the past feel relevant today: open living, connection to landscape, efficient use of space, privacy without enclosure, and architecture that responds closely to its site."

The listing marks the second time the house will have changed hands since its construction in 1952. — A red balcony brings a pop of primary color to the home’s front facade.
Photo by Open Homes Photography

See the full story on Dwell.com: The Bay Area Home of a Famed Experimental Physicist Just Hit the Market for $1.4M
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