Designed by Walker Warner Architects, this home takes cues from agricultural forms and the pastoral landscape of Woodside, California.

The house is quite large, and one of McCabe’s challenges involved

Located just north of Silicon Valley, Woodside is a peaceful, primarily rural town with large swaths of forested land marked by two-lane country roads and the occasional home popping up above the trees. For one growing family, it was the perfect spot to settle down.

While expecting twins, the couple sought to design and build a home that was casual, stylish, and functional—a place where their children could roam, and one that would be suitable for hosting large parties.

Read another article:Design Trends for Creating a Vacation Vibe at Home

“The site had been a small farm with a modest house on it, among a glorious grove of old towering oaks in gray and green. The wild grasses and flowers were taking over,” David Oldroyd says.

Photo: Matthew Millman

They purchased a three-acre plot dotted with 80-foot-tall oak trees, and quickly got to work with Mike McCabe of Walker Warner Architects. While it was undoubtedly a beautiful lot, the existing house exhibited “poor usage of space,” McCabe recalls. “The house was plopped right in the middle, making it hard to understand the full length and breadth of the site when you first arrive there.”

Read another article:Hot Trends: 20 Best Farmhouse Style Kitchens in White and Wood

Furthermore, it’s a heavily constricted piece of land with a flood zone and high ground water on one end. Laying the septic system and working around the existing oaks would prove to be challenging.

The house is quite large, and one of McCabe’s challenges involved

The house is quite large, and one of McCabe’s challenges involved “figuring out how to get this much house on the site without it feeling overwhelming, and still having it live small for the family day-to-day,” he says. 

Photo: Matthew Millman

Read another article:Revamped Small Barcelona Apartment Combines Multiple Styles and Finishes

The couple had slightly differing perspectives when it came to the architectural vision—one more contemporary, and the other more traditional. McCabe worked with interior designer David Oldroyd, owner and principal of ODADA, to figure out how to respond to those variables.

The dining room features custom wooden room dividers designed by ODADA, a Jason Gaidmore table, a Lindsey Adelman pendant light, and a Jason Giuntoli Custom Furniture credenza.

The dining room features custom wooden room dividers designed by ODADA, a Jason Gaidmore table, a Lindsey Adelman pendant light, and a Jason Giuntoli Custom Furniture credenza. 

Photo: Matthew Millman

See the full story on Dwell.com: A Tranquil Home Takes Root in a Glorious Grove of Oak Trees
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Waverley Residence

Designed for a young couple, the 5,000 sf home and 1,700 sf back house sit on a flat 21,000 sf lot in a 1920’s Palo Alto neighborhood (a few blocks away from Steve Jobs’ residence). The architecture is a study in strong simple composition and is museum-like with its highly refined materiality and emphasis on craft. The massing defines solid and void, captures natural light, and connects the indoors with the landscape, seeking to ‘experience the outdoors from within.’ The ground floor volumes wrapped in an elongated hand-fired brick from Denmark, emphasizing the horizontality of the architecture that lays solidly on the land. Bronze-trimmed ceiling planes slide between the brick masses, and floor-to-ceiling glazed openings are captured by thin-profiled bronze frames. In contrast to the grounded brick volumes, the second floor is clad in stainless steel panels and oversized aluminum-framed windows. The lightness and openness of the second floor is nestled among the oak-tree canopies of the site. At the basement level, a wine cellar and tasting room open to a sunken landscaped courtyard. A 30ft by 10ft continuous pane of glass runs alongside the grand stairwell of floating stone steps, connecting the three levels of the house. Due to the unprecedented size of this glass in residential design, it was custom manufactured in Germany and shipped to California. This dramatic moment in the sequence of progressing through the house helps visitors feel connected to the lush landscape outside. Inside the house, materials such as a custom leather door and bronze anodized details were selected for their unique craftsman-style quality. Another custom-designed element is the steel mesh screen that wraps around to enclose the kitchen for privacy, separating this from the more public “guest hosting” areas adjacent. The steel screen slides along a track embedded into the teak slatted ceiling and disappears into the pantry when retracted. A freestanding structure set deep back into the site is a zen-like fitness/yoga studio as well as a guesthouse with a kitchenette. This dramatic stone mass opens up completely in the center to give the impression of exercising outdoors. The landscape integrates California native plant species, grasses and trees to compliment the materiality of the architecture.

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Twin Peak House

Located between Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown and ‘The Remarkables’ mountain
range, the Twin Peak house draws inspiration from its wider landscape. This house was awarded the regional Winner and National Finalist of the 2019 ADNZ Architectural Design Awards. “The client’s brief was to design a beautifully simple home which was, functional,
energy efficient and flooded with natural light. The house had to be positioned to
capture the stunning Jack’s Point views” says Daniel Friedrich of DF Design – Sustainable Architecture, the Raglan based firm that designed it.