2023 BALA Winners: The Best of the Best
You'll find plenty of inspiration in these four award-winning projects from the Best in American Living Awards
What Gen-Z Buyers Really Want in a Home
The fervor of planning for Millennials in the home building industry has now pivoted to Gen Z. So, what does this new generation want?
4 Luxury Production Home Designs to Inspire
Yes, these are designs for production homes, but you won't find any cookie-cutter repetitive elements in this high-end selection
The New American Home 2024: Modern Features, Timeless Comfort
Explore the design elements and unique, luxe details that combine to create a sense of comfort and relaxed indoor/outdoor living in The New American Home 2024
4 Inspiring Adaptive Reuse Projects With Real Impact
From former schools to warehouses, these adaptive reuse projects—winners in the 2023 Best in American Living Awards—succeed in creating new housing and revitalizing their neighborhoods
Kid-Friendly Home Design Four Ways
Do your ‘family’ homes really deliver great design for parents and their children? Here are four clever home design ideas that consider kids and adults alike
Used Textures
Appearing to be recycled from a building long exposed to the elements, Stone Mountain Brick Co. introduces four new veneer styles for its brick and stone. "Used textures" have a slightly worn face with a few random indentations in each brick surface. In sharp contrast, the fresh-looking wirecut style has blunt, uneven grooves that stretch vertically across the surface of each piece.
Color Your World
Brick remains a favorite building material for many home builders and home buyers. Surveys from the National Association of Home Builders show that 60 percent of American home buyers prefer brick homes. When asked, buyers also say they prefer variety in their neighborhoods. Yet the larger the development, the harder a builder must work to differentiate one home from another — not to menti...
Designing Granny Flats
Accessory units, or living spaces that are secondary to the main home, are enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Also called "granny flats," especially when located above a detached garage, these units have unique advantages for the builder and the buyer. (See Taking Granny (Flats) To Market, p. 179.) From a design point of view, builders should consider two main aspects: the site and the floor ...
From Fantasy to Reality
Some builders view the electronic gadgetry associated with home automation systems as part of a distant, hi-tech future. But for many others, the future is now. This third article on the PATH Concept Home (see sidebar) focuses on modern home automation systems. With its "disentangled" utilities, the Concept Home provides fewer impediments than traditional homes to installing and upgrading a hom...
Supreme Spec
For many high-end custom builders, selling spec houses is an alluring alternative to the hassles of dealing with well-heeled clients: Build what you want and sell it later...Of course, there's that catch. You have to carry the spec until it sells. Here's a Texas builder with some great ideas on how to market highly visible specs, and use the notoriety that brings to drive more custom clients to...
Equestrian Estate
Betting that this delightfully detailed 6,200-square-foot luxury home designed to resemble a classic New England carriage house, would place first in the hearts of affluent empty-nester buyers in his upstate New York market, custom builder John Witt created this one-of-a-kind spec-built model to launch Saratoga Farm, the first equestrian-oriented development to be built in Saratoga County.
Tight-Spot Townhomes
Urban redevelopment provides numerous opportunities to builders, particularly smaller ones, for whom a small lot can present a world of opportunity. Villa Carabelli Townhomes in Cleveland, for example, turned an underutilized 1.4-acre parking lot into 20 upscale, four-story townhouses. This was a unique lot and a unique development, because Alta House, a pillar of Cleveland's Little Italy neigh...
Surrounded by Nature
In Bothell, Wash., located near Seattle, builder CamWest Development created a Craftsman-style neighborhood set within nature — the North Creek Project. This eight-acre site consists of a collection of small homes on small lots at a density of 14.5 units per developed acre, for 33 units in all.
The Architectural Ensemble
The buildings in an architectural ensemble are like the instruments in a musical ensemble, sounding together to create a compelling whole. The harmonious outcome is more important than any individual part. The conscientious arrangement of buildings in concert with cars and landscape elements creates more than a place: it creates a world unto itself.
Building Science: Understanding Heat Flow
Never has a homeowner walked a model home and asked the salesperson about building science. New home shoppers expect that their new home automatically includes a living environment as comfortable as it is beautiful. Delivering on this expectation is building science. So what is building science? In this series we will answer that question in detail, but first let's begin with a definition: buil...
