Toby Orton

In a clearing at the plateau of a steep hillside in the Ecuadorian Andes, Casa 29 is stretched out across the landscape, its low, horizontal form backdropped by thick pine forest. Looking out over the dramatic slope, incredible mountains rise in the distance above the city of Cience. Taking its place on the route to the sacred Guagualzhumi mountain, this family home by architects estudio29 responds to the topography with a cantilevered design, which reduced the need for intense work on the ground, while directing attention towards those magical horizon views.

Instead of taking a classic and overhauling it, the renovation of architect Vilanova Artigas’ 1956 Muxarabi House by Ana Sawaia Arquitetura chose to embrace the qualities that defined the home. While the Sao Paulo, Brazil

A house transformed: years of layered updates and additions were embraced in order to turn this Kyoto building into something both classic and new. Set in the city’s Shimogyo Ward, House Tenjin gives new life to an early Showa-era machiya, transforming the traditional townhouse into a micro hotel, enhancing the architectural elements that made it such a special building.

In Rio de Janeiro, the discovery of a wall of Portuguese tiles directed the design of this 36-square-metre apartment. The architects, Atelier Glushko, sought to salvage and incorporate the original ceramics, which dated back to 1955, with their decorative, historic presence chosen to become the jumping off point for the transformation of a tired, unloved property into a compact, loft-like home.

Moving into a vacant plot in a neighborhood on Milwaukee’s Lower East Side, Curtain House by Johnsen Schmaling Architects adds a contemporary profile to a row dominated by the points of the pitched roofs of the historic homes beside it. Standing out from the rest of the block, the home stands between two century-old homes on land that sat empty for decades.

For the Dyes Inlet House, Shed Architecture sought inspiration from the Swedish archipelago and its traditional farmhouses for this new waterside home in Washington. Drawing on the simple forms of the Scandinavian structures, the home was designed around accommodating extended family, providing spaces suited to long-term, later-life comfort, and, of course, maximizing the location’s sweeping views of the water.

The verticality of exposed timber beams provides a decorative, functional aesthetic on the exterior of this renovated1930s brick house in Toronto, with the use of wood continued throughout the interiors. The C+C House was designed by Studio Maignan Architects, whose remodel and renovation transformed the home, creating new voids that pulled daylight deep into interiors that were opened up for contemporary family life.

Taking the remnants of an outstanding building that sat unloved and unused, architects Vrtical created a contemporary concrete building that utilized the bones of the old structure and significantly increased its visual impact, turning it into an extraordinary corner house. The renovation took the old home as a starting point, then deviated from its footprint significantly. The design used the original foundations and walls, adding to them with new plans that deliberately left a noticeable line between the old and the new elements.

Working on behalf of famous clients in the music business, Michel Architects updated an iconic mid-century residence in Los Angeles, delivering on a brief that called for a home that could readily switch between work and leisure. Poised in the hills above the city, with amazing canyon views, the 1959 De Jonghe Residence by Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright Sr.) was carefully restored with an approach that favored a series of quiet interventions over any grand, dramatic transformation.

Tucked away in a verdant part of São Paulo’s Alto de Pinheiros neighborhood, this 1978 Brutalist residence is an architectural icon, its bold lines, material choices, and interiors showcasing the skills of architect Ruy Ohtake. A legend of Brazilian modernism, his masterful balance of color, texture, material, and form stood him out as one of the greats. Decades on, this house was recently updated by his own son, architect and designer