Meadow House
California
A family house of 2023 in the Santa Lucia Preserve, a conservation community in California's Carmel Valley where ninety per cent of the land is protected, no tree may be removed, and every building must be nearly invisible from the roads and trails. So the house keeps out of its own meadow: a Z shaped plan pushed to the field's edge, wrapped around the old oaks, clad in weathering steel and cedar that take the colours of the country around it.
The clients, a multigenerational family with ties to Korea, asked for a Californian home with a Korean heart, so the house borrows from the hanok: deep verandahs, entrances facing the sun, soft light arriving from several directions. The room in this picture sits at the tip of the living pavilion, a sunken lounge whose doors retract fully onto a deep terrace behind cedar battened screens, and the three levels join by ramps rather than stairs so the family can age in place. The house took merit awards from AIA California and AIA San Francisco in 2024.
Mark English Architects
A five-person San Francisco practice founded in 1992 by Mark English, a Bay Area native who studied at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and in Florence. The work is residential, with an emphasis on sustainable building that is sensible, flexible and built to last.
Architecture Mark English Architects (@markenglisharchitect). Interior design Mark English Architects and Living Axis. Landscape @arterralandscapearchitects. Construction Portola Valley Builders. Photography @joefletcherphoto. Featured in @thelocalproject. Seen via @heathersandyhebert.
The picture comes from this post on Instagram.
Researched August 2026. I credit each piece as carefully as I can; if you know more about this one, message me on Instagram.