This beautiful ranch house is located between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. It has the feel of something you’d see in Montana on a large Yellowstone ranch. It’s very open giving great natural light. It is also extremely cozy and homey, a great place to be during the holidays. It also has a very country and cowboy feel but combines this with luxury and modernity. It has beautiful wooden floors and a great fire place that brings together the main living room. It has several decks that really combine the wilderness around with the warmth of indoor living.

Australian Architect Glenn Murcutt winner of the Pritzker Architecture prize in 2002, designed this home nestled in the wilderness with a unique property. The home itself is protected by zinc panels used to defend against potential wildfires. What’s also interesting is that this home was angled to preserve as much of the surrounding wildlife as possible.

This project, along with many others that Murcutt has designed, took a full decade to complete. Honestly, it was worth the wait because the character that the room above shows is hard to replicate. The home is surrounded by wilderness whilst having a modern interior makes it that more interesting to me.

Rick Joy is a renowned architect as well as the founder and principal of Studio Rick Joy. He is considered an important contributor to the ongoing global discourse on conceptual and sustainable architecture. His work here, the Amangiri Resort and Spa in Canyon Point, Utah, is an amazing mix of indoor luxury and outdoor beauty. It does an amazing job of incorporating the landscape into the beauty of the work. For any James Bond fans, it resembles the desert scene from the 2015 film Spectre. It seems like an amazing place to visit, relax, and temporarily forget about the pains of society. It creates such luxury in such a rugged and unforgiving yet beautiful landscape. It has a compound structure but rooms and facilities that are world renowned.

Completed in 2013, the campus features several buildings built by McNamara’s firm, Grafton Architects, but the building above is the main piece. Made of limestone to represent the “formal” aspect of a medical school, the colonnade acts as a gathering space as well as entry points. Like other buildings and structures that have been made by Grafton Architects, the roof features several glass windows, to let sunlight in.

Completed in 2006 in Navan, Co. Meath, Ireland, this building is one of McNamara’s finest pieces of work. The theatre features an organically contoured floor of 320 seats, making for a more intimate and dynamic experience for the audience. When looking down on the structure, from a bird’s eye view, the roof has a very unique pattern. Each groove and cutout allows for more light to shine into the building.

The Washington County Ranch is located in Washington, TX and is just short of 3000 sq. ft. It too has a solar roof, and was made as a sort-of last home for a geologist family. The beauty of nature and the country can really be seen, as the house is built in such a way as to offer the owner a great view of it. Again this project from Lake|Flato makes use of natural light and simple design to create an elegant display. Additionally, the wood use throughout the house and in the design itself is completed in such a way that the backdrop of nature is enhanced.

Canyon Preserve is a set of buildings in Austin, TX. The area is largely surrounded by forest land, which attribute to the natural ambiance of this site. Once more, Lake|Flato’s signature linear designs and flat rectangular roof can be seen. What’s special about this one, though, is that there are solar panels on top, which provide for 90% of the electricity. Like the school campus, rainwater is also collected and then used throughout the site.

This fascinating building is located in Sandringham, Australia was built in 2010. This does not look like the average police station. It has a contemporary look. It was built with the importance of being a community building. Security was still of the utmost importance when it was being built. It was made to be open and reflect natural light into the building. The building has glass operable panels as well. Overall, this building is truly a sight to see.

Steven Hall entered into a competition to make renovations for the Kennedy Center. He won the REACH competition and completed it in 2019. The entire cost ended up totaling $175 million and added 72,000 square feet in addition to rehearsal rooms, event spaces, and classrooms. Hall decided to make most of his additions underground as a way to not upstage the work of the previous architect. His additions were elegant and paid tribute to the 35th president. He made a memorial garden with 35 gingko trees. There are inspirational quotes emblazoned all over the complex from JFK and there is even a skylight pavilion that is half-buried.

Completed in 2015, in Lima, Peru the campus has been called the “new cliff” that continues the sea’s edge to the university’s ground. The campus structure does a good job of blending in with the surrounding structures, but also does an excellent job of standing out with its stacked and “cliff-like” build. The campus emphasizes being “involved in everyday life” as well as the “ethos of education”.