The house itself would be covered in sheets of Corten steel, pre-weathered by their Kansas City fabricator. The roof and other exposed surfaces would also be metal. And the windows would be strong enough to withstand sustained 140-mile-per-hour winds, with gusts up to 200 miles per hour, a requirement in “high velocity hurricane zones” unless … Read more
In a place where most contemporary buildings are constructed of concrete and cooled via standard air conditioning units, Issoufou’s work demonstrates that traditional techniques and site-derived materials are not only better for the environment, but also a high-performance option for the people who will occupy them. Light-Touch Living in New Zealand “Māori, New Zealand’s indigenous … Read more
But at the moment it seems like more of a headache than a blessing to deal with nascent technology breaking, getting hacked—or worse, somehow going haywire and murdering your entire family. As a Gen X’er who often fears change (I never got a CD player and clung to my mixtapes till the bitter end), I … Read more
Weeks later, out of curiosity, I requested the transcripts of everything Sensi was recording in my father’s home. Reading his personal conversations, I suddenly felt like a spy, with the device as my silent conspirator. I’d pushed for the thing in the first place, but now I felt uneasy about it. My father, meanwhile, didn’t … Read more
After several exasperating Zillow searches through Portland, Oregon’s increasingly expensive housing market, Gaby Colón and Daniel Quebral scrapped their plans for a traditional home and embraced the open road, buying a 315-square-foot home on wheels. “Rent is crazy right now, and housing prices are even worse,” Colón says. “We just wanted to get out of … Read more
By chance, a few months before the 2019 Mississippi River flood, Wellenkamp learned about a new, little-known form of insurance that was quietly expanding in disaster-prone areas around the world—not a way to cover individual homes but a means to insure entire towns and ecosystems against calamities. It had started taking off in the farmlands … Read more
Another respondent is a 45-year-old pursuing a master’s program in Seoul, while her husband is an immigrant living in the US. “I’ve been too scared to return there because of ICE and immigration stuff—it’s way too risky, and neither of us want to be responsible for being vanished.” The Resident Who’s Bunking Down With Extended … Read more
The pair had already discovered a shared zeal for unusual homes and big projects. In 1982, they impulsively paid $8,000 for the bones of a dilapidated wooden tugboat. “The wood was so rotten, you could grab handfuls of the bulwarks with your bare hands,” Brand wrote in How Buildings Learn. The tugboat, named Mirene, was … Read more
The latest advances in lighting technology for the home are on display in these seven stately specimens. With color temperature sliders and LED lighting guides that create a diffuse glow, these lamps are able to set any kind of mood. They’re also designed to multitask; some are safe for use indoors and out, wireless models … Read more
There’s no place like home—even if it keeps changing. After all, the places where we reside in 2026 look remarkably different than they did even a few decades ago: the style and decor, the technology and appliances, and even the way houses are insured and protected from natural disasters. The external forces shaping our day-to-day … Read more