Windows

A more narrow window focuses the eye on tree trunks, creating an “abstracted view of the landscape,” says the firm.

The house was designed to minimally interfere with the hilltop vegetation, which is what attracted the family to the site.

The living room has views of the veranda and kitchen through sliding glass doors.

Greenway Studio designed this home addition In Victoria, British Columbia, to blend in with an existing natural rock formation.

The rock outcropping in the backyard of this house in Victoria, British Columbia, influenced the design of the home’s addition.

Skylights throw pink and yellow tones across the 850-square-foot unit’s stepped ceilings. “With small spaces, we try to play with clerestory windows, skylights, and ceilings. It makes the architecture feel spacious, almost as though it’s levitating.”

The sophisticated white motif of this bathroom capitalizes on its natural light.

“I wanted it to look good from everywhere because the whole canyon can see it,” Steven says of the gleaming cube sitting on his property that he’d hoped to spend $70,000 to build. “I just stopped counting at some point,” he admits, referring to the blown-out budget.

The original owners made the shoji panels themselves, and John and Erik replaced the rice paper. “There’s something special about knowing the screens were made by hand,” Erik says.

"The primary suite is magical, complete with a dressing room, a bath with an antique copper bathtub, and a stone fireplace, all perched above a year-round stream meandering through the rocks underneath it,

“There’s confusion that the more expensive the design is, the more of a luxury it is. But expensive materials do not make the design,” Edna says.

The couple replaced all the windows with solid mahogany windows from Duratherm, a local Maine company.