Dwell

10/20/2026

The architect specified a timber construction style that could be tweaked on the hard-to-access site.

Minqa atelier specified a timber construction style that could be tweaked on the hard-to-access site.

10/20/2026

A departure from the area’s grand villas, the bunker-like home sits above a stream on the edge of a wooded valley.

A departure from the area's grand villas, the bunker-like home by Lorenzo Guzzini Architecture sits above a stream on the edge of a wooded valley.

10/20/2026

Architect Miguel Rivera, his partner, and their two teenage daughters enjoy city life—but over time, the couple started looking for something different. “We’ve always liked the outdoors, the countryside,” says Miguel, who grew up in Puerto Rico, noting that his wife, who is from Colombia, spent her childhood summers on her grandparents’ dairy farm. “We were thinking it would be nice to have a piece of property where we could escape the city and be away from the noise, from the cars, from everything.” While searching for homes, Miguel’s firm, Miró Rivera Architects, was hired to design a house on 64 acres about 50 minutes outside of Austin. “One day the client said to me, ‘I don’t need all this land. Why don’t you buy some of it?’” Miguel recalls. “We made kind of an exchange and decided we could build two houses, one for him and one for me.” Now complete, the young family’s 2,250-square-foot home is a modular, steel-and-glass structure laid out in a simple grid pattern. The property is a registered wildlife management area, so Miguel tried to disturb as little of the site as possible, building around existing oak trees and installing a pier foundation to minimize concrete use, protect the house against flooding, and allow wildlife to continue traveling in its usual patterns. “I wanted to be very conscious about nature,” he says. “I wanted to build something that would just sit there, barely touching the land. When it rains, the water goes under, animals can go under, and you’re still respecting the environment.” See more photos: https://www.dwell.com/article/construction-diary-la-finca-home-miro-rivera-architects-texas-hill-country-72e2ca7f

10/20/2026

The company makes units tall enough to accommodate a head-height walkway.

Shaye's Tiny Homes make units tall enough to accommodate a head-height walkway, a copyrighted element they license out.

10/20/2026

“We opted to do a modular system where everything is the same,” says Miguel Rivera. “This is what we call a Hershey bar—you know, with the grid of small rectangles? We used six-foot modules.” See more: https://bit.ly/4k4DHZE

10/20/2026

Feeling the squeeze?

Feeling the squeeze? These cabinet rooms, storage walls, and sliding doors partition living and sleeping areas while eking out more space.

10/20/2026

After 30 years without a house, Jesse Brown found home.

Before moving into the Community First! Village outside East Austin, Jesse Brown spent 30 years without a home. Now he's giving feedback for the nonprofit development's second phase.

10/20/2026

The original steel that wraps the ’60s structure hides fresh pine interiors and energy-efficient features.

Original steel wrapping the '60s structure in Kansas hides fresh pine interiors and energy-efficient features.

10/20/2026

See where every dollar went:

An art studio and a Pilates space live in harmony in Annalisa Chasan's two-fold creative haven by Obata Noblin Office.

10/20/2026

A prefab construction style melds with stone ruins and environmentally friendly cladding.