Homes Where Views Are the Main Event

See how six architects designed homes to frame the landscape.

When given the opportunity, many architects seek to center incredible views as the foundation of their designs. Homesites situated on elevated terrain invite dramatic views of their surroundings. With views like a painting or performance, windows and doors can frame the landscape’s artistry and invite audience participation.

“Focusing and framing views are a central job function of an architect, and so the structure of the house should reinforce that idea of how windows not only bring in light, but they frame views,” says Warren Lloyd of Lloyd Architects.

Going a step further, a window or glass door — from size and placement to profile — can shape relationships with what’s beyond the walls. Windows act as arbiters of the indoor-outdoor connection that homeowners increasingly desire, creating transparency between internal and external spaces. It’s from this perspective that we are sharing some of our favorite residential designs where windows and doors not only frame views and landscapes but invite exhilarating multi-sensory experiences.

Categories

Remodel

Location

Utah
New York
California
Arizona
Texas

This glass encased dining room opens to the countryside, providing beautiful views during mealtimes.

An Interplay of Light and Texture

Refuge, comfort, and safe haven: These are the words clients used to describe how they wanted their new Kamas, Utah, home to feel. Architect Warren Lloyd of Lloyd Architects took on their challenge and created a home with walls of nearly floor-to-ceiling windows occupying most of the residence’s west-facing façade. This allowed unfettered mountain and valley views to become part of the home. Interiors of layered neutrals, sensory textures, and natural materials soften and diffuse these welcoming light-filled living spaces.

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Like A Work of Art

Avid art collectors sought a custom home worthy of their collection in Westchester County, New York. Carol Kurth of Carol Kurth Architecture + Interiors conceived a residence with a gallery-like feel that blends with the lush outdoors. On the first floor, a natural stone facade grounds the home’s modern exterior with ceiling-height windows to bring in natural light. Sliding-glass doors and fixed windows feature slim profiles for open sightlines planned specifically for the sculpture-studded landscape.

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Windows and doors throughout this home frame works of art, making them the central focus in every room.

Bringing picturesque ocean views in through a sliding glass door create a tranquil place to sleep by letting in natural light and ocean breezes.

California Coastal Dreaming

When you live on the coast, a beach and ocean view should be the main event. This Santa Barbara, California, remodel by Allen Construction mingles California coastal vibes with classic mid-century architecture. Custom doors and windows offer panoramic Pacific Ocean views in each room and multiple opportunities to access the outdoors.

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A San Francisco State of Mind

Living is easy in this remodeled Spanish revival home in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood. Enhancing the home’s views of the bay, Alcatraz, and the city’s famous hills were top of mind for the team at Taylor Lombardo Architects. A multi-slide pocket door opens to a cozy yet modern outdoor retreat. The second floor’s bi-fold door nearly spans the entire width of the residence that connects to a large deck with beautiful views.

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City-living often means little opportunity for views but implementing a sliding glass door in this bedroom allows the city to become the view.

Views of desert landscape and distant mountains become painting-like with this casement window.

Blurred Boundaries in the Desert

This remodeled Phoenix home is quite literally nestled in the Camelback Mountains. Principal architect Calvin Costello of The Ranch Mine reimagined this once Spanish colonial home into a modern desert oasis that takes every advantage of its perch overlooking the city skyline. An addition brings the home’s exterior to the mountainside to create an intimate relationship with the terrain. Multi-paneled windows and sliding glass doors frame wide-open views of a blue desert sky and ochre landscape, and allow easy outdoor transitions to a covered deck and patio. Complementing these grand views, Costello ensure that even smaller spaces allowed a peek at the landscape.

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Captivating Corners

Clark Richardson Architects took this Austin, Texas, home down to the studs so their clients could enjoy hillside and Lake Austin views from nearly every room. Transparency between inside and outside is a key feature of the new design, unifying the floor plan and allowing the interior to feel larger despite the constraints of eight- and nine-foot-tall ceilings. A glass-hinged door and floor-to-ceiling window panels pull sightlines into the home and centers views on the hills beyond. Window walls and a 90-degree configuration of multi-sliding glass doors create an exhilarating connection to the deck and pool area, while drenching the living room and kitchen in natural light. Fixed windows in the dining area treat the landscape as a piece of art.

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