In the 1950’s, Marcel Breuer began work on a master plan for the Benedictine monastic community at Saint John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville. During the subsequent twenty years, Breuer designed ten buildings that were to be constructed largely of cast-in-place concrete.

The majority of the projects were completed, but an important part of Breuer’s master plan – the Abbey Guesthouse – was never designed. One of the 17 recipients of the 2009 AIA Housing Awards, this elegant project pays tribute to Breuer's original master plan.

“Collaborative and Enlightening” describes the 3-year effort by Coates Design's Matthew and Ruth Coates in designing and building their first home. Located on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle Washington, the architect couple’s endeavor was a true team effort that included design, contracting, and labor toward the finished product. The couple’s sweat-equity is evident in the home’s site-milled siding, movable casework, and concrete countertops.

Located in South Park Seattle Washington, this project by Seattle based Pb Elemental Architecture was completed in May 2008. It includes 3 units total approximating 900 sq ft each.

The long, thin site of 3720 sq ft consists of 3 homes – one singular home and one duplex in the rear of the site. With an emphasis on height, the homes are unique in design and space planning. 

While the duplex homes have identical floor plans, the separate home (pictured here)is a tri-level home that differ in space and planning.

The Whistler Cay Residence is a 5000 sq. ft. single-family home located in one of Whistler's oldest residential neighborhoods, with spectacular views of Whistler, Blackcomb, and other surrounding mountains.

The design incorporates the vernacular materials of the typical Whistler mountain home, and applies them with a contemporary language, using clean and simple gestures that are at once bold yet subtle. The extensive use of wood, primarily Douglas fir and Red cedar, provides warmth and context in the mountain environment, as well as continuity between interior and exterior.

The Openhouse is embedded into a narrow and sharply sloping property in the Hollywood Hills, a challenging site that led to the creation of a house that is both integrated into the landscape and open to the city below.



Retaining walls are configured to extend the first floor living level into the hillside and to create gardens on two levels. The front, side and rear elevations of the house slide open to erase all boundaries between indoors and out, connecting the spaces to gardens on both levels.

The Silverman Residence, juxtaposed in a non-descript neighborhood in Scottsdale, Arizona renders itself as architecture.

Upon approach, the street side façade (North Elevation) is a composition of white stucco finished volumes which are unified by a cantilevered steel structural element painted black. The steel element comprises an entrance canopy to the North and a balcony to the South that overlooks a lap/reflecting pool, as well as, the man made lake of which the neighborhood surrounds.

Upon entering the residence, a soaring volume is immediately encountered providing views to both the lower and upper level of the residence. The only demarcation between the two levels is a simple glass railing, creating a spaciousness not normally introduced into residential construction.

All photographs courtesy of Bill Timmerman

Inspired by his experimental design work in the late 1960s as an undergraduate at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Michael Jantzen decided to re-examine the potential use of certain readily available agricultural building components in the creation of alternative housing systems.

The Homestead House is a conceptual design for alternative housing that explores the potential use of a commercially available steel, prefabricated, modular, high strength, low cost, arch building system normally used for agricultural purposes.

Continuing our feature of the recipients of 2009 AIA Housing Awards with this project, located on a remote ranch in far West Texas in the vicinity of Big Bend National Park, 26 miles from the nearest town.

The owner desired a retreat that was economically and quickly constructed, which would cause a minimal impact on the chosen building site. Recycled shipping containers were chosen as the primary building component for their compact size and ready availability.