Roof

The roofs’ concave and convex forms are elegantly layered and integrated into the home's forested setting.

Viewed from above, the home wraps around itself and is folded around a small central courtyard. The roof sections overlap in an organic way, giving the home its name: Four Leaves.

The home is made up of four gabled forms: the main house—with an attached master bedroom suite in its own distinct volume (on the left)—an artist studio, and an attached three-car garage.

The exterior walls of Casa Quinta da Tília are painted the same color as the tin roof finishing, which is made from local Japanese cedar wood. The broad skylights in architect Pedro Maurício Borges's design not only draw in the wonderful Azores sunshine, but also frame the majestic, parasol-like crown of the linden tree.

Helsinki-based company Pluspuu offers 11 customizable models of modern log homes and sauna cabins that start at $18,000.

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Emilio Fuscaldo sits in the garden outside the brick house that he designed for himself and his partner, Anna Krien, on a small subdivided lot in Coburg, a suburb north of Melbourne, Australia. Photo by Nic Granleese.

The home's roof deck offers stunning city views.

With just one side window, there was insufficient light and air in the center of the house. As a remedy the couple installed a custom Rollamatic retractable 24-by-7-foor skylight.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, food scraps and yard waste make up 20 percent of what we throw away. Composting organic materials keeps them out of the landfill, which cuts down on greenhouse gases, and enriches the soil. To compost at home, make a pile in your backyard, or introduce an indoor bin for throwaways like apple peels and eggshells.

Aerial view of house with roof deck

Large wood third-floor roof deck

The home’s board-and-batten siding is black-stained pine punctuated by Jeld-Wen windows. Scaly Mountain, North Carolina Dwell Magazine : September / October 2017

OUTrail House by Polish architectural practice KWK PROMES has a basement level that was “carved out” of a piece of the grass-covered site, and its roof turned into a green atrium that blends in with it’s grassy surroundings.

The sloped roof of Carlton’s art studio grows a colorful mix of sedum species.

The home is embedded in a hillside with five feet of soil above it. In addition to blending the structure into the landscape, the surrounding earth provides natural insulation.