Marco V. Morelli says his Studio Shed is the perfect refuge. “It’s changed my life for the better,” he says. “I’ve gotten so much more work done, and I think my marital relations are much better because I have a place of my own.”

A private terrace overlooks an alleyway on the main floor’s southeastern end. “[The home’s] outdoor spaces are all to varying degrees extensions of interior space,” Schaer says.

When Alex or Bruce leave the island, closing up shop is as simple as sliding panels of corrugated metal into place to protect the windows.

“Durability drove the selection of metal panels,” Schaer says of the home’s industrial exterior. Manufactured by AEP SPAN from corrugated cladding, it looks like zinc but costs significantly less. It also contrasts nicely with the natural siding and trim. “All of the wood inside and out is Douglas Fir, the predominant wood species in the northwest,” Schaer explains.

The two-tone corrugated metal cladding helps the sheds blend into the landscape, along with windows custom-colored by the manufacturer to match.

Rough-sawn plywood and standing-seam metal siding clad the house. “In cabins, we like to use undressed materials, which lend themselves to the simplicity of the structure,” says architect Tom Lenchek.

Corrugated siding usually used for roofing is used for the exterior.

“I suppose you could consider me part of a subculture who lived in various inner-city spaces,” says Simpson, whose previous homes include ad hoc spaces in industrial warehouses, floors of office buildings, and units above shops and bars. In designing his Island Bay home completely from scratch, he retained his experimental spirit: “We wanted a house that responded to our wider social, environmental, and economic concerns rather than something that blindly followed convention,” he says. Unassuming in sight, the home’s corrugated-metal cladding (above) recalls the tin shed, a vernacular housing type in the region.

The main living area is flanked by green spaces, with custom sliding doors made from materials sourced from a metal warehouse. The ceiling is corrugated sheet metal, a “common and cheap but noble” construction material, Teresa says.

A view of the ipe-and-steel bridge from the main house to the annex.

Architects Tiffany Bowie and Joe Malboeuf’s Capitol Hill, Seattle, infill project was completed for $189 per square foot. Its street-facing facade is clad in prefinished siding from Taylor Metals, and cedar shaped and cut with CNC technology. The couple was inspired by the porthole windows of the Maritime Hotel in New York City, one of their favorite buildings.

Zinc corrugated roofing was used to cover the shelters, providing shade and preventing rain from collecting and causing structural deterioration.

Inspired by the small scale of Japanese residences—in particular, Makoto Masuzawa’s 1952 Minimum House—architect Andrew Simpson designed his own economical 538-square-foot home set into a wooded site in Island Bay, a coastal suburb outside Wellington, New Zealand.

The screen porch serves as an auxiliary dining area and extends past the house to capture views and cross breezes.

Carport doors swing open to the alley outside of the studio, where the property extends enough for additional landscaping. The corrugated steel siding comes from a surplus from a nearby apartment building. “There’s a lot of urban infill potential in Seattle’s neighborhoods,” Wittman remarks. “We’re catching up to older, denser cities in this regard.”

The Master Bedroom shed is surrounded by a covered cedar porch. Two 12' walls of sliding glass converge at a corner to visually and physically connect the room to the outdoors. The roof overhangs and porches offer exposed wood rafters and beams. The cedar rafters, beams, and posts as well as the stone walls complement and "warm up" the corrugated metal siding.

For a cost-conscious 2,000-square-foot renovation located 30 minutes outside of Austin, Texas, architect Nick Deaver took a look around for inspiration. He spied galvanized metal cladding on the region’s sheds and co-opted the inexpensive, resilient material for his own design.

The gabled addition is topped with a standing seam metal roof and is clad in vertical corrugated metal siding.

view from the east

view from the driveway to the east

Architect Jayna Cooper had never designed a house before, much less played general contractor, when she broke ground on her new home in the middle of Los Angeles in 2009. After a grueling four months of hands-on work—managing subcontractors, sourcing materials, driving the front loader—she moved in. With a façade made of corrugated sheet metal, Cooper walks us through her completed home and reveals what it took to make this $200-per-square-foot abode a reality.

"The cedar siding is simply stained with a black semi-transparent oil stain [from Cabot], which allows the color of the wood to still emerge through,” architect Robert Hutchison says. “We love how the black color makes the building recede into the background, and how it in turn allows the trees on the site to emerge as the highlight.”

The 925-square-foot house Maggie Treanor calls home blends into the landscape somewhat; with a galvanized steel shed roof and siding, it looks like a high-design little brother to the barns on the surrounding farms.

“The use of corrugated metal “was a very cost-effective cladding solution that pays homage to the metal-clad warehouse buildings in Lawrenceville,” Moss says, “but it does so in a manner that matches the scale of most of the lap-siding homes in the area.” The windows are mostly standard sizes from Pella.

view of entry

Preservation Props Since the house is in a historic district, Beebe and Skidmore’s interventions were constrained by local guidelines, including a stipulation that the walls of the addition couldn’t line up with the walls of the existing house. They bumped the walls in by five feet on either side and painted the addition, clad in siding from Capital Lumber, a color complementary to the original building’s deep, bright blue. “A guy from Boise’s preservation office came by and said, ‘This is a perfect example of how we’d like people to build additions,’” says Dana. “We were pretty proud of that.” beebeskidmore.com capital-lumber.com

Australian firm Carterwilliamson Architects converted a 19th-century cow shed into a residence that implements passive heating and cooling principles. "Our clients share a vision for gregarious family life which is reflected in their home. The spaces are truly ‘open plan. Each room is connected to the others and to the sunny, green courtyard that acts as a natural extension of the living spaces," says firm principal Shaun Carter.

The two-tone corrugated metal cladding helps these Kansas City camping sheds blend into the landscape, along with windows custom-colored by the manufacturer to match.

The annex "lanai" opens up to the deck for indoor/outdoor living.

"You don’t think of maintenance as a sustainability issue, but it is," says Swatt, who points out that most exteriors require stain, paint, or sealant for upkeep, unlike the corrugated metal used for their prefabs which is virtually maintenance free.

Sherman’s friend Anna Chang prepares tea in the kitchen. The range is by Wolf. Walls are coated with parging, a type of concrete made with sand instead of gravel—-more typically used in an industrial context.

“From the street, it appears as a rectangular building with sloping shed roofs, but this is actually an illusion,” Hutchison notes. “The floor plan is actually U-shaped, wrapping around an entry courtyard that is contained by the continuous west facade.” A standing seam metal roof by Custom Bilt Metals blends in with the cedar siding.

Located just off the kitchen, this room was originally designed for dining—the adjustable Ligne Roset Crescendo coffee table can be raised to 28.75 inches—but most days Bill and Abbie prefer to eat outside or at their casual Caesarstone-topped kitchen island. Today the space serves as a sunny reading spot and guest room, with a convertible futon (from Ligne Roset, since discontinued) and a set of leather-and-steel Paulistano armchairs from Design Within Reach.

The facade is clad with beveled siding, stained dark to meld into the forest.

Harper sits on the porch just off the entrance. James notes that the children spend their time “swimming in the dam, feeding the chickens, and riding their ponies or bikes. It’s really just the simple stuff that we had when we grew up in the late ’70s and ’80s."

Claire and Ken Stevens approached architect Ko Wibowo to create a modern addition to their 1970s home in Tacoma, Washington. The couple’s needs had changed since Ken was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few years ago.