As we approach a new year, we’re looking back at the projects you loved most in 2025. These ten case studies, published online and in print, received the most views on ResidentialDesign.com. Did your favorite make the list? See the top projects that caught the eyes of fellow architects and designers below.
10. Wyoming Retreat by Hoedemaker Pfeiffer
“The site is within a few hundred feet of the riverbank, and during the snowmelt in early spring, it’s right in the middle of the flood zone for the runoff,” explains Bryan Chilcote, an architecture principal at the firm. Nonetheless, proximity to the river was the entire point of the project for the clients, who are avid fly fishing enthusiasts.
Photo: Gabe Border
9. Tetherow Overlook House by Hacker Architects
Distinctive geological formations often inspire great architecture, and that is true of the Tetherow house, set amid the dry volcanic landscape of Central Oregon. Its landforms are relatively new in geological time, having been created from lava flows as recent as 1,300 years ago.
Photo: Jeremy Bittermann Photography
8. Alma Switch House by Brooks + Scarpa
For their new home in Manhattan Beach, California, clients of the Los Angeles office of Brooks + Scarpa had the ideal request. “They really wanted light and air, which was right up my alley,” says Lawrence Scarpa, FAIA.
Photo: Tara Wujcik
7. House on the Park by Studio Dwell
On the outside, the restored Italianate house in the Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park looks as it did in 1885. That’s where all semblance of the original architecture disappears, lost over decades of innumerable renovations. “It was chopped up into three or four different apartments,” says Mark Peters, AIA.
Photo: Marty Peters Photography
6. City Park Residence by Alterstudio Architecture
“We are used to taking sow’s ears and turning them into silk purses,” says principal Kevin Alter. In the case of the City Park Residence, however, the assignment was to take silk and spin it into gold.
Photo: Casey Dunn
5. Double Island Cottage by Superkül
Given the difficulties of barging building materials to this remote destination, Superkül was a natural choice for the project. Although the firm’s portfolio ranges from single-family homes to high-rise buildings, they especially appreciate the challenges of keeping as much of the structure as they can on adaptive reuse and renovation projects.
Photo: Studio Shai Gil
4. Southcliff Residence by Harding Huebner
Step through the front door of this Harding Huebner–designed mountain house, and you might still feel like you’re outside. Through a glass wall in the entrance hall you can see the ferns and boulders that fringe a terrace and firepit at the center of this U-shaped house.
Photo: Keith Isaacs Photography
3. Courtyard House by Shipley Architects
There’s an eclectic quality to the home that Dan Shipley, FAIA, designed for empty nesters in a Dallas neighborhood. Its industrial overtones and simple parti are brought to life through intensive details, moody materials, and exuberant tile patterns.
Photo: Robert Tsai
2. Nauset Beach House by GOA Architecture
“They really wanted the house to feel like it was part of old Cape Cod vernacular, with huge roof forms and stark gable forms against the sky, and then also Modernist, with large panes of glass. We thought hard about the architectural history of that place, and the project developed from that.”
Photo: David Sundberg/ESTO
1. Cove House by Marcus Gleysteen Architects
Instead of the traditional gabled residences characteristic of the area, they wanted a modern home that was “in sync with their lifestyle, but also with the surrounding natural beauty of the site through fresh design, crisp detailing, and masterful craftsmanship.”
Photo: Trent Bell