Dezeen Magazine has unveiled its monthly selection of the most outstanding residential architecture projects featured in September 2025, highlighting five exceptional homes that showcase innovative design approaches and sustainable building practices. The curated list includes a mass-timber lakehouse designed by architects for their own family, a thoughtfully renovated Seattle home for an elderly parent, and three other remarkable residential projects spanning from Australia to Spain.
Leading the selection is CLT House in New York's Hudson Valley, designed by nArchitects founders Eric Bunge and Mimi Hoang as a sustainable retreat for their family. The lakehouse features an irregular boxy structure constructed from mass timber and clad in live-edge cedar siding, situated on a wooded lakefront site. The architects created this nature retreat specifically for themselves and their two teenage children, emphasizing environmental sustainability throughout the design process.
From Australia, architect Jos Tan's Melville project demonstrates thoughtful urban integration in Melbourne. The compact rectangular home is wrapped in pale bricks designed to blend seamlessly with neighboring buildings. The street-facing facade incorporates tall, narrow openings, while the rear features a sliding glass door that connects the kitchen and dining areas to a garden patio, creating a seamless indoor-outdoor living experience.
In Seattle, Best Practice Architecture completed Lil Shingle, a renovation project that holds special significance as it was designed by a studio principal for her own mother. The 1950s house underwent extensive renovations, including replacement of the original wood framing and addition of a small extension containing a mud room. The exterior received a fresh appearance with scalloped cedar shingles and cheerful baby blue accents on the doors, transforming what was once a run-down property into a welcoming home.
Australia's Studio Bright contributed Hedge and Arbour House, a single-story Melbourne residence designed to harmonize with the surrounding bushland. The project features innovative metal screens that support deciduous climbing plants, creating natural shading for the interior spaces during summer months. The interior showcases exposed solid-face blockwork walls, maintaining an honest material palette throughout the living spaces.
Rounding out the selection is Barcelona House by UK-based Ström Architects, which draws inspiration from California's iconic modernist Case Study Houses. The Spanish residence features a fully glazed corner that overlooks the Balearic Sea, with the lower level partially buried into the sloping site. The upper level houses expansive living spaces that open directly onto an infinity pool, creating dramatic views and seamless connections to the Mediterranean landscape.
These five projects represent diverse approaches to contemporary residential design, from sustainable timber construction and urban infill housing to landscape integration and modernist-inspired coastal living. Each project demonstrates how architects are addressing current challenges in housing design while creating distinctive spaces that respond to their specific contexts and user needs.
