Something consistent runs through the homes being documented and shared across design media at the moment: restraint in structure paired with honesty about materials. Across renovated apartments, off-grid cabins, converted barns and compact urban flats, the same practical choices are appearing — untreated timber, salvaged stone, cast concrete, recycled cladding — and each one is arriving with a clear reason attached. These are not trend forecasts. They are decisions that owners, architects and designers have already made, and the cases below draw directly from documented projects.
Where Natural and Salvaged Materials Are Appearing in Homes
The clearest pattern across recent documented projects is a move away from applied finishes — paint, tile, plaster — toward surfaces that are left in or close to their original state. In one case cited by Dwell, a home interior uses locally sourced timber left unpainted and finished only with Danish oil on floors and touch surfaces. The owner, identified as Lev, states directly: “There’s no paint, no tiling, no plaster. The interior is just natural wood.” He also attributes the breathable interior to having cleared his asthma — a personal claim, not a medical finding.
The same impulse toward found and leftover material appears in a dining table documented by Dwell and attributed to NO Architects: the surface uses salvaged stone slabs, and the legs are bent TMT (Thermo-Mechanically Treated) bars. The sofa and built-in bench in the same home were made from leftover construction materials, resulting in what the project description calls “playfully mismatched upholstery.” A local artisan fabricated the piece to the architects’ drawings.
Terrazzo tile, once a mid-century staple, is reappearing as an entry-floor choice. One project documented on Dwell shows Ciot terrazzo tile covering the entry floor of a renovated home, mounted alongside a Nuvo sconce on smoked glass — a pairing that places a heritage surface material inside a more contemporary frame.
Old-growth redwood appears in two coastal California cabin renovations covered by Dwell: as the material for a built-in daybed (fabricated by Michael Mellon and Benjamin Winslow), a bathroom vanity and mirror, and inset wall shelving with a Japanese gouge texture. In both cases, the timber is matched with cast-concrete countertops and sinks, and fittings from California Faucets.
How These Material Choices Work in Practice
Several of the documented projects show how a single material palette, applied consistently, resolves the question of visual coherence across a whole home. In a Chilean house documented by Dwell, architect Daniel Iragüen describes the approach plainly: “The material palette is the same for the entire house” — porcelain tile floors, laminated pine ceilings and whitewashed pine slats forming the interior walls. A traditional wooden hot tub from El Tonel occupies an interior patio lined with the same whitewashed pine, making the bathing space read as part of the house rather than an addition.
In a São Paulo apartment renovated by FJ55 Arquitetos for residents Carolina Quevedo and Marcus Watari — a space that was previously a podcast studio — the decision to leave raw concrete ceilings, beams and pillars exposed, and to lay Tauari wood floors, creates a material logic that runs through the open living, kitchen and dining area. Freijó wood cabinetry, topped with large-format terracotta-coloured ceramic tile from Portobello America, continues the palette into the bathroom, where the sink is cast concrete from Konkrë Living Design.
For renters without the ability to alter walls permanently, one approach documented by Dwell involves command strips for hanging prints and mirrors. Kristabel Plummer, a 37-year-old content creator based in London, describes her decorating approach as “a multicultural mashup,” built from travel mementos, plants and prints accumulated over time. She notes that a large mirror held in place with command strips stayed up for five years — a practical data point for renters in similar situations.
Materials and Design Decisions Worth Looking at Closely
Across these documented projects, a few material and design decisions come up repeatedly and are worth examining individually.
Exterior Cladding: Eucalyptus-Composite and Zinc
One modest home documented by Dwell uses Weathertex panels — made from 97% eucalyptus woodchips and 3% paraffin — as exterior cladding, finished with a charcoal-coloured stain. The composition reduces the use of virgin timber and the paraffin content is cited as contributing to weather resistance, though the project notes that the charcoal stain was chosen partly to manage the appearance of future weathering.
In a different project, architect Barache selected zinc for a deformed-plane metal roof, describing the material’s malleability and the high skill level of the craftspeople who work with it as the deciding factors. Zinc ages to a matte grey patina and requires no painting, but it carries a higher initial cost than steel or aluminium and needs specialist installation.
Sculptural Staircases as Spatial Anchors
In a project attributed to architect Harikrishnan Sasidharan and documented by Dwell, the staircase was designed explicitly as a focal object: “We wanted it to stand out — like an art object in a gallery. Given the scale of the space, it became the key feature and adds drama to the space.” This approach — treating a functional element as the primary spatial statement — appears in several projects and reflects a broader move away from the idea that structure should disappear into the background.
Off-Grid Systems in Compact Cabins
A three-level cabin on Keats Island in British Columbia, Canada, documented by Dwell, operates entirely on solar power and includes an incinerating toilet and a rainwater collection and filtration system. The vertical cabin is compact in footprint but maximises floor area across its levels. The open-concept bathroom keeps sightlines unbroken to make the space feel larger, with a separate privacy door for the toilet. This package — off-grid systems, compact vertical plan, open interior — represents a design and infrastructure model that is appearing in remote residential builds.
Indoor-Outdoor Connection Through Structure
Two separate documented projects address the indoor-outdoor boundary through structure rather than decor. A single-level residence divided into three volumes (plus a garage), built in steel and stained and natural cedar, uses a sliding glass wall system at the back of the house so that the dining room opens directly to a surrounding forest — a specific client requirement, described as wanting to feel “outside in and inside out at all times.” A converted barn, separately documented, uses a triangular cutaway in the barn’s volume to create a transitional space between inside and outside while drawing natural light into the interior.
What to Consider Before Following These Approaches
The cases above document decisions that worked in specific contexts. Several carry conditions that do not automatically transfer to other projects.
- Untreated timber interiors require consistent humidity control and are harder to clean than painted or tiled surfaces. The health claim made in one project — that a breathable natural-wood interior resolved asthma — is one person’s reported experience, not a verified medical outcome. Consult a building biologist or clinician before designing around this assumption.
- Salvaged and leftover materials introduce variability in supply. A dining table built from scrap stone slabs and TMT bars, fabricated by a local artisan to architects’ drawings, is a one-off object. Replicating it depends on access to similar waste streams and skilled makers in your area.
- Off-grid systems (solar, incinerating toilets, rainwater filtration) carry upfront capital costs, ongoing maintenance requirements and local regulatory conditions. Not all jurisdictions permit incinerating toilets or treat rainwater collection as potable without formal approval. Verify local rules before specifying.
- Zinc roofing involves specialist trades and a higher material cost than standard steel or aluminium. Its performance depends on correct detailing at junctions and edges; poorly installed zinc roofs are susceptible to condensation damage from below.
- Remote site construction, as noted in the Kudoo project built on a two-cent plot 100 metres from the main road, can substantially increase cost because materials must be carried to site by hand. Budget uplift for access constraints before comparing a remote build to a standard suburban project.
- Renter modifications using command strips avoid wall damage but have weight and surface-type limits stated by the manufacturer. Results vary by wall material and humidity levels.
These approaches suit owners and designers who want their material choices to be legible — where the surface tells you what it is and why it is there. They require more planning at specification stage, more tolerance for variation in the finished result, and in some cases access to specialist trades or local makers. The cases documented here show that the results, when the constraints are understood from the start, tend to be both more durable and more distinctive than applied-finish interiors. The constraint worth naming honestly is that each of these projects was custom — none of them is a kit.
Illustrative photo: Timber Frame before peging.JPG by KnutHj / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0. Resized for display.
