It actually started 100 years ago.

That's when Sears, Roebuck & Co. the first catalog home, and not much has changed since. Today’s McMansions may be spacious, solid, and financially sounds, but they’re an outdated concept, given our diverse lifestyles and advances in technology.

You deserve better.
A home should be an extension of who you are, not just a roof over your head. So we asked a handful of architects to help us reinvent it. Their mandate: Create well-conceived spaces that fit how we live. We asked for generous, spacious layouts free of unnecessary frills, but loaded with smart features we didn’t realize we needed. We asked for homes that are kind to the environment and our bank accounts. We asked for homes that find the middle ground between modern and pedestrian.

We selected three firms,
assigning each a distinct region of the country based on the company’s strengths, previous work, and submitted proposal. We insisted that construction costs be capped near the average new-home price in each region; that the home be as green as possible, given the budget, materials, and microclimate; and that each be flexible enough to make either newlyweds or a family of six feel at home.

The architects delivered, and then some.
One shut off all direct light to the second floor to save energy. Another built a rainwater collection system that feeds an irrigation system, drinking-water reserve, and backyard pool. Another designed a renter’s apartment within the home to help defray mortgage costs. Together, their designs prove that thoughtful, intelligent architecture is not a pipe dream for the average American. The best part: None of these firms are too busy to turn down work (yet). And all of them want to turn these dreams into a reality—your reality.

The Perfect Home Challenge

We charged three architects with creating innovative, inexpensive, and exciting new home designs.

From the Editors of Men's Health Living

An urban oasis doesn't come cheap. The average single-family home in Brooklyn Heights, a choice outer-borough neighborhood of New York City, is worth $2.5 million, for example. So we asked for a smart design that would harness the privacy, efficiency, and flexibility of a row home.

SIZE: 3,000 square feet
BEDS/BATHS: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, plus a 1-bedroom, 1-bath rental unit
COST: $600,000 plus lot

Brendan Coburn’s Men’s Health Living dream home doesn’t just look great on paper. “I built this same house for myself 5 years ago,” he says. “But those 5 years taught me a lot—this plan shows what I’d change.” Coburn’s Brooklyn row house is a natural fit for him. The architect, who started his eponymous firm in 1995, grew up in another townhouse nearby, in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood.
“Row homes really are an incredible type of building,” he says. “They’re easy to work with, and they’re quite gracious places to live.” They’re also naturally energy efficient. “A row house is losing energy only through its two narrow facades,” Coburn says. “Unless it’s on the end of a block, it’s not losing energy on the sides.”
Coburn’s firm, which has designed for Francis Ford Coppola, Steve Buscemi, and other celebs, has a reputation for adding warm touches to more modern spaces, and for drawing out the character of the existing neighborhood in an all-new design. That knack for bridging the modern with the classic made Coburn an ideal firm to reinterpret the modern row house.
“One of the best parts of city life is that we live in smaller houses and smaller spaces,” he says. “That means a huge savings in both energy and construction costs.”

Become a landlord
Coburn added a rental apartment on the ground floor to keep the rest of the house contiguous. It could rent for between $1,700 and $2,500 a month at current market prices in Brooklyn—or 30 to 50 percent of the owner’s monthly mortgage payment, Coburn estimates. The tenant unit is connected to the house by a staircase with a secure door, so the homeowners can reclaim the space as their family grows.

Build a better skylight
Since row houses tend to be quite narrow—widths range from 12 to 20 feet—it’s important to capture any available light. “It’s a huge thing—that’s what gets you through the winter,” says Coburn. His team added a skylight above the center stairwell. Clear stair landings, made of tempered glass, allow the light to filter through to lower levels. On warm days, opening the skylight creates a convection cooling effect—cooler air is pulled through the windows on the first floor, and hot air is pushed out through the skylight.

Add shade without suffocating
In the summer, Coburn wanted to block direct sunlight but let the breeze into the home. His solution: a so-called brise-soleil, a metal exterior shading system popular in commercial building design. The metal slats block the sun but let the breeze though, and also add a modern touch to the home’s exterior. “It will make a huge difference in the summer,” Coburn says.

Bring the outdoors in
Most historic townhouses are built with heavy brick, making it difficult to integrate large windows without structurally reinforcing the building. The rear facade provides the lone opportunity for expansive views, especially in dense neighborhoods with privacy concerns. Here, Coburn used steel I-beams to support the rear facade, which allowed him to open up the back wall with thermally insulated glass. “It really opens you up to the garden,” he says, “which creates a connection to the natural world.”

Create spaces, not cells
Big, long rooms are inefficient in townhouses, says Coburn. “It’s more important to have more rooms than big rooms,” he says. In this narrow floor plan, each level has at least two rooms. He used the irregularly shaped spaces near the stairwell for offices or nurseries. But the design is flexible—rooms can be used for different purposes, or linked to create larger bedrooms.

Minimize construction costs
The cost of skilled labor has skyrocketed, especially in big cities. So the fixtures in Coburn’s home—door frames, hardware, cabinets—are kept uniform to control construction and labor costs. “The angles are straight and plumb, and I’ve avoided complicated assemblies of materials that local tradesmen are not familiar with,” he says. “Keeping the design simple and flexible makes the house easier to build.”

Cut corners smartly
Complicated systems also add cost. So Coburn limited the number of bathrooms to one per floor, stacking them one above the other to reduce the footage of piping. And for a house this size, wiring alone can top $40,000. But Coburn reduced the number of electrical outlets, removed the entire phone system, and avoided unnecessary Ethernet jacks and other pricey add-ons. This cut costs by $150 per switch or outlet, for an overall savings of more than $6,000.

Add green to your roof
Homes lose heat the same way humans do: through the head. That’s why Coburn used a sod roof to act as a natural, nonchemical form of insulation. He also installed a rainwater collection system on the roof, which funnels water through inexpensive PVC piping to the garden below. “In addition, the roof will retain some rainwater until it evaporates,” says Coburn, “taking some load off the municipal sewer system and cutting down on the energy used to treat storm and wastewater.”

 
 Find your lot for life                               

Ferreting out a vacant city lot—or even a dilapidated house to tear down—for a project like Coburn’s can be a slog. “You have to keep your eyes and your mind open,” says Susan Wachter, Ph.D., a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania. You also have to . . .

Be creative
Lots don’t have to be dirt and stones. Parking lots, old stores, and shuttered municipal facilities can all be repurposed. The key is finding a lot or building that has fallen behind the rest of the area. If location is your top priority, cruise your desired neighborhood for properties in disrepair, says John McIlwain, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute. Then find the owners through the county’s recorder of deeds and ask whether they’d consider selling.

Look local
Local real-estate agents and housing Web sites can help with your search. The blog Brownstoner.com, for instance, covers Brooklyn real estate, logging many of the 10,000 open parcels in the borough. “Handyman’s special” listings on Craigslist.org can also provide leads on lots with bulldozer-bound houses. And cities hold tax-forfeited and foreclosure auctions that can yield a bargain if exact location is less important. We asked regional experts to help us find examples of prime land ready for a new house, and ranked each area in two categories: difficulty of finding a lot, and quality of the average available lot. Then we looked for actual lots. Here’s what we found.

Difficulty: X  Quality: +

Brooklyn
xxxxx +++
Much of Brooklyn has historic protection, leaving few desirable lots or demolition-worthy homes. We found a lot in an upscale section for $545,000. But in hard-to-reach and less-desirable neighborhoods, 2,000-square-foot lots go for about $200,000.

Denver
xx +++
Denver’s old-city district, the Highlands, is packed with dated bungalows many new homeowners are tearing down. We found a teardown on a 6,250-square-foot lot for $360,000; demolition costs would add another $10,000.

Houston
xx ++++
We found a 10,000-square-foot lot on the first highway loop around Houston in Bellaire, another area with older homes turning over into new developments. Cost: $167,000.

Los Angeles
xxxxx ++++
We found a 5,600-square-foot lot in the city’s historic Hermona district, a restful area just outside the chaos of downtown. The $300,000 price tag includes permits for a 1,500-square-foot house.

Philadelphia
xx ++
There are few desirable places to build in Center City—all the action is to the north. We found a 17-foot-wide lot for $60,000 in Roxborough, a neighborhood near young, hip Manayunk.

Phoenix
xxx +++++
We found a 7,500-square-foot lot just north of downtown, in a neighborhood marked by citrus trees and older housing stock ready to be torn down. Cost: $250,000.   

—MATT ALLYN

Check out the modern pavilion