Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: São Paulo, Brazil

Architect: Studio Papaya / @studio.papaya

Footprint: 312 square feet

Photographer: Arthur Duarte

From the Architect: “Located between Augusta Park and Roosevelt Square in the center of São Paulo, the CP Apartment sought to create a multifunctional environment suited for the client’s range of daily activities. The 312-square-foot space had a sliding door and window separating the living area and the bedroom, which we demolished in order to create one unified space. The apartment is now flexible with the introduction of hybrid furniture, which provides a range of uses.

“The custom furniture is made of freijó wood, detailed with light green laminate and black painted metal. In collaboration with designer Laura Garcia, we created a collection of unique handmade objects including a retractable bed, a sliding desk that is also a TV cabinet, and a set of folding table and chairs. Thus, the apartment can be reorganized and transformed into a bedroom, a living room, a dining room, a TV room, a home office, or even in a space for exercising and contemplation. With the intention of giving each area in the apartment its own personality, we designed the floors with different finishing materials: tauari hardwood for the sleeping area, hydraulic tiles for the kitchen area and balcony, terrazzo slabs for the bathroom, and yellow epoxy paint in the shower.

“Despite the limited size of the apartment, the project creates the possibility of multiple uses in order to optimize the footprint. This amplitude, achieved by focusing on the furniture and its functions, met and expanded the possibilities desired by the client, as well as provided a reflection on dwelling in large urban centers and the role of design. With the desire to live in a central area of the city, which comes with high density and high price per square foot, shifting the perspective on the real necessities of living was an essential part of the project.”

For architect Eva-Marie Prineas, founder of Studio Prineas, repeat clients are more than friendly faces—they represent the rare opportunity for expression that comes with deep trust and a shared vision. When a young Sydney couple expecting their first child reached out to Prineas for their apartment redesign, it marked the third project Studio Prineas had undertaken for the design-savvy family—having previously worked with the husband’s parents and brother.

“The family are very interested in design, which made for a lovely process,” says Prineas. “With repeat clients, there’s a lot of trust, so we had considerable creative freedom.”

The brief for the project was clear: Transform a generic, developer-driven apartment in Double Bay—a coveted harborside location in Sydney—into a warm, family-friendly home, working within a tight timeframe and controlled budget. “Our challenge was to rethink how to make minimal changes with maximum impact,” explains Prineas.

Location: Stanley Road, Deal, Kent, England

Price: £1,950,000 (approximately $2,523,504 USD)

Year Built: 1881

Renovation Year: 2o24

Renovation Designer: Raycasa Investments Limited

Footprint: 3,964 square foot (5 bedrooms, 4 baths)

From the Listing: “Built over 200 years ago, this five-bedroom former schoolhouse in Deal’s Old Town has been reimagined by its current owner. It unfolds across over 3,960 square feet, with a muted, limewashed palette that emphasizes its generous proportions and soaring ceilings. Original features have been paired with modern interventions such as the steel staircase that winds through the core of the house. An open-plan kitchen and dining room opens to a south-facing courtyard garden. The property lies on Stanley Road, which leads to the town’s shingle beach.

“The house’s period frontage belies the contemporary interiors within. From the outside, Flemish-bond brick and a towering pitched roof render a distinct profile. Entry is from the north side, via an original wooden door that opens to a hallway. Ahead lies the sleek central steel staircase along with adjacent six-over-six Georgian glazing.

“All five of the home’s bedrooms lie upstairs. The principal is defined by tall ceilings, contoured walls, and enough space for a seating area beneath a large, original arched window. There are two further bedrooms on this floor, both with en suite bathrooms concealed behind wardrobes. The remaining two bedrooms lie on the second floor with exposed timber frames.

“Entered via the dining room, the house’s wide and private courtyard garden is bounded by brick walls along three sides, with a row of pleached holm trees along the fourth.”

Those who live along the Atlantic coastline are no strangers to hurricane season, which typically spans late summer through late fall when warm ocean waters abrade with chilly atmospheric temperatures, colliding with hurrying jet streams. In late summer 2021, the remnants of two tropical cyclones—Hurricanes Henri and Ida—gravely impacted a swath of the Northeast, causing devastating, widespread flooding across the region just a few weeks apart.

Married couple Dewey and Marie were sitting in their basement-level living room in north Brooklyn during Henri (downgraded to a tropical storm by landfall) when they asked themselves what they would do in the event of a flood. The question was hypothetical at that point, but “we both agreed we’d save the couch, which is the most valuable thing in our apartment,” says Marie. “We would lift it onto something, but we never thought that we would actually have to do that.”

A week later, Hurricane Ida hit—and that storm was far more destructive than Henri. When it passed over New York as a post-tropical storm, it broke the city’s record for heaviest rainfall in a single hour and caused unprecedented inland flooding. (Eleven people died in flooded cellar apartments, sparking a wider conversation about the dangers of the city’s mostly unregulated basement homes.)

While the couple was watching a Noah Baumbach movie in their below-grade living room, Dewey says he started to feel “a cold wetness on the bottom of my foot.” He saw sewer water coming up from the drains in the HVAC closet and bathroom. “Right away we snapped into action and got the couch up onto the coffee table and some chairs,” he says. 

Some items couldn’t be saved—vinyl records, suitcases, bath mats, and some laundry—but their West Elm sectional was elevated in time. Their rug was so heavy and foul-smelling from the soaked water that Dewey and Marie had to cut it up into pieces the next day to get it out of their rental.

After the flood, their building’s management replaced the broken water boiler and moldy baseboards and doors, although Marie says “they did the cheapest, most minimal repairs that they could possibly do.” An electrician came in. A gas leak was fixed. But, for the most part, the couple cleaned the mess themselves. Dewey bought a Vacmaster and supplies like Clorox and Swiffer to mop the porcelain tile floor. They opened all of the windows and ran industrial fans that they borrowed to clear the smells of mildew and chemicals.

“The plumber told us that water will find a way. It’ll come out of the toilet.”

Though the couple has renter’s insurance, they learned after their claim was denied that it doesn’t cover floods. They, instead, fought to have their building’s management company reimburse them for the cost incurred by damages. Management essentially shrugged at the incident—they told the pair that flooding was a citywide problem, with the drains not being able to handle the amount of water going in.

Marie and Dewey then spoke to a plumber about setting up a backflow stoppage in the pipes so that water doesn’t come up from the drains, but they learned that it’s impossible to contend with the forces of Mother Nature. “The plumber told us that water will find a way. It’ll come out of the toilet,” says Marie. So they came up with an action plan. 

“Over the course of this ordeal, we have essentially become professionals at dealing with this situation, to the point where we’re very prepared for it if this would’ve happened again, which it did,” says Dewey, referring to the floods that affected New York City in September 2023.

First, the couple keeps an eye on the weather apps—they especially like Clime. “We now know what level of precipitation to look out for and we’ll know a day or two in advance if something might happen,” says Marie. Dewey bought durable sawhorses (trestles used to support wood when sawing), which they usually store in a closet, but bring out to elevate and support the weight of their couch during storm prep the night before. Next, they roll up their rug and place it on top of the couches. All of the electrical items get unplugged and the cords are rolled and cleared from the outlets. Dewey’s gigantic framed John Cassavetes poster is moved upstairs.

The idea of moving to try to escape inevitable climate patterns seems more trouble than it’s worth. 

To get valuables off the ground, the couple set up a shelving system under the staircase where larger objects like musical gear and instruments are stored. There is a third drain located near the laundry appliances—the floor is slightly sloped for this drain, and it’s where flooded water eventually goes into—and everything else is pushed as far away from this drain as possible.

“I can whip this basement into emergency formation in about ten minutes,” says Dewey. “I basically get everything off of the floor.” They set up a Nest Cam that points toward the couch so the couple can keep an eye on the status of their basement living room if they happen to be out of town during heavy rainfall.

“Whenever I explain this situation to somebody who doesn’t live in New York, I sound crazy. They ask, ‘Why don’t you move?’” says Marie. “But we have a rent-stabilized apartment in a neighborhood we love, it has a washer and dryer, all of these things, and I’m willing to put up with this inconvenience to live here and have it be great most of the time.”

Dewey also points out that “everybody, to a certain extent, contends with the hazards of weather and natural disasters,” and that they happen to live in an apartment that is prone to flooding. Their neighbors on the top floor deal with leaky ceilings. Their friends in Los Angeles have lost homes in fires. Dewey’s sister, who lives in Massachusetts, deals with strong winds that can knock down trees and damage her house. The idea of moving to try to escape inevitable climate patterns seems more trouble than it’s worth.

“If this situation were ramped up by ten or fifteen percent, then I would not live here, but right now it’s manageable,” says Dewey. “We’re super dialed into all the weather apps and New York City announcements that we have a good enough runway of knowing when stuff is going to happen. I get hundreds of alerts a day, mostly Silver Alerts of some old person wandering around, but I keep these apps on my phone so that we never have a weather-related emergency again.”

Illustration by Sergio Membrillas 

Related Reading:

Is GoFundMe the New Insurance?

Why Do We Keep Developing in Climate Disaster Zones?

There’s a scene in the first episode of The Studio, Seth Rogen’s new Apple TV+ showbiz satire, when his character, Hollywood executive Matt Remick, charges into the office building of his employer, Continental Studios, past a tour guide who’s telling visitors that the structure was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1927 “in his signature Mayan style.” It was built, the guide says, “to literally be a temple of cinema.” Remick, who is woefully on his way to a meeting about a potential Jenga movie, audibly scoffs, telling his equally fast-paced assistant, “A temple of cinema, huh? And they want me to make movies out of wooden blocks.”

That exchange sets up the whole premise of the already highly praised, cameo-packed series: Legacy film studio fights to stay relevant in the era of streaming, franchises, and fractured viewing. While Rogen’s Remick is a self-described artist and film buff, he’s made his bones pumping out action thrillers. Later in the premiere, he’s promoted to head of the studio, but there’s a catch: His first project has to be a big-budget blockbuster about Kool-Aid. Oh, yeah!

To build the (fictional) studio at the center of The Studio, Rogen and series cocreator/longtime collaborator Evan Goldberg first had to build out their vision for Continental. To do that, they enlisted production designer Julie Berghoff, who’d previously worked with the pair on AMC’s Preacher. They told her they wanted her to think out of the box and create something akin to one of the “Big Five” Hollywood film studios (Warner Bros., Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Disney), complete with its own movie lot and backstory.

She knew from the show’s script that Continental Studios started around 1923, which led her to look at Art Deco and Spanish Revival architecture, two of the dominating styles in Los Angeles during that era. Rogen and Goldberg love midcentury design, with Rogen in particular having a fondness for John Lautner, so the trio settled on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Mayan Revival period. (Wright was an early mentor to Lautner.) It was an easy reference, with examples of that early 1920s Wright era, like the Ennis House, already dotting the L.A. landscape. Berghoff got to work.

“Wright came to Los Angeles after the World’s Fair in San Diego and he was in a very dark place—he was designing a lot of buildings that were very tomblike because he’d lost his wife and his children,” Berghoff explains. “Seth and Evan liked the idea that the studio’s office could feel tomblike too, because it was embracing the fact that this silver screen cinematic world was almost coming to an end with streaming. Creating this place that was antiquated amplified the storyline of the studio.”

To capture Wright’s Mayan Revival essence, Berghoff designed decorative blocks that reference the Continental Studios logo for the facade of the building, as well as the atrium’s pillars and the cavernous entry. “That logo is throughout the whole set,” Berghoff says. “It’s on the floor, it’s in the fountain, it’s on the walls, it’s on the screens, and it’s in the office.” The textile block–style pieces weren’t made out of concrete, brick, or stone though; they were crafted through a combination of CNC routing, laser cutting, and casting. Berghoff’s team laid dark plaster on top of wood, mixed with glass aggregate so it would reflect a little light on-camera.

They had to do it all quickly, too, because they only had six weeks to build the more than 8,000-square-foot Continental Studios interior on a Warner Bros. lot soundstage. (They built the studio’s facade over the front of the actual Warner Bros. TV offices, as well.) Berghoff was conscious of camera movement and how light would reflect through the structure, saying she took particular inspiration from Wright’s Palmer House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, built with perforated brick to let light in and encourage its flow from room to room. She created boxy acrylic lights for the atrium’s pillars inspired by Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Berghoff says the building’s front doors were inspired by the almost-brutalist sunburst doors at Lautner’s Hollywood Hills Harvey House, which is where Catherine O’Hara’s character, a savvy producer and Remick’s former boss, lives on the show. (Lautner’s Carling House stands in as Remick’s home, and another Lautner classic, Silvertop, or the Reiner-Burchill Residence, is the setting for one of the show’s standout episodes.)

When The Studio takes place in the faux-Wright building, it’s often for scenes full of long, moving shots that soar from the atrium to the balcony level of offices above, or that let Remick survey his whole domain through a wall of glass in his corporate fishbowl. Set decorator Claire Kaufman was responsible for sourcing all the studio’s contents, from Remick’s 10-foot walnut desk to a massive mural of Hollywood’s geodesic Cinerama Dome or a custom conference table etched with the studio’s logo.

Location: 249 Goldsmith Road, Bethel, NY

Price: $1,095,000

Year Built: 2022

Architect: INC Architecture

Footprint: 2,072 square feet (3 bedrooms, 2 baths)

Lot Size: 10 Acres

From the Agent: “Bethel Pines is a meticulously curated 10-acre sanctuary nestled in the heart of the Catskills. Located just under two hours from NYC, this fully furnished and turnkey property offers both a meditative escape and a vibrant base for exploring the boundless natural beauty of the region. More than a home, it’s an experience—a retreat designed to remind you of the art of slowing down and living well. The prime location places you at the crossroads of culture and nature, just minutes from Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, Jeffersonville’s charming Main Street, and the vibrant energy of nearby towns like Livingston Manor, Narrowsburg, and Callicoon. Whether you’re drawn to the Upper Delaware’s pristine waters or the region’s thriving arts and culinary scene, this home offers a rare balance of solitude and connection—a place to live fully and intentionally.”

Jane McDougall and David Beynon didn’t quite know what to expect of life when they moved from their apartment in Melbourne to a standalone in Launceston, Tasmania. David’s new teaching position at the University of Tasmania, the reason for their move, meant that Jane, a generational Melbournite, would become the sole practitioner of the couple’s architecture practice, alsoCAN. It also meant that their new home would need space to host family, particularly their elderly parents, and friends coming from Australia and as far as the U.S.

The couple bought a 1920s California-style bungalow with apricot trees and an ample garden—a refreshing change from their inner-city apartment—that had a 600-square-foot shed in the back. It was previously used as a sleep-out, an outbuilding used to escape the heat before air conditioning became commonplace in Australia, but also held a garage/workshop, a derelict bathroom, and an outhouse (or a “dunny,” as they say in Australia). It presented the perfect renovation opportunity to create a guest suite; it also felt right given the couple’s architectural ethos, which emphasizes using space more effectively instead of expanding unnecessarily.

• New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wants to combat rising food costs and food deserts with city-owned grocery stores, a concept already gaining traction in Midwest cities like Madison and Chicago. The plan promises to lower prices, challenge monopolies, and provide fresh produce to underserved communities—if it can survive a competitive market. (The New Republic)

• Jan Sramek, a Czech tech millionaire, wants to build a utopian city in California’s Solano County, promising affordable housing and job growth. But locals aren’t buying it, and neither are their elected officials. (Politico)

• Trump’s push to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could hand billions to investors but hit home buyers with higher mortgage rates. By shaking up leadership and killing first-time home buyer assistance, the plan could make the American dream much more expensive. (The New York Times)

• Despite a few software hiccups and pole run-ins, Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car service, is already operating in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin. Now it’s slated to arrive in Washington, D.C., in 2026. But first, the company will need to convince local lawmakers that its cars are safer than the average commuter. (Reuters)

• In the early 2000s, a group of eight artists created a hidden apartment inside a Rhode Island mall, where they lived on and off for four years. Now, with a new documentary shedding light on the squat, two of the occupants unpack their experience. (Dwell)

Top image courtesy of Luis Alvarez/Getty Images

I first heard the story as a student at Brown University in 2023. It was passed down like an urban legend: Two decades earlier, eight Rhode Island artists set up camp in an off-map crawl space in the Providence Place mall. The group somehow outfitted the undeveloped corner of the colossal (and in-use) structure with the trappings of a home, from a dining table and secondhand couch to a TV set. Sneaking in through pitch-black service shafts, they made the forgotten concrete back room into a covert apartment, going as far as installing a door and running electricity, until they were busted in 2007. Scant news coverage and a few blurry photos were the only proof I could find that the unbelievable story was true.

Two of the occupants, Adriana Valdez Young and Michael Townsend—then married, recent college grads—say that at first, they were simply curious if they could spend an entire day in the hidden section of the busy shopping mall. It spiraled into their group of eight hanging out in the unit on and off over the next four years, filming their escapades and planning art projects. (“When you’re really weird, you don’t think anything you do is weird,” says Valdez Young. “What else are we gonna do?”)

Much of that footage made its way into a new documentary about the saga, in theaters (including a screen at Providence Place) as of March 21, after debuting in 2024 at SXSW. Secret Mall Apartment, directed by Jeremy Workman and executive produced by Jesse Eisenberg (who recently did a Tonight Show bit about the film with Jimmy Fallon), splices together the group’s point-and-shoot clips with present-day interviews, telling the story of their hush-hush living space and unpacking the wider history of the divisive Providence development.

The early 2000s “secret mall apartment” was born at a time of strife in Providence’s real estate market. After more than 150 years of industry driving the local economy, the mid-20th century saw production dwindle, and the city became home to a large community of artists. Then, near the turn of the century, the city’s economy shifted again. The abandoned textile mills where these artists lived and worked were demolished, pushing them out. Simultaneously, Providence Place was being built, promising to bring the city into a new era of economic prosperity. Today, the remaining mills are still under threat and Providence Place has an uncertain future, effectively declaring the state-level equivalent of bankruptcy. Ironically, some are now calling for the redevelopment of the massive mall into housing. I spoke with Valdez Young and Townsend about making a home in the mall, the state of Providence real estate, and (surprisingly) how Dwell influenced their secret apartment. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What was the genesis of living at the mall?

Michael Townsend: I had a habit of jogging past the mall’s construction site. I identified a space that didn’t fit into my calculus of usefulness. It didn’t seem like stores or parking. When Adriana and I went to look, we shimmed in, and miraculously, [the empty nook] was there.

Adriana Valdez Young: The project was about knowing the enemy, but also knowing what the future looked like. If the mall was the ideal version of Providence or the modern American city, then we had this curiosity to better understand how this behemoth worked. And if there was room for us in its future.

Providence Place was pitched to residents as integral to the city’s revitalization. What was the development’s ideal vision of Providence?

MT: The [mall’s] advertising campaign had two words: “Defining You.” It was everywhere. We embraced it as a challenge and a threat simultaneously. How far will we let this building define us?

AVY: This campaign was, oddly, for nothing, right? It was about defining the future of retail and of the city. The massive square footage of this shopping center far exceeded all the total retail in downtown Providence. There’s no need to revitalize your little local economy. Don’t worry. We’re just taking care of it in one strike. The mall had a Tiffany’s. There was a Brooks Brothers. How many people are wearing Brooks Brothers in downtown Providence? Nobody, right? It was an image of a lifestyle that didn’t reflect local culture.

When we were developing the apartment and hanging out at the mall as good shopper citizens, I remember [thinking about] the phrase “critique through hyperconformity.” What if we did follow the rules and let them all define us? What would that look like? 

At some point, I recreated the “Defining You” ads. I bought everything from the mall, staged it, and returned it. It was like $1,000 to get everything you want from one picture. The math does not work when you try to achieve that kind of perfection—maybe for the one percent.

Were you viewing this as an art project or a political response to the housing situation in Providence at the time?

MT: This question gets asked a lot. In my memory of the arrest, one of the clear thoughts I had was, Oh no, now I have to curate the story. Until that point, and I know this may sound ridiculous, but it was just our life. That was just how we lived our life. There were eight artists involved in this project, but we made the decision that Adriana and I would be a good face. The idea of a couple who’s trying to make it.

AVY: The shared American narrative.