How They Pulled It Off is our ongoing series where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

From a hobbit-worthy house in Buenos Aires to a floating bedroom in Berlin, these 10 standout projects show just how’s it done.

A Secret Stair Hatch That Seals Off the Living Space

An 18th-Century-Inspired Farm Fence That Keeps Sheep and Their People Happy

When I went to Stockholm in February to preview the 40th anniversary of Ikea’s Stockholm collection, I knew I was in the unique position to ask the question I most wanted the answer to: what does an actual Ikea designer have from Ikea? Would it be something as ubiquitous as the Billy bookshelf, or some obscure product I hadn’t seen before? The team’s answers surprised me, gave me ideas to look for pieces I hadn’t before, and underlined a truth: we all love looking backwards.

Nike Karlsson, designer: I have all those things that never end up in something. It’s the scrap yard. Prototypes.

Paulin Machado, designer: I have Nike’s sofa from 2014 [the PS 2014 sofa]. I found that on a vintage site. I was so happy when I got it.

Dwell: So you’re also looking for vintage Ikea, like everyone else is.

Machado: Oh yes. We love to do that. I think you learn a lot from that too, to see what has sustained in time and how it looks. And I think it’s a good school to learn from.

Johan Ejdemo, global design manager: I have a lot of stuff in my kitchen to cook things, but then I have, obviously there are sentimental projects that I’ve been involved in. And I have Nike’s old day bed; now we have a new daybed, but I have the old one. You can find it at auction sometimes popping up from the PS collection. I have a few products from that PS collection. The steel cabinet, the one that is a locker cabinet, but lower. There have been quite a few of those that we have been moving around. And sometimes they’re all in a row, sometimes they spread out in different places in the home. And they have been with me for a long time.

Machado: I think you have more than me now.

Karin Gustavsson, creative leader: I made a collection a few years ago called Industriell together with a Dutch designer called Piet Hein Eek. And I have that bookshelf. And I collect so many books and it’s the one super smart solution. You can build as big as you want in plywood. So I have that one as one of my favorites. But then I have something every day. I have the mattresses. We have such good quality mattresses. So I’m happy about them. You don’t see things sometimes, sometimes you take them for [granted].

Ola Wihlborg, designer: I have a lot of different stuff because I try them when I design them, I try them and evaluate them. But we have sofas. We have two sofas that we have had for a really long time. The old Stockholm sofa that I told you about with lots of cushions. That one we have had for 10 years. And then we also have Soederhamn, that’s another sofa from Ikea, that one has also been in the house for a long time.

Photos courtesy of Ikea

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It was the winter of 1985 and Domino’s Pizza was on a hot streak. The franchise, founded two decades earlier by Thomas Monaghan, had become the country’s fast-growing pizza restaurant, and the first phase of Monaghan’s unique vision for the company’s headquarters was complete. This wasn’t a standard HQ: it was a sprawling office park on rolling farmland outside Ann Arbor, Michigan, and unofficial shrine to Monaghan’s longtime idol, Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright appreciation verging on the fanatical is no rarity; people still buy his homes for millions, even though they’re notorious for aging poorly, and there’s a substantial web of organizations dedicated to the preservation of his work. Still, there has perhaps been no person more (unexpectedly) committed to the 20th-century architect’s vision than the Domino’s founder. As the story goes, Monaghan first discovered Wright’s work at a library in Michigan when he was 12, then admired his Imperial Hotel while serving in the Marine Corps in Tokyo. By the ’80s and early ’90s, once Domino’s had hit its stride, the founder was gobbling up Frank Lloyd Wright furniture at an unbelievable rate and cost. The volume was so high that Monaghan was considered a key factor in the hike in prices for Wright’s works, according to a 1988 New York Times story, and he was criticized by preservationists who believed deep-pocketed collectors were destroying the artistic value of Wright homes as they snapped up built-in details of the structures that would leave them with less of their original character. Though total amount for this yearslong spending spree are unavailable, another 1988 New York Times story reported that Monaghan spent over $14 million on Wright objects alone by that time, acquiring “the largest collection of the architect’s furniture, stained glass, and decorative objects anywhere.” Never mind the $330,000 he spent a few years earlier on Wright’s 1941 Carlton D. Wall House (also known as Snowflake) and a 1953 Usonian that had been dismantled and stored away for decades. Or that $120 million office park.

Just outside Ann Arbor on a street named Frank Lloyd Wright Drive, Domino’s Farms is a behemoth structure that spans a half-mile long and over 400,000 square feet. Monaghan tasked architect Gunnar Birkerts (a former employee of Eero Saarinen) with designing the structure to evoke Wright’s Prairie style. “Tom is addicted to Frank Lloyd Wright without any reservation,” Birkerts told the New York Times in 1985. The office building is pure postmodern pastiche: With its flat planes and red brick, it’s legibly Wright-inspired on the exterior, though largely unrelated to the Midwestern architect’s style on the interior, save for the chairman’s suite, with its brick hearth and wood-paneled walls.

At the time of the new HQ’s construction, the Domino’s owner (who’d recently bought the Detroit Tigers) was emphatic about Wright’s brilliance. “I’ve been evangelizing Frank Lloyd Wright all my life,” Monaghan told the New York Times. “I’ve never met anyone yet who hasn’t been impressed.” The business tycoon spoke about drawing attention to Wright’s genius as imperative, like the architect’s work might otherwise be completely forgotten. “Wright is the equal if not the superior of Michelangelo,” he stated in an interview with historian Hugh Howard in the 1991 book Preservationist’s Progress. This wasn’t just a personal fixation, but in some ways, a strange offshoot of the Domino’s Pizza brand. For a roughly decade-long period, Frank Lloyd Wright—and architecture by extension—was a part of the Domino’s corporate identity. You could buy calendars that featured “Selections from the Domino’s Center for Architecture and Design” and read semifrequently about Monaghan’s latest auction exploits in the Times. There was a Domino’s-sponsored award for the “Domino’s Pizza World’s Top 30 Architects.” Design historian David A. Banks wrote a 1989 book titled Frank Lloyd Wright: Preserving an Architectural Heritage, Decorative Designs From the Domino’s Pizza Collection.

Janette Lindner first bought this Houston, Texas, bungalow 20 years ago, before she and her husband, Fred, got together. “She allowed me to move in,” Fred says with a laugh. The pair made some small tweaks to the interiors to make the 1930 home more comfortable for a modern age, and they lived there, two young adults in love, happily for years. 

Smash cut to 2020. The Lindners were still happy in their historic neighborhood, but they were also starting to feel a little cramped, now that they shared the house with their two kids, Andrew and Alex. “Covid really highlighted our need to expand the space and the function of the home to accommodate our growing family,” says Fred. 

They started dreaming of a more functional layout, with separate rooms for each of the kids, office spaces to accommodate the grown-ups’ hybrid work schedules (Janette is a management consultant; Fred is a brand and software designer), and a new laundry room. The catch? They didn’t want to give up too much of the backyard to make it happen. “Outdoor space is important to us,” says Janette. Oh, and any changes needed to be in keeping with the scale and character of the neighborhood.

For some, this might have been a tall order, but Kristin Schuster, principal of Inflection Architecture, approached the challenge with excitement. “They had this darling little historic bungalow that they really cared for a great deal and had worked hard to make work for them,” she recalls. “The house was bursting at the seams with vibrant, colorful stuff everywhere, and I  remember thinking, ‘Okay, there’s a way to find the place for all of these things and all these people that is going to help them stay connected.’”

Working with Schuster, the family settled on plans for a new-build second story that would bring the 1,200-square-foot bungalow up to 1,900 square feet, with three bedrooms and plenty of space for family music jams and creative pursuits. Schuster placed bedrooms for Alex and Andrew up on the second floor, along with a shared bath and play space, which allowed her to reconfigure the ground level more effectively and make use of shared, overlapping functions. 

“All these spaces connect through looping circulation or sneak-peek openings that borrow light and views and let everyone feel as connected as they want to be while they are home,” says Schuster.

Living in one of Houtson’s more restrictive historic districts, there were some limits on what could be done to the facade of their home, which was built in 1930. But the demolition revealed evidence that the home had once had a large front porch, so Fred took a 22-slide Powerpoint presentation down to city hall and got permission to add one back into the design.

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: Bruny Island, Tasmania, Australia

Architect: Room11 / @room11__

Footprint: 1,722 square feet

Builder: Merlin Constructions

Interior: Vipp / @vipp

Photographer: Adam Gibson / @adam.gibson.photo

Styling: Jack Milenkovic

From the Architect: “Danish design brand Vipp traveled to the southern hemisphere for the brand’s newest guesthouse. Cantilevered over a sloping hill on Tasmania’s Bruny Island, the Vipp Tunnel by Hobart studio Room11 balances beauty and brutalism.

“Balancing on the edge between solid ground and open air, Vipp Tunnel expresses a playful dialogue between concrete cubism and its organic surroundings. The 1,722-square-foot home stretches 98 feet, and wall-to-wall glass and recessed steel doors provide unobstructed views of the surrounding landscape and sea. An atrium yard separates the main living space from the primary bed and bathroom, while at one end of the home, a glass door leads to a framed terrace floating above the land.”

“A separate 377-square-foot concrete cube with 13-foot-high ceilings referred to as ‘the studio’ offers an escape to a space of visual and sensory calm. Ideal as an office space or meditation room, its spare design highlights the architecture.

“Inspired by the area’s natural phenomenon known as aurora australis, or southern lights, when the night sky is transformed into a dreamscape of color, Room11 added chromatic glazing to the building’s central skylights. Polished concrete floors and walls further enhance the effect, reflecting the ever-changing interplay of light like an ever-changing artwork.

“Vipp’s new all-aluminum V3 kitchen anchors the home’s main space. With a monumental stainless steel counter and fluted aluminum doors, the kitchen island mirrors the materiality of the building’s architecture.

“Clad with an entire facade of solar panels facing west, the structure is energy-sufficient and runs off-grid. During the design process, Room11 conducted surveys of every tree on-site and articulated roadworks around significant trees. A narrow construction corridor was established so that the impact on endemic vegetation was kept to an absolute minimum. The concrete panel design provides a thermal insulation to keep a regular temperature throughout the year, minimizing the use of heating and cooling sources. The getaway is purely run off rainwater and self-sufficient energy.”

Location: 3625 Fredonia Drive, #12, Los Angeles, California

Price: $899,000

Year Built: 1963

Architect: Ray Kappe

Footprint: 1,254 square feet (2 bedrooms, 2 baths)

From the Agent: “Two stories of glass, nine-foot ceilings, and spectacular views subsist in this Hollywood Hills condominium bordering Studio City designed by architect and educator Ray Kappe. The home measures 1,254 square feet, and each element of the living areas, bedrooms, and baths is masterfully planned, functional, stylish, and timeless. The neighborhood is close to dining and entertainment, and the home is freeway convenient to the studios, Valley, and all your favorite places in L.A. Soft story retrofitting is complete, the roofs are one year new, and the HOA dues cover the building’s earthquake and fire insurance, as well as a monthly contribution to the reserve, pool, and more. Rarely is such a true piece of Los Angeles midcentury-modern architecture offered at a price like this.”

The patio windows stretch from the floor of the first level to the ceiling of the second.

Shawn Bishop

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

It’s not every day that you put the wood flooring of a former bowling alley in a residential kitchen—even for architect Lindsey Wikstrom, whose New York–based firm Mattaforma specializes in sustainable sourcing, including using reclaimed and renewable materials. But when clients Laura (an Emmy-award-winning TV writer) and Darryl (a lawyer) connected with her and expressed their interest in using “materials that brought stories with them” for their home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, reclaimed wood felt like the right choice. 

Laura, Darryl, and their two cats, Gus and Hammy, sought to update their home but keep the quirky, historic detailing that made it feel lived-in and comforting. The duplex takes up two floors of a three-story wood-frame home originally built as a single-family, Victorian-style residence in the early 1900s. Over time, the house was converted into two units: one on the ground floor (which would remain untouched by Wikstrom) and a second unit on the second and third floors that was the focus of the renovation.

Wikstrom described the unit’s existing condition as “very outdated” and inefficient. Circuitous routes led through the kitchen or living and dining areas in order to reach the bedrooms, and the kitchen, with its dark wood cabinetry and granite countertops, hadn’t been renovated in decades.