Tom Kundig: Complete Houses

This grand debut monograph celebrates the work of National Design Award–winning architect Kundig, showcasing his penchant for long straight lines and sunny but cavernous interiors. While Kundig’s firm, Olson Kundig, is based in New York, he mostly builds in farther flung, more remote parts of America, like Washington State and Idaho—locales that lend natural splendor to his residential projects. “Architecture is not the center of the world,” he writes in a brief foreword, and the 462 houses included here mostly exist in awe-inspiring landscapes that both humble and elevate the architect’s human-scale contributions: rugged woods, verdant fields, snowy expanses. In one notable example (“The Pierre,” in Washington), the house is literally built around a large rock. This reluctance to interfere with or usurp nature connects with Kundig’s notion that some landscapes “call for humility,” and dovetails intellectually with his efforts to innovate sustainable building techniques. (According to designer Ngo’s introduction, Kundig refers to his single-family homes as “research and development” for his larger commercial projects, which will be the subject of a future volume.) Pristine and peaceful, these homes provide readers ample room for their own quiet meditations. (Oct.)