INSPIRED BY GAUDI, BUILT BY HAND

Sitting in Beth and Will Hathaway's family room in Portland, Oregon, I'm amazed that there's more than a hundred tons of concrete and dirt hanging over my head. The south-facing room, the focal point of the house, is bathed in light. So much daylight filters through four floor-to-curved-ceiling windows and two skylight domes, that I can comfortably pour over a puzzling array of structural contours on a blueprint even though no electric lamps are lit and it's drizzling outside.

INDUSTRIAL FACILITY TURNS TO THE ARTS

An aging bus repair shop may seem an unlikely place for a progressive art school. But when the shop is a classic monument to mid-20th century industrial architecture, and when the school is eager to marry art and pragmatism, the result works beautifully.

CASHING IN ON ENERGY-SENSITIVE DESIGN

Imagine a future in which architects and builders do well by doing good. When they devote time to carefully integrating all the energy-related systems in a building; when the resulting efficiency dramatically decreases our dependence on imported oil; and when the triumphant designers are gratefully rewarded with significantly higher design fees.