SUNDAY STUDY
A Sea Ranch renovation, Edinburgh’s new industrial creative hub, and a few other recent finds
Happy Sunday. I don’t know if you’ve seen the new Ferrari Luce or not. Car aside, I’ve spent more time thinking about its photoshoot at Il Palazzito, by Carlo and Tobia Scarpa. My introduction to this place was through a NYT piece about their relationship, and the things we pass down. Here’s a gift article for your Sunday reading.
We also added a few new hotels to the STAYLIST this week, including Anantara Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam (thank you to Adam Mayer for the recommendation), the new Four Seasons in Cartagena, and Casa Daia in Puerto Escondido.
Next week, paid subscribers will get the Copenhagen Field Guide — a light guide to how I spent 72 hours by myself in the city.
A moment of appreciation for DRAFTED, for all of us who’ve been designing our dream home floor plans in Figma. As much as I’d like to believe otherwise, there’s probably a reason architecture has its own tools, and it’s about time someone made them easier to use. Easy enough for more than 120,000 people to generate 325,000+ homes in the past month alone, in fact. Feels like a pretty good sign they’re making something people want. The team also just announced a $16M fundraise to keep building. Cheers to the team, and thanks for supporting the MAGAZINE. Drafted.ai.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a roundup of new projects, and with so many new subscribers joining recently, I thought it’d be fun to share a handful of recent finds. There’s no theme to this one, other than that they’ve caught my eye over the past few months. Most of them are recently completed, too. (New paint smell.)
Among them: a Sea Ranch renovation that’s making it even more painful to know I still haven’t made the trip out there, and a new creative hub on Edinburgh’s waterfront that’s helping write the next chapter of Leith.
Sea Ranch Treehouse, by John Haag (1972), renovation by Catherine Kwong (Sea Ranch, California)
This one was completed in 2020 (though published in 2025), but I’ve been in such a Sea Ranch mood recently I thought it was worth including anyway. The house was originally built in 1972 by John Haag as part of the original Sea Ranch development, which emphasized a consistent design language of cedar cladding, folded forms, and a connection to the land through preserved views, coastal access, and reforestation.
Unlike many Sea Ranch projects, which either preserve the house in museum-like glory or extend it for contemporary living, Catherine Kwong’s renovation emphasizes restraint, largely restoring it to how the house might have felt in 1972. The refreshed millwork looks super clean, and minimal interventions like a new window seat and gingham tile in the kitchen (which I think I like, but I’m still deciding) add a refreshing sense of clarity to a house that’s now more than 50 years old.
I love all of the angles here, and the resulting pockets of light you get through the windows. It does an exceptional job of framing the views, which feels counterintuitive when you’re somewhere as beautiful as the Sonoma Coast — my first instinct is to open every wall and soak it all in, but there’s something about a picture window that makes you slow down and spend more time with what’s already there. I’m overdue for a visit.
C1 Workplace by Bruzkus Greenberg (Berlin)
Offices are continuing to borrow from hospitality. I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it, because I think it’s one of the more exciting (and necessary) evolutions in office design.
Bruzkus Greenberg is known for this kind of work, but unlike some of the projects I wrote about in WORKING FROM HOME, that use domestic and hospitality references as a kind of brand-philosophy-in-space exercise, Bruzkus leans into the idea of building a third place that simply makes people want to come in.
The space is dotted with custom furniture and high-end vintage pieces. The philosophy here is that if you can make a space feel nicer than what someone could have at home, they’ll be more likely to come in. Looking around, it’s hard to argue with them. It’d work on me, I think.
“The model for the office of the twenty-first century should be a hotel lobby or a bar or a library or a living room — or better: all of the above.” I’m inclined to agree.
Brown’s of Leith, by GRAS (Leith, Edinburgh)
In Edinburgh, GRAS reworks a former engineering workshop on Leith’s waterfront into a gathering point for food, making, art, work, and events.
This project becomes more interesting when you understand Leith as not just a neighborhood, but Edinburgh’s historic port, shaped by ships, goods, immigrants, and industry, with a reputation for being a little rougher around the edges than Edinburgh proper.
Unlike a lot of industrial neighborhood revitalization efforts that result in luxury condos, climbing gyms, and axe throwing, GRAS seems intent on preserving the industrial fabric of Leith. Not for the sake of preserving the warehouse itself, but for preserving the conditions that made it meaningful.
The Oculus, by Hayley Pryor (Byron Bay, Australia)
It’d be easy to call this a “tiny home,” which, though technically true, feels like it comes with the impression of mass-produced sheds on wheels for HGTV.
What makes this project special is the level of craft and care that went into designing it. For the Oculus, Hayley Pryor borrows from the forms of Australian sheds, which occupy a strange place culturally. Simultaneously farm buildings, workshops, storage spaces, backyard studios, and often DIY projects, they’re not quite homes, and they’re not quite outbuildings either.
Australian architects have long found architectural potential in the shed, treating one of the country’s most common building types as an opportunity for experimentation. Part of the appeal, I think, is that sheds are inherently anti-luxury. They’re utilitarian, regionally specific, and largely shaped by necessity, which feels significant as so many residential projects today feel driven by excess.
The Oculus makes a compelling case for small homes having just as much design rigor and craft as larger, more expensive ones. If anything, it’s more impressive when you consider the results of the space, and the constraints they had to work with.
Quarry House, by Winwood McKenzie (Melbourne, Australia)
If you’ve followed LINEAR for a while, you know I have an affinity for Melbourne worker’s cottage extensions. I love the site constraints, the preservation of the original facade, and the negotiation between old and new.
The more time I’ve spent looking at them, though, the more I’ve started to notice the subtle differences.s
What makes this one interesting is its courtyard-oriented layout, which at times feels closer to Mediterranean or Japanese courtyard houses than the more familiar rear-addition model. Rather than treating the garden as a destination at the back of the house, Winwood McKenzie weaves it through the plan itself.
As much as I love the dichotomy between old and new in some cottage extensions, there’s something special about an extension that disappears into the sequence of rooms.
If you have a space, place, or way of living you think we should know about, mind sending it my way? JUSTIN@LINEAR-MAGAZINE.COM.
We’re planning trips to Barcelona, Japan, Mexico City, Stockholm, Mallorca, the Alps, Portugal and Upstate New York. If you’re planning a trip here, or elsewhere, check out the STAYLIST, or email CONCIERGE@LINEAR-MAGAZINE.COM for custom, curated recs.