Water's Edge

The architecture made a clear argument: glass, steel, stone, light. The interiors had one job: make it feel like home.

A Parallel Architecture designed a glass box on the shore of Lake Austin with precision and clarity. The young family who commissioned it loved the aesthetic. Cravotta's charge was to soften it without compromising it — to draw a line between inside and outside and make crossing it feel effortless.

This is an exercise in sophisticated restraint. The moves are simple, spare, and deliberate. Fewer elements mean each one carries real weight. The dining table was designed by Cravotta for this room. The breakfast table too. The bed and integrated nightstands in the primary bedroom. The living room rug. When you design the pieces rather than source them, they stop being furniture and become architecture.

The living and dining rooms are hung with fourteen-foot cashmere sheers. A 140-year-old antique rug anchors the primary bedroom. The bronze and glass chandelier by Naim Barry is a work of art in its own right, conceived for this specific volume of space.

Winner of the 2022 Residential Design Honor Award for Custom Urban Home and an Honorable Mention from the Chicago Athenaeum American Architecture Awards. Photography by Chase Daniel. Architecture: A Parallel Architecture.