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Bettesworth Construction
2020

The Best Houses of 2020: Ten Projects Selected by New Atlas

New Atlas’s 2020 selection spans private homes, urban infill apartments, and supportive housing—a design-led roundup, not a scored ranking.

By Bettesworth Construction Team 3 min read
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New Atlas’s The best houses of 2020 is an editorial selection of ten residential projects the magazine found interesting and well-designed—not a scored ranking or a formal architecture award. Its broad use of “house” covers everything from private homes to apartment and supportive-housing developments.

What New Atlas meant by “the best”

Published on December 24, 2020, New Atlas’s roundup brings together ten projects chosen through the magazine’s editorial judgment. The article does not describe a scoring system or award process, so the list is best read as a set of design references rather than a definitive ranking of homes built that year.

The selection spans different scales, settings, and residential types. A handful of its examples show how widely the word “house” is being used.

Five projects that show the range

Gardenhouse: housing organized around a courtyard

MAD’s Gardenhouse in Beverly Hills is a residential development arranged around a courtyard. New Atlas describes a landscaped, vine-covered base that includes retail and a gym alongside homes. It is a reminder that the roundup includes projects where shared space and amenities are part of the residential design.

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XS House: apartments on a narrow infill site

Interface Studio Architects’ XS House uses a Philadelphia plot that New Atlas reports as about 11 feet (3.3 metres) wide. The article describes the site as formerly used to park two cars and says the project contains seven apartments. These figures are New Atlas’s description of the project, not independently verified measurements here.

Dolunay Villa: a private home shaped around its setting

Foster + Partners’ Dolunay Villa is a private residence in Turkey’s Muğla province. New Atlas highlights its undulating timber roof and broad glazing oriented toward views of the Aegean—features that connect the home’s form and outlook to its coastal setting.

Invisible House: a reflective desert residence

Designed by Tomas Osinski, Invisible House is a California desert residence with a reflective glass exterior. New Atlas describes it as containing four bedrooms. In contrast with the urban infill and multi-unit examples, this project is a private home set in a landscape.

MLK1101 Supportive Housing: residential design serving a wider need

LOHA’s MLK1101 Supportive Housing in Los Angeles is a development for homeless and other vulnerable people, according to New Atlas. The article describes one- to three-bedroom units and says the project received LEED Gold certification. Its inclusion makes clear that this is not solely a collection of luxury or single-family houses.

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How the projects differ

Viewed together, the examples move between urban constraints and open landscapes, individual residences and multi-unit developments, and private homes and housing with a social-support purpose. Those are useful ways to explore the roundup, but they are descriptive comparisons—not judging criteria stated by New Atlas.

For a construction or design reference, the list can prompt questions about how a project responds to its site, organizes shared and private space, and expresses its relationship to the surrounding landscape. It does not, however, compare construction costs, sale prices, availability, or current occupancy.

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A similarly titled ArchDaily list is different

ArchDaily published a separate roundup on December 23, 2020. It selected the 20 most-visited residential projects among projects it published during 2020. ArchDaily said it had published more than 2,000 houses that year; that figure refers to its own publication output, not all houses built or published worldwide.

The distinction is the selection basis: New Atlas presented ten projects it considered interesting and well-designed, while ArchDaily used visits to its own coverage. Neither list establishes an objective, shared measure of which homes were “best.” ArchDaily’s roundup also quotes architecture historian Beatriz Colomina: “Perhaps no one thing distinguishes twentieth-century architecture more than the central role played by the private house.”

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