Welcome to Origin Story, a series that chronicles the lesser-known histories of designs that have shaped how we live.

The porch, as part of the American home, is more than an architectural feature: It’s a viewpoint into the country’s changing cultural (and literal) climate. Since the mid-19th-century golden age of this classic U.S. domestic design element, its look and role have revealed wider societal fluctuations, from the car’s impact on suburbia to the more recent push for walkable neighborhoods. The porch is so important that it’s the subject of this year’s U.S. Pavilion exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Here, we trace the road to its revival.

A Welcome Arrival

Outdoor coverings connected to a building have existed in various forms across cultures for millennia, from Greco-Roman porticos and Venetian loggias to ancient Indian alindas (verandas), among others. It wasn’t until the second half of the 19th century, however, that the porch became a ubiquitous part of American homes—particularly in the South, where French Colonial–style galleries, which echoed features of cabins built by enslaved people of African descent, provided shade and air circulation in hot, humid climates. Early American porches were often wooden structures with columns, railings, and roof overhangs and were characterized by their symmetry and restrained ornamentation.

Evolving Purpose…

Before air-conditioning or electric fans, “sleeping porches“—screened-in spaces allowing cool nighttime breezes—became popular in many Victorian-era and early-20th-century American residences. People also saw using these spaces, usually on the second floor, next to bedrooms, as a way to avoid one of the leading causes of death at the time: tuberculosis. (Before antibiotics, the standard treatment for the disease was extended fresh-air exposure.) Meanwhile, at its peak popularity, the front porch served as a prominent open-air parlor for socializing in American households. In some communities, the porch carried an even deeper cultural significance: As Black Americans faced discrimination in public spaces, porches became places where families and friends could safely congregate and build community.

…and Expanding Aesthetic

As the American porch endured as a staple residential feature and site for socializing, it became embedded in diverse architectural styles across the growing country. Porch designs became more elaborate and distinctive, largely reflecting vernacular styles of their regions. The Victorian era saw the introduction of intricate wraparound porches adorned with delicate spindle work, which was often painted in vibrant colors, reflecting the era’s penchant for excess. The Craftsman style, emerging in the early 20th century, favored sturdy, exposed beams, unpainted wood, and deep eaves. The front porches of New Orleans shotgun houses were often extensions of the living rooms inside.

When Amalia Branaa Donner and Uzi Sabah moved from Los Angeles to Montevideo, Uruguay, their hometown, at the height of the pandemic, they had to find a rental quickly. They had moved back because Covid was less prevalent there, and they wanted to reconnect with family. A brisk search led them to a house in a residential area that had been off their radar: Punta Gorda, a neighborhood built on a low hill overlooking Montevideo’s riverside promenade, known as La Rambla.

The couple enjoyed staying there and, during one of their afternoon walks, noticed a midcentury house that was uninhabited—and for sale. It had a simple, rectangular exterior, and because it was built on a slope, the back of the property had views over the neighborhood’s rooftops and treetops and all the way down to the Rio de la Plata in the distance. It also had a huge garage occupying the entire ground level, which they immediately envisioned as a living space.

They decided to buy it, but they needed an architect to help them transform the two-story structure, built in 1950 and never renovated, into a contemporary family home for themselves and their two children, now 10 and 8. Amalia and Uzi are both creatives—she’s a graphic designer, he’s a filmmaker and an artist—so they wanted to work with someone willing to push the boundaries of convention.

“Everything was the way it had been designed in the ’50s—the closets, kitchen, bathrooms all were from that era, and small.”

—Uzi Sabah, resident

When Sean Famoso, cofounder of LVRN Records, started searching for a second home in Los Angeles, he knew exactly what he was—and wasn’t—looking for. Having grown up in a Craftsman house in Atlanta, he was set on finding a midcentury with warmth and character rather than a minimalist white box. “I wanted a house with a soul of its own,” he says.

When he put in a bid for a 2,022-square-foot Hollywood Hills home built in 1950 by architects Armet & Davis, he initially lost out to another buyer. But as luck would have it, the two-bedroom, three-bathroom house went back on the market almost immediately—albeit for an additional $200,000. Charmed by its floor-to-ceiling views of the city and the ample surrounding parking, Sean swooped in to close the deal.

Sean envisioned the house—which he calls “Before Brentwood”—as his final bachelor pad before he ultimately settles down in a tony L.A. neighborhood a bit farther west. He commissioned Christopher Cahill of CASC Design Inc. to knock out the wall between the kitchen and the dining room, but he left the original layout largely intact. “My biggest pet peeve is when people find the most beautiful home and modernize it beyond belief,” Sean explains.

In the spring of 2020, when Covid lockdowns began, Manny Rionda retreated from his home in Guatemala City to his family’s finca, or ranch, in the highlands 35 miles to the west. At first he lived with his parents in their two-bedroom 1960s house on the mountainous estate, but he fell in love with country living and decided to stay. His parents granted him some space on the working farm to build his own home, and Manny, a fashion photographer and furniture designer, got to work on his first architectural project.

Casa Zanate, as Manny named it, doesn’t immediately reveal itself. Manny minimized its footprint to avoid damaging the coffee, macadamia, and guava trees on the site, and the home—a 1,480-square-foot, single-story box—is shrouded in greenery. “The trees here are sacred, since it takes almost a decade for them to flower,” Manny says. Cantilevered concrete steps draw visitors in and lead to a floating deck that wraps around the home’s flat front facade, connecting to a spacious side terrace hovering among the leaves.

To meet the $80,000 to $100,000 U.S. dollars budget, Manny had the walls built with cinder block and coated in chukum, a low-cost material made of tree resin mixed with limestone. “It was used by the Maya, and it can be easily colored, though we left it in its natural shade,” he says. “It’s waterproof, heavy duty, and I don’t have to paint the exterior.” After the home’s first rainy season, the walls began to stain naturally, blending with the landscape.

I knock on the front door of Cal Somni, but there’s no answer. It feels like the kind of place where you don’t knock anyway. You just arrive. There’s a car in the driveway indicating someone’s presence so I wander along a redbrick path toward a garden pavilion, its doors wide open with quiet invitation. Beyond the pavilion, the murmur of a creek calls my attention into the bushland where Nigel Chouri and Crick King emerge barefoot, fresh from a swim. 

At Cal Somni (“place of dreams” in Catalan), water is a constant companion. There’s a tidal creek behind, the Tweed River across the road, and the Pacific Ocean roaring just beyond the mangroves against the shores of Dreamtime Beach. And with the water table just 28 inches below the surface, Cal Somni doesn’t just feel like it’s floating—it practically is.

Nigel and Crick purchased the 1950s beach shack online in 2020 from their apartment in Barcelona, where they had lived for the past 20 years designing hotels, hospitality venues, and culinary experiences. They wanted to live closer to family, and they decided on Fingal Head, a narrow peninsula in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia. But the couple soon realized that Fingal Head was too remote, too quiet compared to the bustling social rhythms they’d grown used to in Spain.

Location: 31 Ninth Street North, Edgartown, Massachusetts

Price: $1,195,000

Year Built: 1972

Architect: Robert Orr

Footprint: 1,275 square feet (2 bedrooms, 2 baths)

Lot Size: 0.34 Acres

From the Agent: “Nestled among the trees near Sengekontacket Pond, this distinctive contemporary home offers privacy while being conveniently close to downtown Edgartown and the picturesque trails at Felix Neck Sanctuary. Designed by architect Robert Orr, this multilevel residence showcases unique architectural details and striking angled ceilings. The living area is bathed in natural light, surrounded by windows, and features a charming brick fireplace. The eat-in kitchen has stainless-steel appliances, an exposed brick backdrop, and opens to a spacious deck, perfect for outdoor dining and entertaining. The primary bedroom suite is a bright and inviting retreat, complete with a private bath. A comfortable guest bedroom and a convenient powder room complete the main level. Upstairs, you’ll find a sun-filled office with a curved wall of windows and access to another lovely deck.” 

It looked like a bucket brigade in the desert: a line of adobe builders passing 35-pound sun-dried bricks from one person to the next, hoisting them onto a scaffolding deck and setting them into the western wall of a house made of mud. The labor continued for hours on a dusty lot of a small college campus in northern New Mexico. It was hard work: more grueling than a daylong boot camp at your local gym. But no one here was complaining. “It’s therapeutic,” says Stephanie Camfield, a clinical social worker whose unofficial job on the project is “mix master,” creating a mortar of clay, sand, and water that spun like bread dough inside a giant KitchenAid. “It’s about community and rhythm, feeling the sun move across the sky.”

In 2010, Smithsonian Magazine predicted the revival of adobe construction, when it listed mud building as Number One among the “40 things you need to know about the next 40 years.” Today, that prediction is coming true—largely because adobe construction isn’t only energy efficient and locally sustainable; it’s fireproof. “It’s a renewable resource, it’s a gift from the mountains,” says Jake Barrow, a historic preservationist who oversees the adobe demonstration house now under construction. The work is being done under the auspices of Cornerstones, a Santa Fe nonprofit that helps communities preserve their historic structures and keep traditional building methods alive.

The 850-square-foot house on the edge of a struggling town in rural New Mexico—the Las Vegas you’ve never heard of—is a showcase for adobe in a burning world. In recent years, architects, engineers, and policy wonks from the likes of New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and Syria have descended on New Mexico to study the revival of traditional earthen architecture. In exchange, they share the innovations that are emerging in their corners of the globe.

The use of earth as a building material is as old as civilization. Its construction was traditionally a communal experience, with family and friends engaged in the making of bricks, the raising of walls and rafters (called vigas in the Southwest), and the singular skill of applying the plaster — a task typically left to women known as enjaradoras. Though Americans recognize the style as quintessential to the desert Southwest and the missions of California, there is not an inhabited part of the world without a history of earthen construction. Germany’s stringent building codes now allow for up to six-story adobe buildings; schools, office buildings, and apartment buildings are rising from bricks made solely of mud and sand. The country’s standards—all 250 pages—have been translated into English, due to overwhelming international interest, and will be available this summer.

Until recently, California effectively banned adobe construction due to the risk of earthquakes. That longstanding policy now faces growing scrutiny: After 16,000 homes, buildings, and schools in Los Angeles burned to the ground in January, some property owners are looking to rebuild with fire-resistant materials. In response, officials have signaled a cautious openness to adobe, which, when exposed to intense heat, vitrifies and becomes firebrick.

Location: 46 Dortch Avenue, Asheville, North Carolina

Price: $1,275,000

Year Built: 1978

Architect: Richard A. Webster

Footprint: 1,364 square feet (2 bedrooms, 2 baths)

Lot Size: 0.32 Acres

From the Agent: “Designed by local architect Richard A. Webster and commissioned by Dr. & Mrs. Lloyd Remington in the 1970s, this earth shelter emerges from a hillside in Asheville’s Five Points neighborhood—minutes from downtown, Asheville Botanical Gardens, and eclectic restaurants. The swanky ‘hobbitat’ showcases principles of promoting a sustainable lifestyle. A ‘solar attic’ extends the entire home’s length, providing natural light throughout. Fluted concrete walls help regulate temperatures. Inside, there’s a moody midcentury aesthetic. With chic color and texture play, and modern finishes and conveniences, this room home passes the vibe check.”

In moving from an apartment in bustling Barcelona to Matadepera, a quiet village roughly 45 minutes away by car, one could assume you’d easily find more privacy. But that wasn’t so for Gloria, Jordi, and their two children, who built their first home on a lot shared with in-laws.

To design a home that felt independent without being closed off, they turned to Alventosa Morell Arquitectes—close friends and experienced collaborators. “The challenge was to find a balance between maintaining the privacy of the home and the physical and emotional connection with the other nearby family homes,” says Xavier Morell Jané, one of the studio’s cofounders.

• Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House may soon close to the public, as L.A.’s proposed budget cuts slash staffing and put its UNESCO World Heritage status at risk. (The Los Angeles Times)

• As high mortgage rates and tariffs stall what should be a busy spring home-buying season, home builders are throwing everything—including the kitchen sink—at buyers: discounts, design upgrades, mortgage-rate buydowns, and more. (The Wall Street Journal)

• To keep families from leaving cities, architects are reviving an age-old solution: the courtyard. Here’s how shared green spaces—once staples of city life from Brooklyn to Santa Monica—are being reimagined to make urban living work for families. (Bloomberg)

• Cracks are showing in the crown jewel of billionaires’ row, where condo owners at 432 Park Avenue are suing developers for more than $165 million. The suit claims developers hid nearly 1,900 facade defects, some deemed “life safety” risks. (The New York Times)

• Prefab ADUs promised a turnkey path to affordable housing, but several builders are making promises they can’t keep (or never intended to), leaving buyers thousands of dollars short. (Dwell)

Top image by Maggie Shannon