Nature is known to have a calming effect on mood—and although we spend much of our lives indoors, exterior environments still affect our experience of being and feeling at home. For the project pictured above, Dawn Carlson of MAS Design found that the design didn’t require much to imbue it with a sense of space. Rather, she had to step back and avoid cluttering the home with unnecessary objects that felt designed rather than natural to their setting: “We think it was successful because it simply paid homage to the environment surrounding it,” Carlson says. “Nothing should compete with one’s connection to nature in a home like this.”
