When you’re in the thick of a New York City summer, where, as somebody once said, the asphalt becomes like molten tar and the walls themselves seem to sweat, there’s nothing better than getting away.

Every evening at around 7:30pm in San Diego’s Mission Beach neighborhood, throngs of people flock to the boardwalk, and hundreds of pairs of eyes stare westward to watch the sun sink into the Pacific Ocean.

Eighty percent of Australians live within 80 miles of the sea; 50 percent of the country’s houses sit less than 8 miles from a beach.

The new buzz words of the 21st century—“organic,” “ecofriendly,” “sustainable”—have inundated today’s architectural vocabulary despite their indifference to definition.

Restrictive zoning, rather than necessity, is often the mother of architectural invention. Made to withstand the harsh winters of Martha’s Vineyard while treading lightly on the island, the VH R-10 gHouse, designed by architect Darren Petrucci, AIA, was so profoundly shaped by local restrictions that it adopted the zoning district—R-10—as part of its name.