Designing Every Room Around the Landscape

Some houses simply look out onto a beautiful landscape. Others are designed so the landscape becomes part of daily life. The difference lies not only in large areas of glazing, but in how architecture, materials and space dissolve the boundary between inside and outside.

This home by Racinowski Design Studio on Lake Monona takes that approach. Inspired by the work of William Krisel and A. Quincy Jones, it uses mid-century principles to ensure every room shares the same connection to the water, allowing the setting to shape the experience of living within the house.

(Marco Guagliardo - Mid-Century Home’s Editor in Chief)

Perched above Lake Monona with uninterrupted views towards downtown Madison and the Wisconsin State Capitol, this new home by Racinowski Design Studio begins with a simple architectural ambition: every important space should remain connected to the landscape.

That decision shapes the entire project. Living spaces, bedrooms, work areas and even exercise rooms all face the lake, ensuring that changing light, weather and seasons become part of everyday life rather than something experienced only from selected rooms.

The architects found inspiration in the work of William Krisel and A. Quincy Jones, whose Californian houses demonstrated how openness, simple forms and close relationships with nature could define family living. Here, those ideas are carefully reinterpreted for the Midwest through highly insulated construction, structural insulated panels and European triple-glazed windows that provide comfort throughout the changing seasons.