A two- to three-hour drive from the bright lights of Southern California’s largest cities, Borrego Springs—a small town bordering the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in northern San Diego County—became the world’s second official Dark-Sky Community in 2009.

How does a startup still feel cozy and cohesive when it has ballooned into an 800-person organization?

Just off to the side of the palm tree–lined main entry to Stanford University’s stunning campus in Palo Alto, California, sits the compact Hoover Medical Campus.

Near Anza Borrego Desert State Park, Richard Orne designed a single-family residence for himself and his designer wife, Susan Hancock, in one of only two “dark sky” communities—areas designated to minimize light pollution and preserve the natural darkness of night skies—in the U.S.

The owners, a retired couple in their 70s, commissioned Mork-Ulnes Architects to design a vacation house for them, their children, and grandchildren: three ski-loving generations whose older members have been skiing in the area since the 1940s.

As more architects get their hands literally dirty with the design-build process, this form of project delivery is resulting in some quite elegant structures.