What is southwest style architecture?

Southwest-style architecture, typically found in the American region it's named after, has several features that typically classify a home as southwestern style. Stucco or stone walls. These materials do a fantastic job of insulating the home from the blazing summer heat and keeping heat inside the house on cold desert nights. Flat or shallow roofs. Since most Southwestern house plans are built in the desert, the lack of rain or snowfall makes the need for a sloped roof irrelevant, and flat roofs are more cost-effective and easier to build. Red tile roofs. This throwback to Spanish colonial homes is a giveaway for Southwest house plans. The red clay used in the tile is also highly reflective of the sun\'s heat, helping to keep the roof, thus the home, cooler all year round.

What is a southwest style house?

The architectural elements described above developed to create a southwest-style house partially to cope with the weather in southwest North America several centuries ago while integrating many existing design elements of Spanish colonial and Mediterranean architecture at the time. The result is an organic style that blends with the elements.

What sizes do southwest house plans come in?

Haciendas, large estates with dwelling houses, conjure images of large, luxurious homesteads. While this can certainly be true, just as often, Southwest house plans can be scaled down to reflect a more modest lifestyle with smaller footprints and less land. America's Best House Plans include a range of Southwest house plans between 972 square feet to over 8,000 square feet with a medium range of 2,500 square feet.

What color are exteriors popular with southwestern house plans?

In general, Southwest-style homes are appreciated for their beauty and simple appeal while adding a nostalgic and specific design charm characterized by warm earth tone color palettes, rough textures, terra cotta brick, and patterned tile work, and either flat adobe roofs or the ever-present red tile clay roofs. Often, there are neutral color palettes, but a dramatic flair exists when adding bold reds, bright yellows, deep greens, sea turquoise, and warm oranges to the mixture. Outdoor lush gardens or minimal desert terrain add a sense of wonder and awe to the landscape, and the addition of indoor elements like brightly colored rugs, oversized furniture, and signature colors that define the Southwest offer refreshing appeal and a nod to nature. A common thread with Southwest house plans is the sense of warmth and character these homes bring to the landscape and those who build and occupy them.

Southwest House Plans | Contemporary, Small, Desert, Adobe

A practical solution for the desert climate, Southwest house plans reflect a history of Native American and Colonial Spanish housing styles that encompass one-storied, low-slung homes with flat or tiled roofs, outdoor living spaces, stucco exterior walls, plastered interior walls, spacious interior floor plans, arched openings, and simple construction. These homes were, and remain, well-suited for the region's intense heat and offer space to live and relax despite the often-hostile climate and landscape.

Southwestern house plans are most often found, as their name implies, in the desert southwest region of the United States; however, they can, and are, being built and lived in throughout the U.S. Because of their traditional and contemporary design elements, there is some overlap with other home styles; Mediterranean, Florida and even Modern house plans.

Key characteristics and commonly found exterior and interior design elements may include:

Stucco, stone, and wood construction elements
Flat roofs – Adobe style
Red tile roofs – Spanish style
Typically low, slung, one-story home designs
Flat or low-pitch rooflines
Asymmetrical exteriors
Little ornamentation
Porches and courtyards for outdoor entertaining and climate control
Extensive gardens
Arched openings
Patterned tile or terra cotta brick floors
Rough beams and columns
Natural and colorful palettes
Easily accessible indoor and outdoor living spaces
Fireplaces, both indoors and outdoors
Rough plastered walls
Open floor plans
Floor plans centered on an enclosed courtyard or patio

By far one of the most distinctive and iconic house styles, southwest house plans feature an eclectic assortment of aesthetically pleasing exterior elements. Beautiful examples of this type of architecture dot the landscape across America and can include such styles as Mediterranean, Spanish Mission, and Adobe, to name a few.

These styles typically include such exterior features as stucco, tile and flat roofs, wrought iron, stone, and shallow roof pitches. They are usually one or two-story asymmetrical designed home plans with warm and comforting earth-tone colors and can include a courtyard or covered exterior living area for entertaining.

Typically, there is the ubiquitous stucco exterior wall framing; however, there can be some variation with other natural elements such as stone and warm wood. Both flat roofs, primarily associated with Adobe homes, and red-tiled roofs, more closely related to Spanish roots, are found on Southwestern house plans. Free of excessive ornamentation, these mostly Ranch homes may include exposed rafters, extensive beam supports, and arched openings. There may also be courtyards for additional outdoor living space that attract family and friends to the desert air.

The interior of these homes is often colorful and functional and includes open floor plans arranged in such a manner as to keep the interior cool and shady. Tile or brick floors are abundant within the interior floor plan, as are large wood beams, columns, and fireplaces. In addition, southwestern house plans are greatly influenced by their highly stylistic and regional nature allowing for the use of natural design elements and specific art within the interior.

These desert-style homes feature a unique combination of traditional and contemporary trends forged from necessity and the love of aesthetic beauty and value that may include masonry construction, plastered interior walls, stone floors, multi-patterned tile work, and wood beams. With brutal outdoor climates and temperatures, these homes must function as a haven for family and friends to live and visit comfortably. This is why thick walls, small windows, deeply set and widely proportioned porches, and extensive lush gardens shade the sweeping outdoors and courtyards.

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