Panel, Prefab, Modular, and Stick
To understand the differences between panelized, modular and traditional construction, it’s easiest to think about it in terms of where and how your home is built.
California ADU Rules & Regulations Updates for 2026
Prior to 2016, while localities were encouraged to allow ADUs on single-family lots, local governments had wide-ranging authority to restrict development, but new streamlined regulations are set to go into effect on January 1, 2026, including…
AI All the Way Down
We see AI as a labor saving technology – that’s clear – but more importantly as a means to offer new services for our clients and to design more “comprehensively,” considering more options and possibilities in our search for ideal architectural solutions.
DNM Architecture Collaboration with Nonfiction Wins 2025 Seoul Design Award Grand Prize
Nonfiction’s Jaza Solar Hubs initiative, kiosks that collect solar energy in rural communities and distribute it at an affordable cost to villages all over Nigeria and Tanzania, was named the Grand Prize Winner of the 2025 Seoul Design Award.
Are You In or Out?
Living and working in California, mixing the inside with the outside is ubiquitous and feels kind of obvious. Why wouldn’t you open your house to the outdoors? The goal isn’t just to open up a room to the outside, but to create a third space that defies clear definition—a place that is simultaneously inside and outside.
A Tale Of Two ADUs
It may seem trivial to add one unit in a backyard or convert a basement to an apartment, but, in contrast to large apartment buildings or expanded suburbs, ADUs are a “surgical” path to new housing using existing land, sewers, water and other infrastructure. They may be the greenest and most sustainable housing strategy available.
Rethinking California – DNM Architecture extends Partnership with Wellmade to custom panelized homes designed to withstand extreme climate conditions.
California – DNM Architecture is proud to announce an expansion of its collaboration with San Leandro, CA-based Wellmade Design Build. By extending our offerings with Wellmade to include safe, smart, and fire-resistant semi-custom panelized homes, DNM Architecture is making building – or rebuilding – easier for homeowners than ever before. Based upon Wellmade’s proven system […]
DNM Architecture Collaborates with Nonfiction to Bring Clean Energy to West Africa
Sausalito-based DNM Architecture is collaborating with with fellow Bay Area creative firm Nonfiction to design and produce Jaza Solar Hubs – field assembled power centers designed to bring clean, renewable energy to Nigeria localities – while empowering local women to run 100% of operations.
Navigating Technological Change in Architectural Practice
Starting somewhere in the 1980’s with 2D CADD software on mini and microcomputers, through the internet, worldwide web, 3D modeling and simulation, BIM, and, more recently, artificial intelligence, fast changing technology has often disoriented architectural practice and potentially threatened it both economically, but even existentially.
Palm Springs
What is the allure of a 110 degree suburbia? Is it post war exuberance? An act of defiance against climate and logic? Is it a statement of democracy and free will? Sunstroke? Isn’t it a little bit weird?