Anyone who watches “This Old House” and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” knows that remodeling a home is often a transformative experience. It’s not simply a matter of modernizing the kitchen to make it easier for the cook or more inviting for guests, or putting down a hardwood floor to add a richer, more luxurious tone. A good remodel can change the character of a home, reorienting the lifestyle of those who live there. These two homes, which won honors in the American Institute of Architects Honolulu’s 2013 Design Awards contest, fulfill that objective.

CONTEMPORARY ZEN

The Shintani home was a simple structure typical not just of the Moanalua area but of dozens of neighborhoods in Hawaii. Jennifer Shintani’s father built it back in the 1960s, using board-and-batten construction, but she and her husband, Alan, wanted to bring a modern and distinctively spiritual touch to the single-story home, which was expanded from a modest 2,500 square feet to an expansive 3,390 square feet.

"They wanted it to be a combination because the family likes a lot of the old Japanese to mix with a contemporary Zen setting," said Louis Fung, architect for the project.

One can easily see ascetic Japanese characteristics throughout the residence, from the stark white-and-black color scheme to the simple patterns created by reconstructed shoji doors.

Even the flooring of the main room, which stretches from the front of the house to the back gardens, has a Japanese feel while being modern at the same time. The original wood was replaced by tile — a change to accommodate a messy family dog — but rather than the traditional 12-by-12-inch squares, the tiles are double that size, large enough to be vaguely reminiscent of tatamis.

"We tried to keep things very basic and subtle and calm," Fung said. "The only thing we wanted was for the eyes to go ‘out.’"

"Out" means out to the garden, where the concepts of Zen are most outstanding. It is marked by the diverse use of rock, both colorful jellybean-sized pebbles and large river rocks in black and white, with a bubbling waterfall and fish pond creating a soothing sound.

Even the master bathroom, which has a soaking tub made from a type of Japanese cypress known for its soothing qualities, has its own private rock-and-bamboo garden. To share a view of it, the master bedroom has a small window along the floor.

That’s in keeping with a design that allows the gardens to be seen from a variety of angles, whether from inside the house looking out the windows, from the lanai, or from the "engawa," narrow corridors along the back of the house.

"It’s a typical Japanese border to separate inside and the outside," said Chizuru Harris, designer of the house, describing the design function of engawa. "People love to walk along them to look at the garden."

Alan Shintani, who is a contractor himself and managed the reconstruction, recycled much of the building material for the $660,000 project, which won a design award from the Building Industry Association of Hawaii and the AIA’s Editor’s Choice Award from Hawaii Home and Remodeling magazine. The recycled materials, along with "invisible" solar panels that are set into the roofing and the minimal amount of water needed for the rock garden, enables the home to qualify for a highLEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for "green" building.

As much as the house has changed, the design gives a nod to its original board-and-batten construction with horizontal wood planks on the exterior. Rather than being covered with paint, however, the wood is unfinished, exposing the rich grain of ipe, a Brazilian hardwood that is becoming increasingly popular in Hawaii. "That is to both provide contrast and continue the design," Fung said.

"We’re really busy," said Jennifer Shintani. "So it really helps to have a home where it’s really good to come home."

HALEKOA HAVEN

Architect Cathi Ho Schar’s project could have been named "A Room With a View." The living room of the home on the snaking turns of Halekoa Drive in Ainakoa had a living room with an unobstructed view stretching from Ewa to Kahala and beyond.

The problem was it was only one room that had the view. "The house had this beautiful panoramic view, but the house was bisected by a big wall," Schar said.

The wall cut off the kitchen and dining room from the living room and the view. As if to emphasize the separation, a stairwell leading up from a ground-floor bedroom was placed along the wall.

The result was that the house, despite being bathed in sunlight during daylight hours, had a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality, with the back of the house "very dark shabby ’70s" and the living room very bright, Schar said.

"There was a lot of glare," she said. "There was this opening, and (on one side) it was very bright, and then very dark."

Schar removed the wall and relocated the stairwell to an unobtrusive side of the living room. That allowed an even, natural light to flow through to the kitchen and dining room.

"It was really about reorienting the whole house to make use of the view — opening it up to the ocean, to Diamond Head, and opening up the spaces to each other so that there was better circulation in the living space."

A load-bearing column would have stood alone in the middle of everything, so to hide it, Schar had large, flat-panel cabinets built around it, custom-made in white oak. They add a huge amount of storage space — the young family that owns the home told Schar it’s very easy to make the place neat now with so many cabinets — but they also create a degree of separation between the family quarters without completely closing them off.

The house was entirely modernized with updated plumbing and electrical work. The original single-wall construction was transformed into double-wall construction, allowing for recessed lighting and giving the interior a clean, modern look.

A new master bedroom with its own lanai, a new laundry room, and an expanded bathroom added about 700 square feet to the now 3,000-square-foot home. The project ended up costing $285,000, exceeding the original budget of $250,000 due to changes requested by the owners.

Most of the original oak wood flooring was kept, with replacement wood and tiles obtained at Reuse Hawaii. A new coat of whitewash was applied to the open-beam ceiling, adding to the airy feel of the house, which received a merit award in this year’s design contest.

"Anything with open beams and exposed structure I think is worth keeping," said Schar, whose design of a new home with exposed trusses won a design award from AIA Hawaii in 2012. "People don’t feel like that any more."