Move over, Lincoln Logs. This creativity-building toy, fashioned of FSC-certified wood pieces, arrives with real tools, including nuts, bolts and a pint-size wrench.

The courtyard is just one of many open spaces that will be highly utilized—in the non-winter months anyway. Concrete worked well with developing the language of FlatPak. The second level is a wood panel that can be clad in corrugated metal or cedar—different layers that can be plugged in like covers on your cellphone.

kitHAUS prides itself on its stylish, modern prefabs that are built on-site by a team of company employees. Their patented aluminum system takes only a few days to construct, and the homes boast superior energy efficiency, owing to insulated floors, walls, and ceilings as well as glazed doors and windows.

Repurposed shipping containers serve as the primary materials for the houses and working spaces designed by ShelterKraft. The company's designs focus primarily on disaster relief projects, drawing from existing steel frames and skins in order to reduce the use of new materials. Their buildings range from small cargo cottages of 160-square-feet to 700-square-foot warehouses for industrial facilities. Athough they come with electric power, heat and plumbing, they generally require a pre-existing concrete foundation and a local contractor to ensure a smooth, safe installation.

Tracy Beckmann and Ryan Trowbridge spent four years shopping for furnishings, fixtures, and lighting to outfit the guest rooms, sourcing steel hardware in Hong Kong, vintage lighting in Italy and France, and many mid-century pieces in their backyard, aka Palm Springs’s renowned vintage shops.

Finds included Bertoia barstools, a J. Wade Beam coffee table, and a chrome Thonet-inspired chair in Unit One and a Warren Platner coffee table and chair in Unit Four.

Each of the four units has a private patio.

The open observatory.

Shelter-Kit provides a range of structures, including cabins, barns, garages, and workshops. The New Hampshire-based company produces custom kits in a range of styles and sizes, and 85% of their kits are assembled by clients with no previous building experience. New small homes or second units are customized to meet the needs of individual customers, who can browse the company’s website to view floor plans, images, and final product ideas. Customers can even send over a draft floor plan of their own design.

Resident Misha Bukowski plays with young Zachary in the walkway between the renovated buildings. The new units are clad in stained local cedar.

To maximize guests’ experience of Lautner’s legendary approach to daylight, Beckmann and Trowbridge forewent blinds or curtains on the windows and glazed walls, offering guests sleeping masks instead.

The eat-in kitchen features poured-in-place concrete countertops and redwood wall paneling.

DIY Synth Kit by Technology Will Save Us, $40 at techwillsaveus.com Technology Will Save Us makes even the most technical doodads simple to assemble. Their DIY Synth Kit is no different, teaching the joys of electronic music by empowering users to build their own instrument from scratch.

A perfect gift for any budding photographer, this pinhole camera kit even includes darkroom chemicals to process your photos. Even comes with a nifty booklet with instructors and the history of photography. Snap away, snappers! $40

Cubelets Robot Kit, from $160 at momastore.org Featured in the 2011 MoMA exhibition Talk to Me, each Cubulet cube has its own function, such as generating movement or detecting changes in the environment. They click together to form a robot with its own unique behavior.

A preassembled kit of parts allows users to build a music synthesizer.

Geodesic domes were first popularized by R. Buckminster Fuller in the mid-twentieth century, but the extremely strong and stable structures have since been developed into sustainable, wind-resistant models. Oregon Dome produces wind and hurricane resistant geodesic dome kits in thousands of plans, sizes, and shapes. Each can easily be built by the customers themselves, no special equipment necessary.

“Your first impression is that the house is very closed,” says David Barragán of the building he designed with Jose María Sáez in Quito, Ecuador. Stacked concrete forms, developed by Barragán and Sáez and used as planters along the front facade, offer privacy and integrate the building with the site.

Stillwater Dwellings, which has participated in both the 2013 and 2014 Dwell on Design exhibitions, puts a distinct emphasis on natural lighting, efficient floor plans, and high-quality craftsmanship to ensure innovative, modern designs.

In the Dolomite mountains, an angular copper-clad apartment building echoes the topography of its site. Photos by Hertha Hurnaus

The sleeping cubbies lie beneath the walkway connecting front and back units. Cedar decking and soffit add warmth and texture to the transitional space.

The big ‘move’ was to create the little box, a separate stand-alone piece that gave us a resolutely private sanctuary,” says Lazor. “It’s a place with no phone, no TV, no other person. The second big thing was the space in between the courtyard, which cements the house to the site and takes advantage of the greenway behind the space.”

The British designer James Fox nabbed a Lexus design award for his Macian "den-building kit." The kit of connectors allows you to build structures using found materials. "Architecture is essentially lines and points," he said. "This makes the points and people can find the lines between."

Piper nv by Piper, $279 at store.getpiper.com Unlike other wireless home security systems, the Piper nv requires no fees for service. That means you can use its connected camera to monitor your home remotely, or program push notifications to alert you about alarming activity, all for the price on the package.

Muehle Shaving Kit, $239 from store.kaufmann-mercantile.comMade in Germany, the Muehle Shaving kit consists of a chrome-plated badger-hair brush, safety razor, and stand. If the gent in your life insists on his Gillette's, consider a gift card to a barber shop to accompany the shaving kit and perhaps he'll learn a thing or two about how it was done in the good old days. Fellow Barber has locations in San Francisco and New York. Harry's Corner Shop recently opened in New York and features a Fort Standard–designed interior.

Smart Home Kit by LittleBits, $249 at littlebits.cc This kit turns a home into a smart home without the wholesale replacement of every fixture. The kit comes with 14 modules that can be combined to turn virtually any object into an Internet-connected device.

"City | Inventory"

Corner of a building in Berlin, Germany.

Building Codes: Whether you are planning a renovation or building from the ground up, arm yourself with the knowledge that will help you navigate endless meetings and negotiations. Illustration by Andy Rementer

Building and stairwell in Essen, Germany.

Architect Michael Cobb used Douglas fir harvested from the site throughout the house, such as on a sliding door outfitted with Swiss Rod SS hardware from the Real Carriage Door Company.

The yellow North Face tent looms over the top of the main building.

Although initially established in the German town of Weimar, the Bauhaus relocated to the industrial city of Dessau. This building, constructed by Staatliches Bauhaus founder and director Walter Gropius, was the second home of the renowned school.

San Francisco’s Barbary Coast Library: When the Gold Rush was at its high, Barbary Coast (now enveloped in historic Jackson Square) was the illicit place-to-be. Now, designer Ken Fulk has crafted the design for a members-only social club called The Battery in the historic Musto building. From: California Home + Design. Photo by Joe Fletcher

Alvin Huang, who leads SDA/Synthesis Design and runs the Architectural Association Visiting School Los Angeles (AAVSLA), will share how he uses novel architectural materials and the concept behind such proposed projects as the Shanghai Wuzhou International Plaza (pictured). He'll be joined by USC professor Doris Sung to discuss how technology can improve building science, making for smarter structures.