Skylights draw sunshine into the apartment.

The renovation revealed a 30-foot-deep well beneath the bedroom, which the team half-jokingly considered turning into a fish tank. Instead, they opted for a simple bedroom with plenty of built-in storage.

Shibata made the 10-person dining table using $130 sawhorse legs from Maruki Wood Products Company topped with a sheet of birch plywood. A hole in the sliding wall fits over the table, enabling it to be used in both the library and the meeting room. malki.jp A movable wall clad in wainscoting on one side slides along tracks in the dining-room ceiling, dividing the room into a meeting space and a library. The Shiro Simple Modern Pendant lights can be easily removed and reattached after moving the wall. vanilladesign.jp

This 450-square-foot apartment includes an origami-like desktop that unfolds to reveal a perforated-steel divider that allows the passage of computer cables hidden inside the office compartment. This transformer-like cabinet helps maximize limited square footage.

An alcove above the kitchen discreetly houses a sleeping space for guests.

The Laccio side table in the bedroom is by Marcel Breuer for Knoll.

The kitchen is equipped with a custom Statuario marble countertop, shelf, and sink.

A handwoven silk ikat print, which Molineus acquired in Uzbekistan, is draped between the kitchen entrances. A Sapiens bookshelf by Bruno Rainaldi stands at far right.

Inside Out Architecture renovated an apartment in the Clerkenwell section of central London, removing interior walls to create an open, loft-like living space. The architects were taken in by the "dramatic geometry" of the existing board-formed concrete ceiling, and their design maintained and emphasized its dynamic criss-crosses and texture.

An older building doesn't mean that it can't also be modern, particularly in the kitchen.

Home Renovation Tip: Decide on a Sensible Scope of Work

The couple’s white Bulthaup kitchen is set within a double-height volume hung with Tom Dixon Beat lights, arranged in a custom configuration by interior designer Maria Rosa Di Ioia. Overhead, Cubit shelving artfully displays books and objects, accessible by a glass-walled footbridge added during the renovation.

The apartment occupies the top floor of a converted Georgian house.

The renovation was designed to preserve and call attention to the angular pattern of the crisscrossing concrete ceiling beams. Photo by Jim Stephenson.

Architects who practice in dense cities know its almost impossible to add square footage to an apartment. Yet at a garden-level residence in Boston's historic Beacon Hill neighborhood, Chris Greenawalt of Bunker Workshop was able to unearth 70 square feet of living space through a little excavation.

Like a Murphy bed, the dining table tucks into the wall when not in use.

In the kitchen, the custom cabinets contain special compartments that hide appliances from sight. The room draws in natural light from the balcony.

Molineus designed all of the storage units in the apartment, including the lacquered medium-density fiberboard cabinets under the kitchen sink, which is outfitted with a Vola faucet.

The streetside facade, dominated by site-poured concrete, contains the garage, from which Jacobson and Dukes escape for a quick surf.

Above the 606 Universal shelving by Dieter Rams for Vitsœ, Molineus displays a Central Asian ikat wedding garment that dates to around 1900. The Gaku floor lamp at left is by Dagmar Mombach and Ingo Maurer.

In the master bathroom, the couple traded an outdated tile tub for the BOV 02 from Wetstyle and added fixtures, towel bars, and hooks from Vola. The hallway, which retains its original black granite floor, leads past paneled walls to a deck.

The custom shoe cabinets at the top of the stairs double as a balustrade.

The New Project Group renovated a cramped, uninviting space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The company gave the 400-square-foot apartment a gut renovation, with a new kitchen and bathroom designed for efficiency. A parallelogram-shaped window pane, rescued from an architectural salvage yard, was outfitted with steel edges and casters, and repurposed as a coffee table.

The historic apartment has been updated throughout with white paint and minimalist accents, adapting its rustic character to the 21st-century.

“The upper floor includes the entry, cloakroom, guest bathroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, and terrace,” Hammer says. “In contrast to the lower floor and its separated rooms, the living area is composed as an open space with no walls.” Nerd Chairs by David Geckeler for Muuto surround a handcrafted nutwood table in the dining room.

Johanna Molineus’s peripatetic childhood is reflected in the Chinese and Central Asian textiles and objects found throughout her small London apartment, including a square-patterned horse blanket.

Abbes and Davison removed drywall to expose the brick on one wall in the living room. "As we began to expose that brick, we found the old metal framing that they used to use," Daivson says. "They used to stick chicken-mesh wire on it and put plaster on top. When we exposed the brick, we found this metal detail and decided to keep it." Photo by Alan Gastelum.

"In the kitchen, we changed the layout," Davison says. "It was a galley kitchen, extending lengthways into the room. We spun it back along the back wall. The tiles are Moroccan concrete tiles that came from a supplier here in Manhattan. The idea was to inject some color and playfulness into the space with the blue cabinetry." Photo by Alan Gastelum.

A geographic lime-green tile pattern was incorporated into the bathroom to complement the sink, which was found in an architectural salvage yard and retains its original color. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

“All interior walls were removed to create four individual rooms on the sixth floor,” Hammer says. The two children and the new baby share a bathroom. And in their bedrooms, storage continues to be key.

All of the artwork was created by the New Design Project. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

The cantilevered shelving in the bedroom was fashioned from vintage metal panels that were purchased online, Davison says. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

Another view of the master bedroom shows more original artwork by the New Design Project. Photo by Alan Gastelum.

The custom zinc cabinets and quartzite countertops of Mark Berryman’s Tribeca apartment reflect the sun as it sets over Manhattan. Workstead designer Robert Highsmith kept the apartment’s original fir beams and painted its existing pipes Onyx by Benjamin Moore. The counter stools are by Sawkille, and the floors are white oak from LV Wood. The range is by Viking.

The apartment originally crammed four closed rooms and a kitchen and bathroom into 1,000 square feet. After the renovation, it had only one bedroom and a large, open kitchen.

Fabian and Dorothee Heine’s renovation began and ended with a particular kitchen system. Almost a year before finding the flat they would call home, the Hamburg-based couple decided upon a matte black Vipp kitchen that Fabian had glimpsed in the window of the company’s Copenhagen showroom. The island serves as a generous workspace for Fabian to prepare dishes with her son Morten.