Architects Joan Soranno and John Cook of HGA developed five site-specific cabins that tread lightly on the land at Marlboro College in rural Vermont. These deceptively simple structures update the regional vernacular. Every year, Marlboro College hosts the Marlboro Music Festival in which classical musicians join together to hone their craft. These cabins help support the musicians that live, work, and rehearse together.

Our expert spent an arvo lounging on chaise longues to decide which would make the short list.

The entire family makes good use of the music room, where they hold public and private Sunday concerts with local and international musicians.

In one area of the apartment, Tagliabue’s son, Domenec, plays drums in front of a sliding wood panel of the architects’ design.

The clients intend to retire to the house. They asked that rooms be constructed flexibly on a non-domestic scale. This one, with an Eames lounge and floor-to-ceiling glass windows, frames a serene mountain vista like a painting.

Brill's practice area features a ’50s Wurlitzer piano and a mid-’60s Ludwig drum kit. For acoustics, the architect insulated the walls with two layers of Sheetrock stuffed with denim insulation. The floor is made of pegboard—an unusual, albeit cost-effective, material choice.

Near the entrance is the front room, or music room, their daughter’s current favorite play area. “Every space needed to be used efficiently,” Parisien notes of the home’s remodel.

Russell's Drawn to Music notebook, which features a built-in record sleeve, encourages you to doodle while listening to your favorite tunes. A line at the bottom of each page prompts you to note what you’re listening to as you draw.

Seen here, a sinuous rosewood music rack from 1980 along with Castle's original sketches."Castle should be better known, but in fact he is pretty well known among certain design circles, museums, and collectors," says Gordon. "I think he might be much more famous if he'd died a tragically young death in some violent American fashion and limited his output."

Formerly known as the Android Market, Google Play is a an Android phone-exclusive digital application that allows users to browse and download various types of media, such as music, books, movies, television shows, and apps published through Google. Here, Gison's design on the Android phone.

A balancing act, an earlier concept.

Tablet version.

Illustration for the launch of Google Play Music All Access by San Francisco-based graphic designer Zachary Gibson.

This one's an earlier concept, too.

The exterior of the Camerata Music Space and Gallery.

The ground floor is a music room with a kind of blue vibe, thanks to the Richard Woods flooring.

The yellow hall gives a bolt of energy as you head into to the lecture hall. © Greg Irikura 2013.

OD-11 by Stig Carlsson, Lars Lallerstedt, and Jesper Kouthoofd for Teenage Engineering, $899 First introduced in 1974, the OD-11 retains its minimalist styling but is updated to play cloud-based music. An added bonus: Its app mimics the look and feel of the physical remote (the red knob above).

Specialized Housing: The 17-story 160 Massachusetts Avenue Tower by William Rawn Associates serves myriad purposes at Boston's Berklee College of Music: It's home to dorm housing for 380 students, a fitness center, practice rooms, performance space, six double-height lounges, and the largest recording studio complex in New England.

The use of color continues in the monochromatic bathrooms. © Greg Irikura 2013

Colorful mid-century style furnishings outfit the Red Bull Music Academy. © Greg Irikura 2013.

The design and construction process for the project overlapped to ensure the space would be completed in time for this year’s Red Bull Music Academy. Separate crews were enlisted to work on each level. Pictured here, a glimpse of the performance space (also prone to impromptu dance parties). © Greg Irikura 2013.

Each work pod/studio contains the work of one or two artists featured in Kairos. Many of the pieces are interactive to encourage creative stimulation in the workspaces. © Greg Irikura 2013.

Of his design, Inaba says “It's about filtering out some of the visual noise of the city, if you will, so the spot light is cast on the ideas, music, video and art.” Here, the lecture hall. © Greg Irikura 2013.

Artist Tamara Gonzalez added to the rock n’ roll vibe of a recording studio. Tamara Gonzalez, I Like Your Room. Did a Pole Come With It?, 2013. Courtesy of the artist and The Red Bull Music Academy

One-Family Custom Housing: The five Marlboro Music cottages at Vermont's Marlboro College provide residential space for musicians. The understated design by HGA Architects and Engineers references the history of Cape Cod architecture, while indigenous materials and small scale help the houses blend in with the surrounding landscape.

The master studio and session rooms occupy the space of the building’s former basement loading dock. The tall ceilings this area offered are ideal for the recording environment. A 10 to 15 inch concrete slab was poured to buffer sound and movement from the nearby 1,2,3 line. © Greg Irikura 2013.

Automatica by Inrete, $159 This plugs into your car’s USB port to play podcasts, music from your Dropbox folder—anything you can upload to a cloud server. Anytime it gets near a secure wi-fi connection, it’ll update with the latest content.

For her work, Carly Mark will slowly be tearing away at one of the working studio’s walls. Carly Mark, Untitled, 2013. Courtesy of the artist and The Red Bull Music Academy.

Martin Roth explored the effect of noise on plant life via the bonsai seen here and an arrangement of sound from wildlife in a network of aquariums. Martin Roth, Untitled (Bonsai), 2013. Courtesy of the artist and The Red Bull Music Academy.

Furniture throughout the house echoes the soft materiality of the architectural details, which include original pine floorboards refinished with lye and wood soap. The music room armchair and footstool are vintage, from Ercol; the blue-gray Grasshopper floor lamp is by Greta Grossman from Gubi.

Inside soundproofed music studio

The Kimmel Center, designed by Rafael Viñoly, offers classical music.

Klipsch has been in the audio business for 65 years, and the Music Center Stadium is the Indiana-based company's first foray into the wireless sound system game. Which isn't to say it doesn't pack a punch. The same engineering that goes into Klipsch-programmed LiveNation venues is evident here. It wallops at loud volumes, and even more impressive, sound is crystal clear even at low levels. It connects via Bluetooth to mobile devices or can plug into a mixer. Available Fall 2013.

A USM credenza holds vinyl and booze. Music flows via a Pro-Ject Debut III turntable, a pair of Elipson Planet L speakers, and a Music Hall Audio amplifier. - Brooklyn, New York Dwell Magazine : July / August 2017

Wendell Castle showcased this beautiful bent wood music stand. -Sarah