This "local prefab" home on the Isle of Skye is made mostly from materials sourced in northern Scotland. The timber-framed model, meant to evoke the simple agrarian barns of the area, can be constructed on-site in as little as a day and is designed for affordability.

@amyraegerber: #dwelloutdoor

Asked to find an ecologically sustainable building solution, blaanc turned to a vernacular building technique that still thrives in certain pockets of rural Portugal, rammed earth.

Rural Studio Graduation in Newbern As Alabama’s famed rural studio begins its twentieth year, the site-specific, community-based architecture program continues to expand its vision with an added focus on farming and the community. Photo by Tim Hursley

Construction of the Rural Studio Farm Elena Barthel: “The idea is to design and build our own farm with the students as a prototype to extend out of the academic community. We’re building an irrigation system based on gravity; water is collected off the roof in cisterns, then pumped up into a smaller water tower, then gravity will feed a drip irrigation system. The greenhouse as a whole is a manifesto of sustainable farming.” Photo by Tim Hursley

Rural and urban sensibilities mix indoors. The double-height living room nods to the loft-like spaces the family was accustomed to in Seattle; rough-hewn wood boards appeal to their "wabi sabi" taste in design.

The house's L shape permits a considerable courtyard, and plenty of space for lounging behind the rain screen. The stairs sit at the intersection of the two volumes and lead down into the more social of the two: the dining room, living room, and music room.

The Mason's Bees Community Center by Rural Studio

“The owners were looking for a relaxed, welcoming environment,” says architect Sylvain Bilodeau. They wanted something “conceptually similar to a cottage, yet more refined, particularly in the relationships between spaces and between people. The goal was to have a present, living, and enthusiastic architecture that engages the senses.”

Architect William Carpenter, glimpsed in his second-floor design studio, built Lightroom 2.0 to sit unobtrusively among its 1920s neighbors in Decatur.

Exterior of the backyard studio Riley McFerrin of Hinterland Design built for his client, a children's book illustrator.

Kakslauttanen (Saarriselka, Finland) True, these glass-covered igloos are built for two, but as far as small dwellings go, there are few that can boast such commanding views of the Northern Lights. So remote that it has a section on its website to reassure potential guests that it does, in fact, get phone service, the glass rooms looks like a grid of dots (or perhaps umlauts) against the snow-covered wilderness. Photo by Kakslauttanen

According to DIGSAU, “after reading many issues of Dwell” this client enlisted them to break them out of tract house living. Sourced wood from a nearby barn helped to create a modern yet rustic space. 2011. Photo by Todd Mason/Halkin Photography.

Large sliding glass doors suspend the living room within the landscape for family gatherings or larger events.

The relationship between interior and exterior becomes crucial in the articulation of the residence.

A covered walkway provides a sheltered passage between the main house and studio. The fire pit is used during social gatherings.

The first floor consists of two long and narrow structures that intersect in an open kitchen, providing distinct programmatic areas and settling into the tree-lined landscape, allowing yards to surround and permeate each room.

Maximizing daylight is only one of the sustainable design strategies used in the Low/Rise residence.

Phillips designed Judith a stark white, glass-fronted art studio.

“Who better than the farmer and the farmer's family to know how most effectively and easily to find efficiency?” says architect Alan Barlis. Regional architecture inspired the barn-life structure of the house, an open volume that aides in efficient heating and cooling of the space.

TuboHotel (Tepoztlan, Mexico) Based on a similarly tubular take on hotel construction found in Germany, the TuboHotel turns recycled concrete tubing—stacked in pyramids—into outdoor dwellings with commanding views of the Sierra del Tepozteco archeological site. Firm T3arc arrayed the pipes in a random order to showcase the topography of the area. Photo by T3arc

In this sustainable home in Silicon Valley, the primary suite opens to a deck and fern garden with large, sliding glass doors.

Built near her home, Bo Bardi’s studio was housed in a simple shed inspired by rural Brazilian structures and Japanese architecture.

Through an integral relationship between use, form, and material, the Low/Rise House responds sensitively to site, nature, and neighborhood, creating a new type of suburban living – both urban and rural.

The Casa Cuatro sits above a 180-foot cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The locally quarried stone makes the house blend in with the landscape and acts as a thermal-mass wall, absorbing heat during the day and releasing it through the evening.

The house was built on piers (save for the lower-level bedroom) so that little of the natural landscape would be disturbed.

Having purchased the land from a friend who also has a house in the community, Schneider had a better sense of what she wanted—and what she didn't—her site. "From the experience at the neighbor's house," Foster says, "she knew she didn't want the house to have its back to the morning sun so we created a deck and somewhere to sit outside that faces east." Don't miss a word of Dwell! Download our FREE app from iTunes, friend us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter!

The 925-square-foot house Maggie Treanor calls home blends into the landscape somewhat; with a galvanized steel shed roof and siding, it looks like a high-design little brother to the barns on the surrounding farms.

Architect David Hill, his wife, Elizabeth, and their three children (from left: Wade, eight, Luke, six, and Breyton, ten), have an unusual home by the standards of their college-town setting in Auburn, Alabama. Built in 1920, the industrial brick building has had previous incarnations as a church, a recycling center, and a pool hall, among others.

Technically, this small building is not a tree house, since it’s braced at the ground by supports, but Grey didn’t want to compromise the tree, which “doesn’t have a very long lifespan,” the designer says. “So, I didn’t want to jeopardize however long that tree had with any excess baggage.”

Built on a tight budget of $120,000, a retirement home in the mountains delivers unexpected contemporary design to a rural township.

The sinuous interior is lined with CNC-cut wooden panels that define stepped sauna seating and porthole windows.

The sauna structure includes a small deck.

The designs might be minimal but the color palette is friendly.

Master Bedroom, opens to screened pool deck, includes walk in safe room/closet.