Welcome to Wildlife Week, an exploration of what happens when nature and home meet.

An increasingly prominent consideration when designing homes, sustainability in architecture can mean anything from sourcing local materials to fostering connections with the landscape. Enjoy these homes that embrace flora and fauna, providing ample opportunity for inside and outside to get as close as possible.

This 3D-Printed Tiny Cabin Offers a Creative Response to the Bay Area’s Housing Crisis

Partly fabricated from biodegradable materials and clay, the tiny home builds on the studio’s history of 3D printing with unconventional items, including recycled tires and salt." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Matthew Millman" photoUserId=""/>

Love Animals? This House is for You

A Black Gable Farmhouse Harvests its Own Electricity, Heat, and Water

Handcrafted details, energy-efficient principles, and a thoroughly contemporary interior combine at the Friends Lab, a barn-inspired home designed by Madrid-based AMPS Arquitectura & Diseño. The clients are a young family who wanted a house they could share with friends and family on their farm in southern England. To achieve high levels of energy efficiency, the design team constructed the building with prefabricated panels made of cross-laminated timber. These large-scale wood panels not only greatly enhanced the structure’s thermal properties, but also considerably reduced the build time." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Imagen Subliminal" photoUserId=""/>

An Eco-Friendly Family’s 400-Square-Foot Cottage Teems With Plant Life

A Gardener’s Home in Argentina Boasts Flowing Green Spaces

This Light-Filled Forest Home in the Netherlands Brings Nature Into Focus

The site was initially developed in 1928 as a psychological clinic for women, and the architects drew inspiration from the lush, green surroundings while collaborating closely with the couple to achieve a simple and humble home reflective of their personality. The dwelling’s square footprint is divided into four precisely arranged quadrants, and the four corners feature glass walls that open the structure to its natural environs." layout="wide" credit="Photo by MWA Hart Nibbrig" photoUserId=""/>

This Tiny, Off-Grid Prefab Home Grows Its Own Food

A Magical, Off-Grid Guesthouse Disappears Into the South African Bushveld

Hidden amidst the dense trees of a private reserve in Waterberg, South Africa, is a long, narrow building that appears to grow from a steep cliff out into the treetops. Crafted from local brick that evokes the sandstone rock face and capped with a green roof, the House of the Tall Chimneys is a guesthouse by Johannesburg-based architecture studio Frankie Pappas that celebrates a visceral connection with nature. “This space is shadier than the surrounding forest, so it creates a different microclimate for different species to flourish in that area,” says architect Ant Vervoort. “It’s an area that we have cultivated.”" layout="" credit="Photo by Dook" photoUserId=""/>

Immersed in Nature, This City Cabin Targets Net-Zero Energy

“The client wanted to feel like she was living in the wilderness when, in fact, her home is on a regular-size urban neighborhood lot,” notes Jim Olson, co-founder of the award-winning architecture studio Olson Kundig. Undeterred by the challenge, Jim strategically set the 2,400-square-foot home—dubbed the City Cabin—on the Seattle lot’s northwest corner to maximize garden space on the south and east sides. Walls of glazing frame views of the gardens that were densely landscaped with mature trees to fulfill the client’s desire for a connection to “urban wilderness.”" layout="wide" credit="Photo by Aaron Leitz" photoUserId=""/>

This Translucent Shed Hosts a Couple’s Home, Garden, and Cooking School Under One Roof

This Matte Black London Home Is Topped With a Wildflower Meadow

he house they designed meets level four of the UK Code for Sustainable Homes and exceeds UK Building Regulations for energy performance and carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 20 percent. The airtight build is constructed with naturally finished, low-embodied-energy materials, and it features efficient water systems (including solar hot water heaters), a living roof rich with native wildflowers, and an integrated bat box and sparrow terrace." layout="" credit="Photo by Gareth Gardner" photoUserId=""/>

An Australian Couple Downsize to a Tiny House and Discover an Idyllic Lifestyle

When a family in Queensland, Australia, suffered the loss of a loved one, a tiny home became their ticket to financial freedom. The home is located on a six-acre property that features a creek; native gum, eucalyptus, and bottlebrush trees; and birds, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, and lizards. “It’s mesmerizing to sit outside, smell the gum trees and listen to the birds,” Amy says. “The air is fresh, and you can feel the wind on your skin—it’s easy to stop and just be when we’re at home.”" layout="wide" credit="Photo by Lucas Muro" photoUserId=""/>

This Self-Sufficient Australian Home Is a Living, Breathing Ecosystem

Clinton’s passion seems more urgent than ever against the backdrop of one of the worst bushfire seasons on record in Australia. Fittingly, he has designed a new home for himself, his partner, and their three children to be an eye-catching emblem for the cause. The three-level, 1,722-square-foot residence fills a wedge-shaped lot in an inner suburb of Sydney. With greenery spilling out of its facade and a working garden sprouting from the roof, it is a self-consciously verdant presence on an otherwise typical street." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Murray Fredericks" photoUserId=""/>

An Architect Helps Longtime Family Friends Rebuild After a California Wildfire

In the aftermath, the couple, who are retired, had to move five times as they tried to reestablish their lives and decide whether to rebuild. A strong connection to nature was the couple’s topmost priority for the design brief—and they also wanted the project to be small. "Just a modern little cabin," says Boyer—with lots of outdoor space." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Cesar Rubio" photoUserId=""/>

A Home Fit for a Science Fiction Writer

Tucked beneath a grassy roof covered by nearly 200 species of plants and grasses, the structure is virtually invisible from the nearby street. In fact, the 1,400-square-foot house is so well hidden in the earth that it doesn’t seem to register on the radar of local wildlife either.

Birds, butterflies, bees, dragonflies, hawks, snakes, lizards, and frogs all treat the house like just another grassy knoll." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Dave Mead" photoUserId=""/>

A Family’s Retreat Is a Natural Fit in England’s New Forest National Park

The retreat embodies the studio’s commitment to environmentally-focused architecture, with triple-glazed windows, abundant insulation, natural ventilation, an air source heat pump for off-grid heating, photovoltaic panels, and a timber-frame structure with blown paper insulation in the roof." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Jim Stephenson" photoUserId=""/>

There’s a Jungle Inside This Wild Apartment Just Outside Mumbai

Barchha and Davis’s resulting design is marked by organic, sculptural forms that mimic the curves and undulating shapes found in nature. Door and window openings are curved and asymmetrical; continuous curves form light fixtures, furniture, and even shelving." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Sameer Tawde" photoUserId=""/>

An Architect’s 1960s London Home Welcomes Foxes, Squirrels, Bees, and Bats

However, the family wanted to add a fourth bedroom to the house and sought to relocate the kitchen, where they spent 80 percent of their family time. It was paramount for the extension to have a light ecological impact that would avoid disturbing the abundant wildlife in the garden—including foxes, squirrels, birds, and bats. So Helena designed the structure as a simple rectangular form that subtly extends from the existing home into the forested surrounds.

A green roof integrates the addition within the landscape and helps to balance the thermal performance of the home, keeping the kitchen cool in the summer and warm in the winter. A large oculus punctuates the roof, bringing daylight into the space." layout="" credit="Photo by Manuel Vásquez" photoUserId=""/>

These Art and Yoga Cabins Mimic California’s Majestic Forests

The 500-square-foot artist studio is located higher on the slope, and overlooks the green roof of the 415-square-foot yoga studio below." layout="" credit="Photo by Joe Fletcher" photoUserId="6133430985087148032"/>

Creative Revival of a Modernist Gem

High on an oak-studded, 1.4-acre parcel sits a house that architect Calvin Straub, a Japanese-influenced modernist, built in 1954. Over the next half-century, the original owner left the architecture virtually untouched. The building became run-down, and its interiors dark and tired. But the Blodgett-Calvin family could see past the heavy carpeting and drapes. In 2010, they approached Alice Fung and Michael Blatt of Fung + Blatt Architects (later joined by Elysian Landscapes), and the project gradually evolved into a mini-compound, with six pavilions tucked into the land’s contours. The architects’ strategy—integrating the requested pavilions—preserved the terrain, while referring back to Straub’s design. Along the slope, the structures, Fung explains, progressively "blur the lines between building and landscape." With their minimal footprints, some burrow into the earth, while others echo the ground plane with planted roofs, up-tilted like tectonic plates." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Mark Mahaney" photoUserId="6133431443184836608"/>

Top photo by Joe Fletcher.

Related Reading:

23 Unconventional Homes Built Around Trees

15 Brilliant Designs That Work Around Nature