Deertrack Lane

Jeff Jordan Architects / Irvington, New York

Architect Jeff Jordan typically prefers to limit the materials in his kitchens to a handful of compatible finishes and almost never uses more than two types of wood. However, in renovating a midcentury home in a suburb north of New York City, he decided to integrate oak, cypress, walnut, pine, and cedar in the same space, giving the kitchen a rich yet balanced texture.

GV House

This is IT / Giv’atayim, Israel

While renovating a 1980s kitchen in Israel, architecture studio This is IT employed a selection of cool, neutral materials to provide the residents with some relief from the strong Mediterranean summer sun. Gray terrazzo, black granite, concrete, steel, and glass predominate, while brass details are interspersed sparingly throughout the home to create a running thread.

Art and Light

Andrew Mikhael Architect / New York, New York

A common phenomenon in big city apartments is having a front door that opens right into the kitchen, making the cooking area the default spot for guests to congregate at parties. Architect Andrew Mikhael embraced the kitchen-as-entertaining-hub concept with multicolor LED lights, which allow his Manhattan clients to change the room’s mood with one click

Los Palmos

SVK Interior Design / San Francisco, California

In a San Francisco kitchen conceived by SVK Interior Design, rich elm accents are paired with matte-white laminate cabinets, gray-veined Caesarstone countertops, and show-stopping white Heath tile with dark grout. The designers decided to go hardware-free by installing push-to-release mechanisms on all the cabinet doors and drawers, making the materials the focal point.

Chevron House

Andy Martin Architecture / London, England

Through the dramatic use of color, London studio Andy Martin Architecture revived a brick Edwardian house for a contemporary art collector. To keep the eye from being overwhelmed, the firm left the walls a neutral off-white while highlighting key details like built-ins with bold hues. The bathroom, accented in lime green, baby blue, and lemon yellow, is a prime example.

Stanhope Gardens

Carl Turner Architects / London, England

In designing the bathroom of a West London home, architect Robert Guest of Carl Turner Architects covered the floor and walls in square tiles to give the space a graphic quality, almost like grid paper. “In some ways, it feels like an inhabited drawing,” Guest says. The basin top is hard-wearing concrete. A trio of Glo Ball lights provides a delicate counterpoint to the tough surfaces.

Saint-Laurent Apartment

Atelier Barda / Montreal, Quebec

When a fashion company asked Atelier Barda to transform a lofty, 1,150-square-foot apartment in Montreal’s up-and-coming Mile End district into a place to host out-of-town clients, the designers responded with a gutsy black-and-white scheme. In the bathroom, a marble countertop and white-washed brick walls are paired with sleek ebony taps.

Norris House

Davey McEathron Architecture / Austin, Texas

To introduce morning light into a master bathroom in Austin, architect Davey McEathron had to punch a skylight through the vaulted ceiling because the exterior walls face south and west. For the clients’ large dog, he incorporated a separate washing station in the shower. The cabinets are painted Indigo by Sherwin Williams to provide a pop of color in the otherwise white space.