BEST

The 82-foot-long pool gets quite a lot of use by Jeff and Millie, and especially by the kids, who are both on the local swim team.

The sun shines over the meadow on the backside of Kuczia’s carbon-saving creation, whose central atrium contains the living room. In summer, the glass doors open.

Solar panels catch the sun's energy; wide expanses of open doors and windows provide cross-ventilation; and strategic overhangs shade against the desert's endless heat.

All of Scott Palamar’s selections and customizations brought the total to $150,000 for the 640-square-foot home and surrounding land. “I feel like I struck on such a novel solution because I was able to afford a home tailored to my lifestyle,” he says.

In line with the family’s active lifestyle, the kitchen is also situated outside; to the south of it, a screened-in area of the porch, clad in ipe and black fiberglass mesh, serves as the impromptu dining area. The table and chairs are from Black’s Farmwood, and the ceiling fan is by Fanimation.

Architecture and interior photographer Marc Gerritsen went back to basics when he designed this minimalist concrete house that you can rent through Airbnb.

West Facade

Tasked with creating a multi-use guest pavilion on a relatively small Northern California vineyard lot that could also host sit down dinners for up to 60 people, designers at Anderson Architects started by asking the key questions: “Where should it be within the property?” “How much floor area do we need for a 60 person dinner?” “How much volume do we need for a basketball court?” “We also always tell ourselves to look at the landscape first, let it dominate and lead it through. The building took the form of a large Napa Valley barn.

A 100-mile drive from the Big Apple, the 15-acre property in Orient, New York, serves as a vacation retreat and refuge for a Brooklyn couple.

“Approached through a forested plateau of ponderosa pine, this residence for a young family is a delicate stripe across the horizon.”

Residents enter the house from the street through the upper level, which contains the bedrooms. The rafters were removed to create additional loft space.

Looking into the warm, brightly lit house at night offers a different kind of view, one that charmingly recalls the cutaway dioramas in Wes Anderson’s films.