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The farmhouse, originally built in 1894, is now a recognized cultural heritage site.

The Buster is a customizable home by Build Tiny, a family-owned business in Katikati, New Zealand. The compact dwelling features a lofty living space, plenty of natural light, and a surprising amount of storage. Sheathed in two-tone corrugated metal, the home can be ordered either finished or unfinished. The basic shell starts at around $35,382, while a turn-key version is priced at $65,228.

Fortunately, the damaged exterior and dismally dark 1970s interior didn’t scare away NMT Financial, who were captivated by the home wrapped around a massive oak tree embedded into the inner courtyard. Oakland-based See Arch was hired to restore the home’s modernist character while updating the dwelling to contemporary standards.

In Texas, where everything is bigger, Ryan McLaughlin is placing his bets on something small. Specifically, a simple 160-square-foot cabin that he hopes city-dwellers will book to get away, find some focus, and reconnect with nature. The result is a laidback, pitched-roof cabin in which every inch of space is thoughtfully allotted so that guests can spend the maximum amount of time outdoors.

Instead of focusing on reworking the street-facing front wall of the house, they turned their attention to the back wall, and found a better way to connect the interiors with the beautiful garden. This allowed them to stay true to the suburban vernacular of gabled brick walls and a terra-cotta roof, while modernizing the back section of the house quite dramatically.

Originally built in 1974 as a kit home, this A-frame cabin was saved from ruins by an ambitious couple who temporarily turned it into a home for five.

After: The team introduced a three-level void that brings light into the different floors. Here, a study with a built-in desk benefits from the natural light and preserved architectural features, like the stained glass windows and the door.

Plant Prefab was originally established in 2016 as an offshoot of LivingHomes, a design and development company that’s built dozens of award-winning prefabs—including actor Will Arnett's home.

Curved walls were the source of inspiration for the custom, undulating, 22-foot-long sofa, clad in blue velvet, which acts as a plush focal point in the space. Its blue tone contrasts with the crisp, white walls in a modern take on the typical blue and white color palette of the Greek isles.

In thinking about the worldwide lack of reliable water, sanitation, food, and electricity—and the fact that housing sector contributes more than a third of global greenhouse gas emissions—the Yale Center for Ecosystems in Architecture and the New Haven, Connecticut–based architecture firm Gray Organschi Architecture designed and constructed a 230-square-foot home called the Ecological Living Module (ELM). The construction is a fully off-grid housing prototype that was designed to take advantage of sustainable materials, green technology, and simple construction methods. There's a a rainwater harvesting system, a solar system that provides 100 percent of the building’s energy needs, and a graywater system that irrigates food-producing plants that mark the building’s west facade.

An exterior canopy extends to create an outdoor living area. Solar panels adorn the roof, catching the sun's rays and generating power for living off-grid.

What Carstensen saved on labor costs he was able to put into furnishings. The interior of the screened-in porch is outfitted with a mix of furnishings, both vintage and new. He purchased the vintage Malm fireplace in Los Angeles on a work trip and had it shipped to Portland. The rug, shelf unit, and loveseat are all from the locally-based Schoolhouse Electric, as are the ceiling lights: Factory Light No. 7 in Green.

For his own home in Mar Vista, architectural designer Mohamed Sharif retained the front portion of a 1940s bungalow and added an L-shaped, two-story volume at the rear that includes a wing for his mother-in-law. “Adapting and reusing and being sensitive to the neighborhood context was important,” he says. The structure is sheathed in fiber cement HardiePanels. The decking is by Trex.

Set on nearly 1.5 acres in lower Bel Air, the home features breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean and the Getty Museum.