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A wide gravel driveway leads to the historic white farmhouse, nestled under soaring trees.

Architect Johan Sundberg looked to Japanese architects like Kengo Kuma for inspiration for the design of a holiday home in southern Sweden. "We call it the Katsura typology, but that's probably sacrilegious," he says. The eaves of the gently sloped hipped roof extend generously in all directions, turning the deck into a covered retreat that’s part veranda, part engawa, the Japanese version of a porch.

“MA03 Library House was designed to meet the requirements of a ceramicist and a lawyer in need of a home capable of holding their extensive book collection as well as providing them with spaces for work and creative activity,” say Fria Folket, the architect behind this cabin in Sweden.

Constructed out of structural insulated panels (SIPS), the Element House is a modular building that was designed to operate independently of public utilities by instead employing passive systems and on-site energy generation. The house functions as a guesthouse and visitor center for Star Axis, a nearby land art project by the artist Charles Ross in New Mexico.

For 2015, Vipp, the Danish industrial design company known for its iconic trash cans and all-black kitchens, introduces a 592-square-foot prefab unit called Shelter.

New pine and spruce wood from the Pyrenees (both recyclable and PEFC certified) were selected for the façade of the 1,000-square-foot prefab. Smart blinds cover the windows, rigged to open and close depending on the weather forecast.

We'll be continually working on the landscape, keeping it as natural as possible,

Photo by Aldo Lanzi

Surrounded by an apple orchard, an evergreen grove, and gardens originally tended by the owners’ parents, Sheffield Residence keeps family memories alive.

The house is hidden from the road and sits on a hilltop clearing that overlooks the rolling farmland of the Mississippi River bluffs in Western Wisconsin. From this vantage point, there is a 270-degree view, with dramatic sunsets over the distant hills.

Koto’s charred-timber workspace is an exercise in wabi-sabi design that embraces imperfection amid the natural world. The carbon-neutral structure is built from natural materials, and it can operate both on- and off-grid.

The dwelling is located on the hill’s brow, so it nestles into the slope just below a prominent cluster of quaking aspens where a resident bull moose lives. “The lot is located in a sea of grass-covered hills,” says architect Hunter Gundersen. “Unlike much of the Rocky Mountains it isn’t a craggy landscape full of cliffs, ravines, and broken rock faces. Instead, it’s soft and rolling, like grassy ocean swells with an occasional rock-outcropping ship or tree-stand island. Like the outcroppings, the structure is low lying, dark, and embedded into the grass and sage—at home on the soft surface, but not apologetic nor blending in.”

“The owner wanted the master bathroom to be spartan but elegant,” says architect Hunter Gundersen. “He came across a recessed tub and loved the idea. There’s something special about descending down into the architecture rather than sitting in an additive object on the architecture.”

Architect Charlie Lazor designed this peaceful, lakeside prefab in Ontario, Canada, with a Japanese-style bathroom clad in richly stained teak with a matching tub and sink by Bath in Wood.