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A view of one of the steel openings to the addition allows light to come through.

Second floor hallway with vaulted ceiling and skylights

Ménage balanced the historic ornament with modern interventions, like the rebuilt wood staircase and glass handrail.

A San Francisco home by ballonSTUDIO employs a warm beige palette across all four flours.

Stainless steel—such as this mesh ceiling—gives residential interiors a utilitarian edge, says Michael Fohring of Odami, and it's a material choice he hopes to use in one of the studio's own projects soon.

Kitchen

The curved blue kitchen larder has a projecting “nose” that illuminates the worktop and a mirrored eye that “winks” each time the door is opened.

Lisbon firm Aurora Arquitectos and local studio FURO collaborated on the renovation of an 18th-century structure in Vila Real de Santo António, a city in Portugal’s southern Algarve region.

Architectural fragments are posted cheekily around the room, a nod to the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London, the home of the Regency-era architect who collected bits and pieces of "important" architecture to display. "It was a bit of a piss-take. There are these bits of antiquity that are expensive and historical, but you wouldn’t know unless you were told," says Mat. "So I went to a plaster shop and asked what spare, damaged bits they had for free."

Playful geometry and clean lines also make their way into the minimalist bathroom, which is surrounded by the same “concrete finish” walls used throughout the home.

The concrete master bathroom is illuminated by a skylight.

The wall cabinet is from Scavolini’s Aquo line with a decorative melamine finish.

The bespoke bath rail in the master suite incorporates concealed plumbing, LED lighting, and functions as a shelf and towel rail.