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“These clients really wanted it to be as dead accurate as it could be,” architect Jordan Snittjer says of this Chicago town house’s masonry, which transitions to an overhauled interior and a glassy rear extension.

The corner is the family’s favorite gathering spot—“a contemporary cave for three,” says Serge. Luisa’s module, with its cactus-lined terrace, is visible through the glass wall.

The original layout was very much of the time: a perfect midcentury modern flow, with a closed-off kitchen and a fire put in the floor. “They were cool but impractical spaces,” says Schaer.

In rural Quebec, La Shed Architecture designed a simple gabled home that echoes the form of the region’s traditional barns.