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Australian expats Carla and Paul Tucker tasked designer Dan Gayfer with expanding their Melbourne bungalow without adding any square footage. In the kitchen, a soft palette of wood, laminate, and tile created cohesion, impressive considering the clients didn’t see a single finish, color, or material in person prior to their homecoming. The kitchen cabinets were clad in Russian birch plywood, and the countertops were concrete.

This Cupertino home features a conversation pit outfitted with a 250-square-foot configuration of Patricia Urquiola’s Tufty-Time sofa for B&B Italia. Overhead, flush-mounted LED strips demarcate the lounge area. - Cupertino, California Dwell Magazine : September / October 2017

Luckdrops’ Studio+ is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom shipping container home with 287 square feet of living space. The $38,000 home features light, bright, and modern interiors that are miles away from what you might expect the inside of a shipping container to look like.

“It’s the biggest one you can get,” says Patrick Powers of the shipping container he revamped and moved to Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Steel frames hold ample glazing, including a pair of custom 2,000-pound sliding doors.

Interior designer Natalie Myers’ vacation home is a playground of pattern, texture, and hues with terrazzo countertops and geometric wallpaper. Channeling her sense of #scandifornianstyle, the Veneer Retreat features vintage metal kitchen cabinets and a decorative Franklin stove with updated amenities and design. Room & Board furniture stand as anchors amid retro objects and art. The details are considered down to Buffy comforters, organic bedding, and Public Goods toiletries. Outside, a new backyard deck with lounge area, fire pit, dining area, and bar makes for the perfect sanctuary to enjoy the rugged landscape.

This cozy, recently remodeled hideaway allows feminine, boho touches to shine against a minimalist backdrop. Inside, you'll find a velvet, rust-toned sofa; quilted hanging headboards in a dusty rose; and structural, inky accents. While some areas like the bedroom channel a bit of a beach vibe, the dining nook with corner bench seats and black-and-white decor mimics a chic city cafe.

Soak in a hot tub, relax in a lounge chair, or dine al fresco on the two-level terrace while enjoying 180-degree views of the park, Mount San Jacinto, and Mount Gorgonio. Inside the two-bedroom dwelling, floor-to-ceiling glass walls allow the outdoors and sun to flood the home. Decor is kept minimal with playful pops of color, letting the landscape take center stage.

Minimalist in style, the Habibi House is a restored desert ranch with modern aesthetic, though infused with handcrafted pieces from Morocco and locally sourced furnishings. Rooms are kept sparse in a refreshingly clean space that oozes sophisticated charm. Vintage finds meet contemporary finishes: an inky metal bed frame pairs with rattan nightstands, and a wooden console serves as a vanity with gilded fixtures.

Unique to this space is the indoor heated pool—a rare find in the high desert. The home was restored with authentic midcentury-modern fixtures and quirky decor spanning three bedrooms and two kitchens. With developed landscaping and concrete floors, the home offers a touch of city living in Joshua Tree. Outside three lounge areas offer cozy spaces to enjoy the sun or the stars, including a larger sunken sitting circle with a fire pit.

Between Pioneertown and Joshua Tree National Park, this midcentury compound offers nearly 360-degree views along with a 40-foot salt waterpool, Jacuzzi, and fire pit. Inside, old-school charm flows through the space with vintage decor and airy nooks. A large, stone fireplace stands as the anchor of the home, warming up the living area surrounded by walls of angular glass. Bathrooms are minimal in earth tones with wooden benches and tile, and a separate guest house offers an additional queen bed, kitchen, and bathroom.

Clean lines make up this 1950s homestead. Situated on five acres outside of town, the property offers uninterrupted panoramas of the desert. The cabin maintains elements of a bucolic dwelling with exposed beams, wood countertops, vintage furnishings and decor, and an outdoor shower. At the same time, it privileges a modern aesthetic with concrete floors, a cobalt-hued kitchen, and industrial fixtures. From the bedroom, two large double doors open up to a large deck and an expansive view of the landscape.

Sliding walls of glass allow guests to enjoy indoor/outdoor living in this Oller & Pejic–designed retreat. Developed to be in harmony with the landscape, the home is energy-efficient and the design is led by solar orientation. The sun heats the concrete floors in the winter, while deep overhangs offer shade in the summer. Find stylish and whimsical furnishings including vintage and designer pieces like the Swedish leather butterfly chair by Cuero. The house also offers all the amenities of a full home including soaking tubs and dual Thermostatic shower; a Gaggenau- and Bosch-equipped kitchen; living room with fireplace, smart TV, and sound system; memory foam mattresses and room-darkening shades. Outside, one can enjoy a soak in the hot tub against a backdrop of mountain vistas.

There’s perhaps no Airbnb trendier than The Joshua Tree House. Created by Sara and Rich Combs (who just recently opened a boutique hotel in Arizona), the home is an embodiment of the creative community of these two artists, teeming with vintage finds and decor from artists like Heather Day, Aleksandra Zee, Katie Gong, and Stella Maria Baer, and brands including Soukie Modern, Schoolhouse, Article, and PAMPA. The updated 1949 abode melds old and new where Southwest style meets modern interiors amid 100 Joshua trees.

Surrounded by boulders and twisted yuccas, two cabins in the Mojave Desert stand like Monopoly houses, their steel siding weathered to a tawny finish. But behind the simple gabled forms lies a complex network that enables them to operate wholly off the grid. Designed by architect Malek Alqadi, this desert getaway has an open-air room that allows guests to sleep under the stars on Silvon sheets woven with pure, natural silver. The minimalist space embodies a modern feel with a primarily gray, onyx, and wood palette with a splash of cobalt in the bathroom. Large cutout windows flood the space with natural light, though there are also large hammocks outside for some extra vitamin D or stargazing.

The design solution was to soften the concrete and weathering steel walls of the street-facing side with punctuated moments of transparency and overhead daylighting.

Amagansett Modular House by MB Architecture

Using heat-treated pine and bricks, Wood Arkitektur + Design built a casual family retreat on a family compound in Hellerud, a borough of Oslo, Norway. Situated on a natural slope, the house is divided into split levels. The exterior is swathed in heat-treated pine that has aged to a soft gray, alongside charcoal bricks. The rotating, open-faced fireplace here is the Ergofocus model from French company Focus.

For Gabriel Ramirez and his partner Sarah Mason Williams, following the Sea Ranch rules—local covenants guide new designs—didn’t mean slipping into Sea Ranch clichés. The architects love Cor-Ten steel, with its ruddy and almost organic surface, and they made it the main exterior material, along with board-formed concrete and ipe wood. The Cor-Ten, which quickly turned an autumnal rust in the sea air, and the concrete, with its grain and crannies, mean the house isn’t a pristine box, Ramirez says. His Neutra house “was very crisp and clean,” he says. “This house is more distressed, more wabi-sabi.”

Bad Marlon is a product design studio in South Korea that specializes in minimalist accessories for humans and their pets. The Deauville dog house combines plywood and powder-coated steel.