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The white walls, concrete floors, and wood detailing are a neutral combination that will age well. “The clients wanted something timeless,” says Handa.

Walk Street House floor plan

Mark Fekete and Viviana de Loera of MARK+VIVI transformed a former tire shop in the Verdun borough of Montreal into a welcoming home-office, exposing beams on the ground floor and making liberal use of locally sourced Canadian plywood.

The gutters run off a scupper into a box of gravel, which drains into a 5,000-gallon underground tank, providing enough irrigation to sustain a vegetable garden and other native plants.

Maggie Treanor waters plants around her rural home.

Green roofs are aesthetically pleasing and have multiple positive environmental benefits, even if they are small in terms of square footage. Here, a green roof blooms atop the detached garage of a home.

Anka Lamprecht and Lukas Wezel shared their rustic domicile in a valley in Grotli, Norway. Boasting an enviable view, it’s the first cabin archived in the book’s “Backcountry” category that features homesteads in the wilderness.

The living room's double height makes the space seem larger that its actual size. Stairs leading up to the sleeping loft are placed next to the open fireplace. The plastered wall and the soapstone tiles on the floor add some roughness to the wooden interior.

"We did our best to tuck the buildings into the site—the goal was to get up high on a perch. It was a matter of setting that elevation and working back down with the topography," says architectural designer Riley Pratt.

The house's ceiling was hewn from Douglas fir, which gives off a warm glow. The rafters were designed to emulate the look of strong ceiling beams.

Olson Kundig Architects' Delta Shelter, in Mazama, Washington, is a 1,000 square-foot steel box home with a 200 square-foot footprint. Photo by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects/TASCHEN.

The House for a Musher is all about taking advantage of its hilltop site. The courtyard in the front has vast views and the house itself is oriented toward the surrounding landscape.

The house may appear conventional at a glance, but a closer look shows how Oostenbruggen has pushed the boundaries of the traditional gabled typology. It has an asymmetrical roof, with slate shingles that extend down the eastern side to close it off completely.

Inspired by an old technique that Le Corbusier experimented with in the 1930s, Gregory Katz has imprinted Lot Four Two Four’s name on the exterior wall at the entrance, using laser-cut Perspex on concrete. Read more about this South African concrete abode here.

Of the seven steps in Michael Pozner’s not-quite-500-square-foot aerie in Greenwich Village, five contain drawers. His small set of table and chairs is from CB2.

The compact, hardy cabins were designed to work in a variety of park settings, including the beach.

The white linens appear almost ghostly against the natural grain of the wood and muted glow of the window's winter light.

The upper level contains the master bedroom and the kids' room. "We wanted the upstairs gallery that connects the two bedrooms to be as open as possible," principal Aljosa Dekleva says. "The rope mesh works as a fence for security, but is also performs as a multifunctional transparent wall on which one can hang different objects." A desk provides an additional workspace.