Indoor-Outdoor Homes Across 5 Continents

The kitchen looks out onto the courtyard. Inside the house, the floors are heated polished concrete. "For the interior, we kept everything as uniform and unarticulated as possible in the living spaces and bedrooms: pale concrete floors to match the walls as close as possible, no baseboards, etc., allowing the focus to be on the objects the house would contain: Tuan’s paintings and photos, the furniture and millwork that they chose," Balaban says.

“From the beginning we knew we needed to remove the rear 80s extension and preserve the front Edwardian home,” architect Michael Ong says. “So, we were interested in how the two different architectural styles would work together.” The old Edwardian home can be seen in the center of the frame, through the dining room and kitchen of the addition. Merbau Decking extends into the garden, which became the focal point of the home.

This serene retreat by acclaimed Italian designers Ludovica+Roberto Palomba, carved out of a 17th-century oil mill in Salento, demonstrates the charm of historic Italy.

A cement-tile floor carves a path through the dining room as it runs the length of the apartment, blurring the boundary between inside and out.