Innovative home designs, restorations

Colin Bliss and Greta Scheing sit on a secondhand couch the group of eight artists snuck into their secret apartment in the Providence Place mall.

Katherine in front of her home when she visited weeks after the fire. She lost just about everything, from her wheelchairs and adaptive surfboards to boxes of memorabilia from her late father's world travels.

The cabins are entirely built from materials sourced in the United States.

Clients can customize the cabin's exterior paint color, and this one shows a black shade that blends into the woods.

The raised living room and den beneath it (pictured here) can be converted into a ground-floor bedroom, freeing up the loft above the bathroom for storage or other uses.

Seattle architecture firm Wittman Estes used its new modular prefab system to built a prototype on Whidbey Island in Washington for a family that loves the outdoors.

The two-level cabins contain a communal living space and a lofted bedroom.

Space saving solutions within the 235-square-foot cabins include custom furniture hacks like a fold-away dining table that conceals built-in shelving.

Architect Matt Wittman’s upbringing in rural Washington nurtured a respect for functional buildings that worked with their surroundings: a utilitarian perspective that would inform his Seattle-based studio’s modular home system. “While prefab houses are sometimes divorced from their context, Puzzle Prefab can be modified according to each site,” Wittmann says. “This system has the ability to create spaces that can expand or contract for a variety of environments, whether remote, suburban, or urban.”Architect Matt Wittman’s upbringing in rural Washington nurtured a respect for functional buildings that worked with their surroundings: a utilitarian perspective that would inform his Seattle-based studio’s modular home system. “While prefab houses are sometimes divorced from their context, Puzzle Prefab can be modified according to each site,” Wittmann says. “This system has the ability to create spaces that can expand or contract for a variety of environments, whether remote, suburban, or urban.”Architect and Majamaja cofounder Pekka Littow designed a seaside retreat in Finland to showcase the potential of self-sustaining homes. The first cabin was built in 2020, and there are now four along the archipelago outside Helsinki. Prefabricated elements like vertical wood cladding and crisp gables allow the cabins to be dismounted with minimal impact on the landscape.

Based in Australia, McKean Studio chose sunny Palm Springs was an obvious source of gingerbread house inspiration. They IKEA-hacked a few prepared kits, modifying the designs to craft three midcentury houses.

Rob hired his friend, Jacksonville, Florida, neon sign maker Toby Norris, to bend the glass for a clock he designed in 1999 for the cafeteria of his St. Augustine screen printing business, Screen Arts. Now it hangs on the kitchen wall.

A seating area on the upper level overlooks the double-height living room.

The 1,600-square-foot home was made using nine shipping containers.

Rob DePiazza worked with architect Stephen Bender to build his shipping container house after his longtime home in St. Augustine, Florida, was damaged by a fallen tree during Hurricane Irma.

A table lamp by Angelo Mangiarotti and wall light by Egoluce provide an evening glow around the custom Bensen daybed.

The 107-square-foot apartment is divided into three zones, for sleeping, circulating, and bathing, and prioritizes efficiency "to the centimeter," says its London-based architect Massimo De Conti.