Woodies

Completed in 2009, the E.D.G.E comprises two modules that contain the mechanical areas (including the kitchen and bathroom) joined together with walls of glass and white oak panels.

The home, clad in natural Australian timber, enjoys a sense of lightness thanks to slender columns that let it float over the dunes. The driveway and entry, at the rear of the building, have an understated design to build to the interior's magnificent ocean views. Firm director Phil Snowdon explains, “By creating an architectural form that draws your eye and leads you up the steep driveway, we could engage new visitors in a welcoming process that first reveals the object and then slowly reveals the main event, being the view."

Because of its irregular, otherworldly form, and how it seems to be suspended in midair, the cabin was named "Ufogel," which is a melding of the acronym UFO and "vogel," meaning bird in German.

Lofted amid eucalyptus and oak trees, Graham Paarman’s house in South Africa is a glassed-in, steel-frame structure with a veil of vertical slats. Excluding outdoor areas, it measures about 720 square feet. Half-round bays project to form a balcony, a pergola, a dining alcove, and a bathroom.

This small vacation home in Skåne, Sweden’s southernmost province, is actually a log cabin with the logs covered by blackened vertical board cladding. The living roof has been planted with sedum—an homage to the area's traditional sod roofs.