Tom Givone's current weekend abode, nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, is—so far—his capstone project, a synthesis of personal taste, material experimentation, and historically sensitive restoration: a living laboratory for how to bring the vernacular past into the present.

Overhead cabinets now can be easily swung open for ease of access. The kitchens are priced at IKEA’s usual retails. A 10 by 10 foot kitchen fitted with Sektion cabinets will range from around $1,300 to $2,200, excluding appliances.

Black and white kitchen tiles add visual interest to this stunning modern kitchen by IKEA.

New York Pavilion 1964 World's Fair The structure, designed by Philip Johnson, is now a rusted relic.

New York Pavilion 1964 World's Fair The massive ring of steel and reinforced concrete piers, dubbed the “Tent of Tomorrow,” once held a cable suspension roof and was clad in a terrazzo floor featuring a Texaco highway map of the state. It was a platform for New York, and homegrown companies like Kodak and CorningWare, to show off to the world, and as critic Louise Huxtable said, “a sophisticated frivolity…seriously and beautifully constructed … a ‘carnival’ with class.”

1964 World's Fair It’s often said that in the borough of Queens, one of the most culturally diverse places on Earth, everyday is a world’s fair. The idiom rang true in 1964 during the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, an optimistic celebration perched at a moment between space age giddiness and late-’60s turbulence (as this pitch-perfect period footage demonstrates).

New York Pavilion 1964 World's Fair Silva has made great strides in both broadcasting the building’s story and building momentum and support for restoration. He just finished a successful Kickstarter to fund editing of his documentary, “Modern Ruin: A World’s Fair Pavilion,” for release this fall, and his organization, People for the Pavilion, which he co-founded with Salmaan Khan and Christian Doran, has garnered support from people such as New York Landmarks Conservancy Director of Development Scott Leurquin and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, and helped expand the conversation about restoration.

"Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone." While Fuller’s ultimate goal was audacious, the idea of a real-time simulation in the ‘60s, accessible to before widespread access to computing, was just somewhat less ambitious. Fuller’s game—so-called to be accessible to everyone—was a further expansion of his Spaceship Earth philosophy, and is currently being utilized as a model by the O.S. Earth Institute. (Pictured: Bucky's Time cover from 1964.)

A tiny outbuilding offers a cozy living space inside a simple shell.

As the facade of a Bates Masi-designed home in Water Mill, New York, rises from eight to 14 feet high, the mahogany planks subtly widen. “It was quite a demand to make of the contractor,” architect Paul Masi says. “But the design was so much about traveling through the site and weaving [the house] together with the deck.”

Fed up with flashy, environmentally insensitive beach homes, architect Gerald Parsonson and his wife, Kate, designed a humble hideaway nestled behind sand dunes along the New Zealand coastline. Crafted in the image of a modest Kiwi bach, their 1,670-square-foot retreat consists of a group of small buildings clad in black-stained pine weatherboards and fiber-cement sheets.

The family spends summers and school vacations at the bach. New Zealand's relatively mild winters mean they use the house year-round.

Tanya Wexler and Amy Zimmerman linger in the breezeway designed to draw eyes, and footsteps, from the driveway through the house to the gently sloping backyard and swimming pool beyond.

Kayak in hand, Tom and Will make a break for the beach.

Michael Lewis dressed in contruction gear on-set at the World Trade Center contruction site in New York City.

Francesco and Mafalda’s bedroom is open and playful with only a bit of Algue by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec guarding the stairs. The lamp was designed by Francesco himself and the decal on the wall is from My Vinilo.

It’s fitting that a man often called one of Finland’s greatest architects would cap his most successful decade of work with a structure that celebrated his country’s contributions to the world. Within the compact, four-story structure, photos of landscapes, people and products looked out over curvaceous, wood-slatted walls, a flowchart of Finnish industry capped off by airplane propellers spinning like fans from the ceiling.

A view across the display island to a breezeway betweent the house and the garage that Pacek and Roynon created as part of their home addition. They use the space for entertaining and food service when the weather cooperates.

A Lakeside Prefab in New Jersey A New Zealand expat and her son use their prefabricated lakeside New Jersey retreat as an outdoorsy counterpoint to city life. Photo by: Mark Mahaney Curious on what was popular last week? Click here!

IKEA chairs join a table from CB2; a Kawneer triple-sliding door opens to the family’s new ipe deck.

The Irwin pool house designed by Landis Gores in 1957 boasts a central room with high ceilings and an unobstructed view of the landscape. In 2005, the Town of New Canaan purchased the property and added exhibition spaces, as well as rooms for lectures and events. The small pavilion also houses an oversized, monumental brick fireplace design that divides the main space from the kitchen area.

The exterior mixes pale gray wood on the vertical volume, and fiber cement and black brick on the horiztonal volume. The three trees in the front yard were maintained during the renovation process.

Using natural materials is one way of bringing nature indoors. Oiled white ash floors and ceilings, along with Italian poplar and Lawson cypress joinery, are found throughout architect Andrew Simpson’s 538-square-foot home outside Wellington, New Zealand.

In the kitchen, the cabinetry is walnut veneer with a weathered finish applied by cabinetmaker David Rogers. “The process involved sanding and rubbing in stain as well as adding a clear finish,” project architect Eero Puurunen says.

Induction cooktops, growing steadily in popularity due to their energy efficiency and speed, are part of the offering as well as as a selection of exhaust hoods.

A 17-foot-tall freestanding play structure that designer Sharon Davis designed for her family in upstate New York can only be entered by climbing taut netting and entering through a trap door. Descending requires sliding down two structural-columns-turned-fire-poles.

Much of the cooking and cleaning takes place at the rear counter, which is outfitted with an Evoke faucet by Kohler.

Moooi’s Brave New World lamp by freshwest in the foreground, Raimond lights by Raimond Puts (in association with ox-id) in the background, both designs new in 2009.

The wood-frame residence and studio are clad in vertical cedar siding—back then, a daring competitor to clapboard—instead of concrete to save costs. The effect is equally seamless, however: “If you drive by it fast enough,” Charles Gwathmey once said, “you still might mistake it for a concrete house.” Photo by Norman McGrath.

Celebrating the 50th and 75th anniversaries of the 1939 and 1964 World Fairs, the New York Transit Museum will share postcards, photos, ephemera, and souvenirs that show how transportation was a symbol for modern American life and technology.

The designers of the CST-01 call it the "thinnest watch in the world." It's often tricky to trade in absolutes, but anyone who handled a prototype on the CES show floor this week would be hard-pressed to prove them wrong. Dave Vondle and Jerry O'Leary, who call their Chicago-based company Central Standard Timing, say the watch's paper-thin battery charges in 10 minutes and powers the device for a month before it needs to be plugged in again. The watch display is rendered in E Ink, commonly used in e-readers. Photo courtesy of Central Standard Timing.

Nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, this 200-year-old home inspired one former copywriter to delve into architecture as a living. Inside, renovator and owner Tom Givone mixes vintage and industrial decor. Photo by Mark Mahaney.

Located in New Zealand, this compact prefab vacation home in the seaside community of Onemana Beach was a collaboration with architecture students from Auckland’s Unitec Institute of Technology.

One of the system's best new features are the interior drawers, which can now be as detailed as the most expensive high-end systems, providing a place for everything with drawers for pots, knives, tablelinens, and dinnerware.

Whether you’ve given up on houseplants after past failures, are totally new to the green thumb game, or just want to get a refresher course on the hardiest plants out there, this list is for you.

The great room in the 2,800-square-foot house that architect Drew Lang designed for his family in the Hudson Woods development north of New York City features generous amounts of white oak, which he says is his favorite material.