The facade is punctured by a variety of differently sized windows: Those flush to the wall indicate the house’s public rooms, while the those for the private spaces are set back.

Here, one of El Cosmico's three teepees is a lantern for desert travelers.

The mother-daughter duo behind Knotty Gal have a strong craft sensibility and an even stronger social conscious. Up to 15% of sales made from their knotted, handmade accessories go toward educating girls in Bangladesh.

Jaunts through nature are a great way to exercise, relieve stress, and get some vitamin D.

The courtyard offers a glimpse of nature from nearly every angle, including up.

Mount Up Keeping a house clean can be a challenge for anyone, but Cooper made things just a tick easier by getting her furniture up off the floor. “I chose to wall mount lots of the furniture so that I could easily sweep or let my Roomba run underneath without crashing into the legs.” She used knotty pine for cabinets and a chest of drawers of her own design and suggests installing wood blocking behind the drywall for extra support. irobot.com

The rear facade. A system of sliding glass windows and doors underscore the indoor/outdoor nature of the house.

The Yees live in a nature preserve in Carmel, California, in a home designed by Lake Flato Architects. Here's a glimpse at their idyllic surroundings.

Daylight adds to the warm ambiance of the wooden millwork of the Nature Preserve House kitchen.

The Nature Preserve House in Middlebury, Vermont, won the AIA Vermont Merit Award for Excellence in Architecture.

The project also invovled deepening and revitalizing the existing pond. "Designing a pond to be 20 feet deep instead of three feet deep improves the oxygen level and the water quality," Gang explains.

The structure is designed to open up the pond ecosystem to visitors and serve as an outdoor classroom space.

Due to the prefab construction of the wood frame, installation on site only took about five days. A fiberglass dome protects the shelter from rain.

The Branch Double Floor Lamp is inspired by nature. Designed like a tree, the lamp’s base is elevated in a tripod design, resembling exposed roots. The column—or trunk—of the lamp yields two branches, comprised of perforated metal shells atop diffuser lenses.

"Second Nature" (2008) is a chair "grown" from crystals in a transparent tank.

Infinity House Exterior

The homeowners chose knotty alder cabinets and concrete countertops, starkly contrasting with the rest of the home. A white tile backsplash draws attention to the black faucet and barstools.

Nature Framed: At Home in the Landscape by Eva Hagberg (Monacelli Press, 2011). A selection of projects that blur the boundaries between architecture and nature.

Nature, the latest large-scale wall covering in a collection by photographers Tom Haga and Lena Johnsen, whisks visitors to an idyllic Norwegian forest. The Flex modular sofa system, another new offering from Resource Furniture, can be easily re-arranged and transformed into a freestanding bed.

The curved structure consists of prefabricated, bent-wood pieces and is illuminated from within at night.

The bottom level features two equal-size bedrooms (shown here is Hale and Edmond's bedroom), a bathroom, and storage space. The family is always close to nature. One spring, Maisie and Pippa woke up each morning to a family of squirrels living in their nest outside the twin's bedroom window.

The whole house opens up to its surroundings with floor-to-ceiling windows that are perfect for nature gazing.

A tastefully spare selection of vintage pieces accents the warm knotty pine in the master bedroom. The orientation of the room maximizes the picture window that replaced the original garage door. Campbell designed a closet in an alcove behind the wall at the head of the bed.

At home in the woods that surround it, the Nature Preserve House among John McLeod's favorite projects. It is also his current residence.

Inspired by nature, the Calla Pendant Light is designed based on the calla lily flower. The pendant features a tubular incandescent bulb at its center, which resembles a stamen in a flower. The pendant can be used on its own or grouped with other Calla Pendant Lights to create a graphic lighting display in an interior.

John Lautner Griffith Park Nature Center, 1972 (Courtesy Getty Research Institute)

Low-cost materials like plaster board, knotty cedar, and polished concrete appear in the gallery as well as in the residence.

The 510 Cabin is one of Leggitt's designs, executed with the help of student apprentices.

Custom kitchen island with knotty pine

The kitchen/dining room is lined in knotty cedar planks. A pair of Danish modern chairs face a cowhide rug—a family heirloom.

The cabinetry was custom designed and built out of cherry wood, and accented with oil rubbed bronze hardware. The counter tops are a rich golden sea granite, which is the same material used in the main dining room that connects to the kitchen where the bar is located. A hammered copper vent over the range, as well as a hammered copper farm sink, added a rustic, handmade appeal to the kitchen. The backsplash is a mix of tumbled jerusalem gold stone, with a border throughout that pops up over the range area. The border is made up of 2 burnished metal pencil liner tiles, with a square, multi color glass mosaic in the center.

This private home is situated on a private street, right on the water, is surrounded by nature. It was important to this family, to bring in the elements of their outdoor patio and garden off the kitchen, into their interior. The stacked stone was the first element that was continued into the space, as well as the real slate flooring throughout the kitchen. A custom chandelier was made to go over the eat in kitchen table. Custom built by Michael McHale, this industrial chic chandelier is made up of a mix of pipe and Swarovski crystals. It sits under a skylight above, and reflects colors and light over the table.

It feeds their backyard garden, which also features permeable paving rocks, a composting bin, and a surrounding fence made of knotty Western red cedar.

Designed by Riga, Latvia–based firm Didzis Jaunzems Architecture (DJA), the Nature Concert Hall, completed last summer at Gauja National Park, was conceived as a pavilion for music performances as well as art, light, and video installations.

The pavilion is made of geometric modules that can be combined and integrated for varying sizes and configurations, as needed by a given program of events.

By night, the translucent strands illuminate from inside like a giant lantern. At just under 500 square feet, it can house a chamber orchestra or musical ensemble of up to 20 people.