The kitchen shelves are organized with clinical precision.

Designer Christiane Hogner, Bruxelles

This wooden staircase doubles as kitchen shelving in the English designer's home. Tyler hired David Restorick, a furniture maker and friend, to build a staircase that doubles as display space for Tyler's vast collection of colorful cookware.

In the kitchen, artist Riley McFerrin installed custom floating shelves.

The unit can be configured to allow room for meal preparation around a built-in kitchen.

Freshly baked cookies can go directly from oven to eager eaters in the living room via the pass-through.

THE FUTURE OF KITCHENS Cardenio Petrucci has seen the kitchen assume increasing prominence, to the point where it’s akin to a piece of fine furniture.

Top to Bottom Though Kordík knocked down a few walls to open up the space, much of the architectural character comes from above and below. He exposed and cleaned the concrete ceiling to give the small flat a sense of unity and then installed a finished oak floor as a textural counterpoint to the craggy vaults overhead. Shelf Help The meat of the renovation focused on removing barriers, but Kordík did add a partition between the kitchen and the bathroom. The translucent glass wall does triple duty by delineating the space of the dining room, letting light into the bathroom, and backing bookshelves and culinary storage made from black film–faced plywood.

Shingle Shelves by German designer Hanna Kruger playfully suggest the act of opening and shutting cupboard doors—combinable rawhide modules act as sliding doors and overlap like shingles on a roof.

Three deceptively simple shelves made of particleboard are the house's main structural elements. By pushing any one of the units, the resident can easily reposition it; they slide left or right with a simple track system.

The Circus Maximus As the largest stadium in ancient Rome, the Circus Maximus could seat 250,000 people, stood three stories high, measured 2,000 feet long and stretched 500 feet wide.The sport of choice here was chariot racing, and it was pretty much the ancient Roman’s version of the Indy 500: high speeds and spectacular crashes on a dangerous track.The track held 12 chariots racing a distance of roughly four miles and races were held here for almost 1000 years until 549 AD. Today, it’s a public park in the center of the city, with few remnants of its former glory. Photo by: Niklas Nordlund

Montague arranges his objects with a sense of humor. Custom shelves display his collection of salt and pepper shakers.

Gaps and openings between the handle-less, white oak shelves are functional and decorative, holding plants, books, and office supplies. Small touches, such as the matching color of the chair and the lower shelves, help accent the clean white surfaces.

Seeing Double To cover up his shoe-storage shelves, Sherman bought bamboo bead curtains from the Callaloo Company emblazoned with an image of the Madonna. He separated out every other strand to create two curtains from one, resulting in twinned pixelated images. The resulting pattern is “like a Chuck Close that everyone can afford,” says Sherman.

The house allows space for entertaining as well, and can comfortably seat a few guests in a roughly 160-square-foot sitting area. The resident, a designer, can host clients in this area.

Tom’s compact bedroom feels much larger thanks to interlocking shelves and storage. The plywood bed and surrounding shelving were custom-built by Wilkin and a hired carpenter.

In the living area, Brothers sits on an Artek stool while perusing a selection from his library.

These modular Moni and Moni-K shelves, are composed of two-milimeter-thick steel plates, folded at right angles. As individual units they're basic, but the beauty of these wall-mounted pieces lie in the many ways they can be arranged—stack and display in complex patterns or simply juxtapose in a series.

Furniture: CornichesThe Bouroullec brothers developed the idea for Corniches out of a need for small storage space for small items. Meant to better utilize horizontal surfaces, the Corniches are designed to be isolated protrusions in the home environment.

This freestanding shelving designed by Miralles holds yet more tomes from the family’s prodigious collection. Irregularly placed tilework on the floor follows the trajectory of the sun’s rays as it travels across the room. Photo by: Gunnar Knechtel

ViaPortal’s Plexiglas shelves are purpose-built to show a changing collection: Miyakawa made this plastic model station wagon, and the Indigo Clutch by Article 22 was dyed and handwoven in Laos.

Still, it’s possible to remove or relocate non-structural walls in a home with good bones.

Near the entrance is the front room, or music room, their daughter’s current favorite play area. “Every space needed to be used efficiently,” Parisien notes of the home’s remodel.

Resident Ty Milford peruses a book by the George Nelson–inspired built-ins fabricated by Big Branch Woodworking

"Shane enjoys both cooking and entertaining so we maximized the counter space to make meal prep and hosting easy," Priftaj says. "It was also very important that the kitchen include a gas grill so he could quickly and conveniently grill without having to climb up five flights of stairs to use the bbq on the patio." Priftaj selected high-gloss acrylic white cabinets from bulthaup's b3 line with an aluminum backsplash and b3 prism drawer system to keep things tidy. A Wolf hood and gas cooktop with chargrill give Carslake the flexibility he desired for indoor grilling. The counters are polished white quartz.

Show It Off While the couple’s art collection is a focal point of the house, the structure’s abundance of glass walls means there are fewer places on which to hang it. Custom one-and-a-quarter-inch hardwood-plank shelves and a credenza from DWR provide places to rotate favorite pieces.

The home is filled with pieces the couple has collected over the years. "“Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Josh and Matt’s house wasn’t either," laughs Josh.

Unsure of how to light under the loft, Monica turned to a friend from the gym who works in lighting design. He helped her with the design, the installation, and even gifted her materials.

The red wall cabinet was designed by August. The floors throughout the home were replaced with wide, salvaged heart pine floorboards with radiant heat.

Oak cabinets and flooring bring additional woodsy warmth.

Just off an internal courtyard, a mudroom provides a prime place to keep sneakers. Each family member has their own shelf, backlit by windows that illuminate every pair.

Not every client-designer relationship would have thrived under such extreme circumstances, but Dovey credits Sarah and Ben’s attitude for the project’s success. “They were observant and thoughtful, and really took the time to ask all the right questions,” says Dovey. “In the end, it went so well just because of the great relationships.”

Downstairs are more shelves of records, the master and guest suites, and Jack’s music studio.

The bookshelves provide ample storage and display space for the homeowners’ glassware and pottery collection.