In the flat’s living room, midcentury modern art and furniture harmonize with the rich floor tiles, opulent molded ceilings. and original pine wood doors. Prints by Gordon Matta-Clark line the wall near a 1950s Danish dining table that’s paired with Eames chairs. A painting by Kuuti Lavonen hangs above a pink chair and ottoman by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, author Chris Brown and his dog Katsu head to the river; the path was once a dumping ground on top of a long-defunct underground oil pipeline. The green roof was conceptualized by John Hart Asher of the Ecosystem Design Group at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin.

You may think that a library has to be its own room, but books can be stored and read just about anywhere. Lining a hallway with books turns it into a library that you’ll walk through, and be inspired by, every day. Cabinets below provide extra storage and even a place to sit and read.

Kate’s father predicted they would never use the crow’s nest–like tower, which is reached by climbing a narrow staircase.

Rodriguez, a designer and architect who runs the studio Agi Miagi, created the pendant lamp and terrariums in the dining area. The space is open to the living area, where Brown’s son, Hugo, sits on a Living Divani sofa. The countertop-table is by Bercy Chen Studio.

Native grasses spill forth from the green roof toward a stairway leading to the main level.

Architect Tamira Sawatzky used Ikea components—one-inch Lagan butcher block countertops and inexpensive Ekby Lerberg brackets—when designing the bookshelves along the living room wall in the home/studio he designed for himself and his wife in Toronto.

The architects’ two young children occupy this bright bedroom, furnished with Ikea beds. Another custom lamp illuminates the space.

A late-1950s set of sofa and chairs inherited from Gaffney’s granny warm up the living room, as do the stove from Charnwood and the coffee table the couple bought from Habitat for their first flat.

In the living room of the Barcelona apartment designer Elina Vila D’Acosta-Calheiros shares with her husband, Ginés Gorriz, Arne Jacobsen Swan chairs join a sofa by Piero Lissoni for Living Divani. The cabinet is from Cappellini, as is the Marcel Wanders Big Shadow lamp.

Green roofs are aesthetically pleasing and have multiple positive environmental benefits, even if they are small in terms of square footage. Here, a green roof blooms atop the detached garage of a home.

“We sought to create a house that would not damage the environment and not be too visible,” says architect Tina Gregorič. A single zigzagging roof stretches over 5,380 square feet, doubling the area of the interior spaces and serving as an ideal spot for sunset cocktails and whale-watching.

The large patio leads to a newly landscaped back garden. An expansive glass wall promotes seamless indoor-outdoor living. Inexpensive brick pavers were chosen for the rear patio; they offer textural contrast with the steel of the door, brick of the rear facade, and pale gray wood of the interior floors.

Designed by Atelier Lina Bellovicova, House LO marks the country’s first residential project to use hempcrete, a sustainable and fire-and-mold-resistant materil.

The current open-plan living area will be transformed into two bedrooms. The update was intended to be bright, airy, and flexible, in order to easily accommodate this future configuration.

The Kelleys furnished the cottage with help from Suzanne’s daughter Betsy Burbank of Betsy Burbank Interiors. Classic modernist icons, such as a Saarinen Womb chair for Knoll, a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair, and an Eileen Grey E1027 side table look at home alongside present-day pieces such as an Encore sofa (which handily folds down into a sleeping surface) from Room & Board and a Doka rug designed and produced by Stephanie Odegard. The Wohlert pendant lights from Louis Poulsen were designed by Vilhelm Wohlert in 1959, but grouped as such, they appear distinctly contemporary.

The master suite on the second level features a terrace and a lofted area.

In an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, a verdant green roof of native grasses, wildflowers, and fruits creates an oasis.

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Blanc took the term "living room" to a different level with this striking 20-by-23-foot interior wall for the Dimanche family's home in Paris.

In 1910, when the building was constructed, Barcelona’s economy was booming and, as a result, so were the arts. Architecture was especially popular among the city’s wealthier citizens, and splendid buildings were built in the new neighborhood of L’Eixample, on the edge of the old, Gothic city center.

Landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand helped fill out the completed prefab by planting sedge grass on one of the house’s two green roofs to reflect the texture of the surrounding meadow.

One of the home's bathrooms features wallpaper from Etsy retailer AwallonDesign.

The two structures are connected by green space.

Large sliding glass doors suspend the living room within the landscape for family gatherings or larger events.

The relationship between interior and exterior becomes crucial in the articulation of the residence.

The first floor consists of two long and narrow structures that intersect in an open kitchen, providing distinct programmatic areas and settling into the tree-lined landscape, allowing yards to surround and permeate each room.

Architectural designer Sebastian Mariscal and project manager Jeff Svitak created a house in Venice, California, for Michael and Tamami Sylvester. Known as Dwell Home Venice for its role as an exemplification of modern architecture, the house is an homage to indoor-outdoor living. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

Plant Wall Design created a custom, self-sustaining vertical green wall for the show.

Maximizing daylight is only one of the sustainable design strategies used in the Low/Rise residence.

The acclaimed Italian designers Ludovica + Roberto Palomba carved a serene retreat out of a 17th-century oil mill in Salento.

“The home is quite small, but designed in such a way that you don’t feel it,” Herrin says. Lift-slide openings by Quantum Windows & Doors, which were fabricated fewer than 50 miles from the house, make the main living space seem larger.

A mustardy couch and a large map of the world—Whitlock travels all over the place for work—keep the living room bright and cheerful.

In the living room, spare Scandinavian design takes center stage. Hans Wegner’s Wishbone chairs surround an Essay dining table by Cecilie Manz for Fritz Hansen; a mostly wood palette is enhanced by slate-gray brick around the fireplace. The paper lanterns throughout the home are a mixture of classics by Isamu Noguchi alongside those picked up in Japan and France.