The back wall of the garden, made from stacked concrete blocks, was initially meant to be a row of vertical planting boxes.

He worked around existing oak and eucalyptus trees for the new building, and retained the vernacular of an original barn, at right, where Frankel hosts concerts. Check out MVRDV's Balancing Barn.

While the home’s simple, boxy forms starkly contrast with surrounding residences, its compact shape and modest scale help it fit into the traditional neighborhood without calling attention to itself. The house was built around a large birch tree, with dwarf fountain grass and porcupine grass planted in front. A weeping blue atlas cedar provides a focal point near the front door.

High above Christina Lake in British Columbia, Bohlin Cywinski Jackson designed an idyllic retreat for Lori Hudson, her husband, and their two boys.

In the outdoor dining room, wire chairs by Harry Bertoia for Knoll surround a mango wood table made by a local carpenter, Diego Madrazo.

A Bay Area landscape designer works her yard like a jigsaw puzzle, packing a bevy of distinctive destinations into a steep and diminutive plot. Photo by: Morgan Rachel Levy Read the entire article here.

A second green roof is planted with sedum and plays host to one of the family’s favorite spots: a hammock. Bentheim suggested adding a trellis overhead to soften and balance the appearance of the facade.

The Fung/Blatt family enjoys the backyard of their Mount Washington home. Despite its 5,000-square-foot lot, the house is just 1,640 square feet. Michael Blatt admits, “If we could add anything to this house, it would be five walk-in closets.”

The backyard sports a sequence of raised flower and vegetable beds and two green roofs—one atop the workshop and other atop the back entrance.

Pavers and succulents in a yard in Malibu, California, help save water.

The remote location made construction a challenge. Horne ended up widening the road to the cabin in order to move the shipping containers up the cliff.

The dining and kitchen space opens up directly to an expanse of grass that leads to the water’s edge.

In Esperance, Australia, Fiona and Matt Shillington turned an outdated holiday resort into a cozy compound with restored A-frames, log cabins, and cottages.

The Phoenix home of designers and builders Sarah Swartz Wessel and Ethan Wessel sits amid desert-friendly trees and plants. The couple bought the property in 1998 and worked on the house for a decade. Juxtaposed with limestone floors, wood-beamed ceilings, and walls of hand-troweled plaster and board-formed concrete, glass is strategically placed throughout the 4,000-square-foot expanse to frame slivers of landscape and sky or open wide to reveal gardens of various sizes, which the couple also designed.

An artist and an architect built their home, studios, and an exhibition space inside a lushly landscaped Antwerp warehouse.

Embodied energy, gray water, black water, carbon footprint—the list of sustainable design terms goes on and on, and we're here to help you make sense of them.

Located on Hawaii’s Big Island, the Lavaflow 1 - Robert Trickey House was designed by San Francisco-based architect, Craig Steely. Captured by architectural photographer Mike Kelley, this home and studio was built on hardened lava from the 1955 Kilauea eruption.

Emilio Fuscaldo sits in the garden outside the brick house that he designed for himself and his partner, Anna Krien, on a small subdivided lot in Coburg, a suburb north of Melbourne, Australia. Photo by Nic Granleese.

Architect Gregory Phillips connected the original house to a new modern extension that doesn’t interfere with the surrounding houses. “I try to be true to the location,”he explains, “so it doesn’t seem like some spaceship has landed.”

The courtyard acts like an outdoor living room, where the Arnolds’ daughter, Josie, plays freely, safe from nearby traffic. The family dines here most of the year at the custom-designed wood-and-steel table. The picnic table set reappropriates the century-old eucalyptus tree that once grew on the site.

Gaffney's cousin lives in the house just in front. To give a bit of perspective, this photo was likely taken just feet in front of the waist-high wall that runs between the two houses's yards.

Dusty built the half-pipe for their son Gram's first birthday. It's the cornerstone of the large back yard.

The landscaping appears to be based on the mullet principle: business in the front, as seen here (manicured grid lawn, with native vegetation sprouting in careful symmetry), party in the back (sunflowers and wild mountain grass growing in harmonious chaos).

Among the first Passive Houses in France, this bamboo-clad farmhouse by the Parisian firm Karawitz Architecture only uses a tenth of the energy a conventionally constructed home does. Photo by Nicholas Calcott.

The back of the house has sliding doors that open far enough to expose the entire livingroom to the families' back yard.

Day, Hachigian, and Sosi congregate on the back terrace at a dining table designed by Day and his brother-in-law, Garo Hachigian.

In Montara, California, architect Michael Maltzan designed a home for, his sister and brother-in-law. From certain vantage points, the home’s unique angles result in M.C. Escher–like optical illusions.

Builders, developers, designers, and architects have developed a range of homes that are composed of prefabricated, modular, or kit-of-parts pieces that can allow for lower costs, faster and easier on-site construction, and even higher quality spaces. Here, we delve into the differences—and similarities—among these manufactured residences.

Fabian plays with Morten in the yard, which features a spacious lawn and a greenhouse.

Bright accents.

“The backyard, which was kind of the focus of the project, was overgrown and quite disconnected from the house itself,” said architect Nigel Parish. The glass doors of the addition open onto a patio and lawn where the kids can play.

Stephen Waddell and Isabel Kunigk worked with architect D’Arcy Jones to breathe new life into their “dank old” structure. The couple chose to sacrifice square footage inside in order to make the most of outdoor space.