Poetry Foundation Completed in 2011, the new headquarters for the Poetry Foundation, designed by Chicago's John Ronan Architects, features grids of zinc, glass, and wood that encase the organization's new home and frame the courtyard garden, delineating a peaceful urban retreat and creating a bridge between the interior and exterior.

Angela Brooks and son Calder revel in the benefits of free solar energy, cheerfully opening the living room’s big glass doors when it’s time to play.

Power Pod Convenience and functionality blend into elegant design with Coalesse’s PowerPod. Designed by Scott Wilson and MINIMAL, PowerPod delivers two functions in one. When needed, the PowerPod houses six power outlets with built-in surge-suppression. When not needed, the outlet is converted to a sleek pencil organizer and accessory tray. Energy-saving on/off switch reduces vampire power consumption.

From its locally quarried stone foundation to its zinc-coated copper roof, the cottage was inspired by its surroundings. “We talked a lot with our client about what the materiality would be,” says architect Karen Stonely, who, citing the organic style of Bar Harbor architect Robert Patterson, designed the structure with wood rather than drywall.

"The overall design is influenced by the use of traditional, locally available, and/or low-maintenance materials such as corrugated metal roofing, cement board lap-siding, heavy timber construction, and indigenous wood species," Brun says.

Minneapolis-based Rypen introduces their new collection, Rypen Blend, with items like the customizable Foundation Desk.

Keep the Home Fires Burning Using wood for heat and energy keeps the Wadhams’ environmental footprint small and helps avoid the use of coal- or nuclear-powered electricity. Come winter, the couple relies on an Esse wood-burning stove for cooking, heating, and feeding a set of small radiators. In summer, they use the stove’s electric component, which is powered by solar energy.

On the hill behind the house, a wind-powered well brings water from a 150-foot-deep hole to the surface. That water then flows to the home as needed with gravity's helping hand.

Power House High This structural reboot of a former power plant now has a much different purpose. Another post-industrial, LEED Platinum-certified showpiece, this century-old structure, which once housed rows of massive coal burners that provided all the power for Sears, Roebuck & Company's 55-acre corporate headquarters (as well as the air pressure for the pnuematic mail tubes), now boasts a pair of charter schools.

OPA wanted to free themselves from logic imposed by a grid and considered various inefficient configurations of shipping containers. They settled on a combination of options, seen in the trikselion shape here. The Presidio, San Francisco, California. Mobile exhibition pavilion for the For-Site Foundation. © Tim Griffith.

The library is a collection of art, architecture, design, and photography materials. The essays analyze the system and methods to make the library a publicly accessible resource for interdisciplinary discussion. The art library collection started when it was donated as gift from book collector Daniel Rohner.

Advocacy Award of Excellence: Peavey Plaza, designed by M. Paul Friedberg + Partners in 1975 Advocacy Team: Preservation Alliance of Minnesota (PAM), The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) and Docomomo US/Minnesota>

The bottom floor contains the kitchen and the dining area; the lounge is upstairs. The cabinets are from Ikea, as are the table and chairs, and the child’s Tripp Trapp chair is from Stokke.

To minimize the home's energy footprint, the floor and foundation are made from cast concrete. Large openings allow for natural ventilation, while surrounding trees help create a cool microclimate. The house is powered by geothermal energy.

Designer Sue Macintosh chose the Farrow & Ball Off-Black paint for the master bedroom.

Large vintage pendants from an old ship suspend above the dining table, crafted by Dave Ball of Jacob May in Oakland. The radiant-heat flooring is reclaimed barn wood from Tennessee. The artwork that hangs above the cabinet and conceals a television was created from pieces of wood painted by local artists during a party hosted by Marka and Joe, who elected to leave the living area's large metal structural beam exposed.

Le Corbusier and the Power of Photography, published by Thames & Hudson.

Smart Power Strip One of the best things about home automation is that it not only makes life easier for you, but it can save you money and the environment at the same time. A smart power strip is a great way to do this, as it will detect when your appliances are doing nothing but wasting energy, and turn them off.

Juxtaposed:Power by Mike and Maakie.

A closer look at "Power Up."

Flower Power by Parrott is a sensor that tells you, via a smartphone app, how much sunlight, moisture, and fertilizer your plants are getting (as well as whether they are too hot or too cold), and suggests adjustments so you can take better care of them.

By superimposing an elevated, highly decorative surface onto the Lavanderia, Sigurdardóttir married the Palazzo Zenobio's two buildings, the pavilion and the laundry, as one. The pavilion, symbolizing the opulence and leisure of the owner, is contrasted by the laundry’s historic associations with labor. The surface pattern of the platform replicates artisanal tile construction and is all hand-worked. Sigurdardóttir chose to use art materials instead of traditional flooring materials to emphasize an understanding of the tiled surface as sculpture and a map of sorts that might be walked upon and experienced from shifting angles. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

Iceland, the land of the midnight sun and geological hot spots, will have its own floating stage at the Venice Biennale's 55th International Art Exhibition which officially opens on Saturday, June 1st. Artist Katrin Sigurdardottir has created Foundation (2013), a site-specific sculptural installation for the Lavenderia/The Old Laundry at the Palazzo Zenobio in Dorsoduro—one of the six sestieri of Venice. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

Katrín Sigurdardóttir explains, “This work is about drawing. It’s about labor, and it’s about spatial immersion. I wanted to create a work that could be entered from different points, navigated in multiple ways, and viewed from several levels, so that the visitor is both in the work and at the same time able to observe herself in the work. This work is both new and familiar, familiar in that it will key into a twofold perception—to experience and concurrently observe oneself experiencing—a kind of existential trickery that I have played with in previous works. It is new in that it’s my first full-scale architectural interpretation." Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

Katrín Sigurdardóttir’s project for the Icelandic Pavillion at the Venice Biennale will be on view from 1 June to 24 November, 2013. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

Visitors can also climb stairs to the roof of the building and look down on the sculpture’s large footprint and intricate patterns. The size of this architectural piece dwarfs the building, and thus takes on a familiar theme in Sigurdardóttir’s oeuvre, the playful manipulation of scale. Notably, Iceland lacks its own pavilion in the Giardini, and therefore the floating, disembodied structure of Sigurdardóttir’s sculpture takes on a special significance. The outline of the form becomes a metaphor for the outline of the national space. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

The outline of the architectural structure takes its form from the footprint of a typical 18th century pavilion. It intersects both interior and exterior spaces of this auxiliary building in the garden of the Palazzo, with two sets of stairs for access by visitors. Upon entering the work, visitors will first climb the stairs leading from the garden to the platform, and then bend down to pass through the truncated doors of the building. The work extends beyond the confines of the Lavanderia’s walls on three sides and allows the public to navigate diverse interior and exterior spaces. Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

"We chose materials, which are all appropriate in indoor and outdoor conditions. The work will go from the summer heat of Venice, to the winter cold of Reykjavík before it will shown entirely indoors at the SculptureCenter. The materials in the work are sourced equally from tile and flooring suppliers—i.e. the substrate, the adhesive, the grout, and from sculpture compound suppliers, such as the various materials that compose the tiles themselves" —Katrín Sigurdardóttir Photo by: ORCH_ orsenigochemollo and courtesy of the artist and the Icelandic Art center.

Raspberry Pi by the Raspberry Pi Foundation-The unusually named Raspberry Pi (a nod to the long history of fruit based names in computing) is a tiny and economical computer that was developed by Eben Upton at the University of Cambridge to help Computer Science students improve upon their programming skills. Since then, the $25 machines have proved incredibly popular among the wider public who have used them to create their own gadgets and devices. The microcomputer was named as one the most revolutionary nominations by curator Pete Collard due to the fact that, “it actively encourages people to design at home.”

Glasses by Warby Parker.

The Birch Le Collaboration House and all of the Hygge Supply homes are made from structural insulated panels (SIPs) and steel framing, both of which are designed and cut to spec and delivered to the job site ready for placement, leaving little to no waste onsite. The homes can either be built on a slab-on-grade foundation with concrete floors; pier foundations with Thermory wood floors; or a basement foundation which also includes Thermory wood floors.

Cor-Ten steel from a ship building yard clads the new structure, which connects via a glass “bridge” to a rebuilt stone farmhouse containing the bedrooms.

McAvoy worked with builder Stephen Campbell on structural elements such as the glass floor and walls.