Focusing on products made Stateside wasn’t Danny Seo’s first priority for his kitchen renovation—instead, he had one specific requirement: stainless-steel cabinets to replace the original, musty wood ones.

CC Timer by Mathias Zieba and Alexandre Burdin.

CC4441 (Tokyo, Japan) Tomokazu Hayakawa sliced and stacked two black containers to create an angular art gallery and office space in the Taito district. Photo by Kuniaki Sasage

Every space, including the living and dining sections seen here, has “furniture, objects and artworks that bring us memories,” says Smud. The bench, coffee tables, and dining table are by the late Alejandro Sticotti.

Onstage, green lifestyle expert and media personality Danny Seo will speak about sourcing American kitchen products, and preview the kitchen renovation inside his 1950s rural Pennsylvania home, to be featured in the July/August issue of Dwell. Photo by David Englehardt.

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Originally designed by Alvar Aalto 1935, the Aalto Chair 66 ($446-456) for Artek is a classic example of Scandinavian simplicity.

In this glass-enclosed master bedroom, a LC4 armchair faces the master bed. The moveable frame adjusts along the base, allowing the sitter to switch from upright to full recline, or lounge at a number of other sitting angles.

Hailing from Seoul, Jeonghwa Seo studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

Instead of design, Roman and Williams strove for simplicity and transparency. Rows of exposed light bulbs line the ceiling.

The 24-hour dining and social space for Facebook's 6,000 or so employees.

The apartment features a rug by EligoStudio for cc-tapis, lighting by Foscarini, kitchen appliances by Smeg, Vitra chairs, tableware by Bitossi, and a bed by Moroso for Diesel Living.

Interactive stations equipped with computers and iPads introduced guests to Sonata's Facebook and YouTube social media platforms.

The firm also designed the kitchen, which was fabricated by Thomson Cabinetry.

“I didn’t want marble or granite because they aren’t sustainable,” says Seo. “Laminate is one of the few surfaces recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council toward LEED certification. Plus it’s affordable and I liked the way it looked—a triple whammy.”

Danny Seo replaced the wood cabinets of his kitchen with stainless-steel models. As a professional photo stylist, he needed to accommodate a vast collection of kitchen items, such as multiples of plates, wooden bowls, and utensils.

The "Tippy Cup Rain Chain" teaches the children about water conservation.

Mithun designed the tree house so that it would tread lightly on the land. The firm originally considered prefabricating the entire structure offsite but, in the research process, concluded that craning large modules into place would potentially harm the canopy. A combination of a bolted-together prefab structure and site-built wood housing yielded the least intrusive construction option. The Summit Bechtel Reserve is located in West Virginia's coal mining country. The architects looked to the local structures—bridges, mining apparatus, and other industrial buildings—to inform the tree house's design. A 166-ton Cor-Ten steel megastructure supports the 125-foot-tall building. The use of regionally appropriate materials, like steel and black locust wood, was important to the architects.

Visitors scale a series of outdoor staircases that wind their way up the structure. Volume and Studio Terpeluk turned the risers into a teaching moment about energy use and the impact of every day activities.

Mithun wanted to engage the scouts with all elements of the forest: the floor, the canopy, and a perspective above the tree tops. In one of the viewing rooms, visitors get the feeling of being fully surrounded by leaves.

The structure's mission is to teach visitors about the environment and sustainability. San Francisco–based studio Volume designed the exhibition program, which offers interactive displays about water conservation, energy use, recycling, and more.

The Material Container series also includes tables.

Hellstern designed the mohair sofa in the home's living area. The rug is by Tufenkian.

The green roof, wood cladding, and low profile help to integrate the home with its lush, natural surroundings.

A curving skylight illuminates the minimalist kitchen of a dwelling in Bondi Beach, Australia, that was renovated by Andrew Burges Architects.

Multiple Hytte cabins can be clustered together to create a village layout.

The Lais designed their house to be theirs forever. As such, they were able to make design moves that made sense for themselves but that wouldn't have high resale value, like the Japanese-style master bathroom in the middle of the second floor instead of off of the master bedroom. The traditional setup features bath stools from Muji for washing off.

The built-in bench that borders the cantilevered bed features two storage drawers and a hatch that accesses an additional storage compartment.

The crisp white kitchen features appliances built into the cabinetry and marble countertops.

In the living room, Two Mario Botta chairs look towards the new fireplace, a Memphis coffee table and an original leaded-glass window. The rug is designed by Faye Toogood for CC Tapis. Happy the dog sits on a sofa from Toronto’s Home Societe.

San Francisco’s modernists were faced with the issue of building within a firmly established stylistic tradition—think bay windows and gingerbread. Henry Hill’s 1947 renovation of a 1908 Victorian tucked away on an alley in historic Russian Hill provides a remarkable response to the dilemma.

The kitchen and convertible desk area of the Kugelschiff display a luminous, white-painted ceiling and walls, and white ash cabinetry and flooring.