Arbel’s “14” sconces spot the wall to ethereal effect in the master bedroom. “I wanted this place to be habitable. One of my greatest criticisms of modern architecture is that it often forgets to make things cozy.”

A rear deck is nestled behind the central cabin, flanked by the sleeping quarters. Inside, the dining table sits beneath a single hanging lamp.

A barrier-free house enables a family to come together amid the vineyards in Northern California. The kitchen is fully accessible and yet not institutional, with room for both extended family and a caregiver, and the ability to move between indoors and out without having to negotiate a single barrier. The island contains a micro kitchen for the family’s daughter, who is in a wheelchair, with a sink, refrigerator, and warming drawers within easy reach. The pendant is from Global Lighting.

A shed provides storage for the owners’ tools as well as wood for the fireplace. It features the same aged pine finish as the main home.

The 40-foot-long containers hang 16 feet over the ground. The deep balcony, Gooden says, offers solar protection, keeping strong sunlight out but letting natural light in. The home has three bedrooms, a den, and three and half baths.

A 40 foot by 10 foot pool is designed to echo the house’s tower with an almost reflection-like alignment.

A view from above of the iron staircase, which faces one of the textural béton brut cement walls. Its treads slant at opposing angles, creating their own minimal pattern.

The central, welded-iron staircase is the house’s most striking contemporary feature. Beyond it, more large sliding doors conceal extra storage and the home entertainment system.

With their matching peaked roofs, every cabin nods to the traditional form of countryside retreats. The cluster’s pine cladding has been treated to speed up the aging process, giving it a warm patina.

The auxiliary cabins contain the sleeping quarters. A ladder leads to a sleeping loft underneath a gabled ceiling. The cabin’s bathroom is situated beneath the loft and features clean white fittings and tile.

A simple, yet elegant vanity doubles as storage.

The distinctive facade references a traditional thatched English cottage.

A contractor with years of industry knowledge will know how to solve common problems that may arise during construction, and will also have well-established connections to subcontractors and suppliers.

The family retreat abuts a rocky cliff in Herfell, Norway. The central cabin provides communal living spaces, while the two cabins that flank it are used as private sleeping quarters.

Designed and built by Diedricksen himself, the Periscope was intended to be a treehouse, but its tall, elongated form made it impossible to hoist into its canopy. Today, it remains fixed to the ground in Canton, Massachusetts. Copyright Derek Diedricksen.

Full-height glazing caps the central living area. A rigid steel frame concealed within its wood envelope allows for uninterrupted sight lines and creates a single, open-plan living space.

Each unit is 370-square-foot studio and was built off site in a warehouse near Sacramento.

Designer and digital fabricator Shawn Benson shares his 595-square-foot second-floor space with his wife, Jessica, and their daughter, Roux. The 15-foot-high ceilings allow plenty of room for a full-size ocean paddleboard.

The Vermont-based Jamaica Cottage Shop built this 132-square-foot writer's retreat using a super durable timber-frame approach. Copyright Jamaica Cottage Shop.

The Urban Cultivator is a dishwasher-sized micro-garden that appears to be a wine rack for plants. It is poised to slide into pre-existing kitchen designs, making it an easy way to add a drawer of fresh herbs to your home.

The concept of raw materials was carried through on the interior, using plywood and a slab of terrazzo for the kitchen, which features Bulthaup fittings.

GE Micro Kitchen Concept GE’s new product line aims to give urban and small space dwellers more suitable and ergonomic appliances, all contained within a single, “monoblock” structure. Image by GE

Dubbed the Monoblock, GE’s forward-thinking micro-kitchen concept boasts cooking, refrigeration, and cleaning modules joined in a compact unit. The project is part of FirstBuild, a joint venture between GE and the crowdsourcing platform Local Motors. The new model for appliance invention seeks to engage engineers, designers, and scientists by developing products and bringing them to market.

Los Angeles–based design firm ORA built this family home in the Mar Vista suburb with two separate buildings: a long, linear home “shaped like a boomerang,” and a bright-red accessory dwelling unit. In the main house, a soothing material palette composed of concrete floors, white walls, and wood is punctuated by spots of color, such as the teal tile backsplash and salmon-toned cabinet in the kitchen, or the sunshine-yellow vanity in one of the bathrooms.

The three kids share a bathroom that's also located in the attic. The penguin basket is from Bloomingville.

Two cabins sit in the vast, empty landscape overlooking the Hekla volcano, around three hours’ drive from Reykjavík. The front part of each cabin—for sleeping—is almost entirely glass, while the rear—where the living, kitchen and bathroom spaces are located—is clad in timber for privacy.

Set in a quiet cul-de-sac in Walnut Grove—a small enclave of Eichlers in Walnut Creek, California—this Claude Oakland–designed Model 14 Eichler truly stands out. With a shingled, hipped roof and a "clipped" gable, the home is designed to reference a traditional thatched English cottage—but we think it looks much more modern than that.

At the northern end of the Stockholm archipelago, a humble cottage becomes a gorgeous seaside retreat for a nature-loving family.

“The transparency and continuity of the spaces allows the landscape, the coast, and the sea to be present at all times,” LLaumett says. While most of the home’s furniture was constructed on site, a sofa by The Popular Design sits in the living room.

The exterior of the house reveals the simple and utilitarian assembly of its cement-panel walls and roof.

Pine was used for the exterior siding and the lower perimeter base is lined in reinforced concrete.