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.

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 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.

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

Jay Austin’s Matchbox house is only eight feet wide but feels bigger thanks to a well-organized interior.

La Esquina Floor Plan A 510-Square-Foot Corner Unit B 450-Square-Foot Unit C 525- and 595-Square-Foot Units D Bathroom E Kitchen F Terrace-Courtyard

Fifth Element Micro-Apartment in Tokyo (Tokyo, Japan)The units inside the Nakagin Capsule Tower, designed by Kisho Kurokawa in 1972, are relics of a future imagined but not achieved, white plastic spaces with a bank of appliances, a minimum of comfort and a vision of small-scale living measuring roughly 7.5 x 12 x 7 feet. There’s no extra charge to share the historic space with someone, though that may be more of a challenge than you expect. Listing at Historical Nakagin Capsule Tower

The development includes laundry facilities, storage, and parking. Common areas are located on all three floors for residents to lounge around. Douglas fir wraps the staircase with galvanized steel railing as well as the desk.

The suite will also feature furniture by Brooklyn-based studio ThinkFabricate.

A micro hotel suite by Resource Furniture features a variety of convertible pieces, including a modern sofa that conceals a murphy bed and a media unit that holds a full, collapsible dining table set.

The development provides studio micro-units for qualified low-income residents. Compared to rents in Sunnyvale that are $2,100 per month, Parkside Studios are an average of $585 per month for a studio unit.

"24-inch electric cooktop and oven designed for micro-living from @boschappliances, available in April."

A skylight over the lofted bed and some clever storage moves, including magnetized spice containers overhead help maximize space in Austin's Matchbox house.

From the mezzanine of his 450-square-foot apartment at La Esquina, an eight-unit live/work building in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood, designer, artist, and Woodbury University professor Patrick Shields chats with fellow professor Hector Perez, who spearheaded the project.

nArchitects, Monadnock Development, and the Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation partnered on a winning proposal for a micro-unit apartment block.

Brian Levy, Tony Gilchriest, and Jay Austin (left to right), are creating the Boneyard Studios complex in Washington, DC, along with Lee Pera and a team of architects and builders. The four structures onsite are both experiments in small-space living and, during public “work days,” a base for educating the community about construction, design, and tiny houses.

The architects designed the dining table and added four of Voxia’s space-saving and stackable nxt chairs, which are manufactured from a single piece of compression-molded beech.

The functions of a residential house have been integrated in extra-small volumes to suit the needs of the couple. The vestibule has extensive storage space, under which there is a small bench for removing one's shoes.

The local heritage protection laws allow light shafts on the roof, but here the architects chose to turn them up towards the sky, significantly altering the volume of the building and allowing them to open up a new, light-flooded attic space that contains two modest bedrooms.

"The simple volume of the space and large openings let light and air flow freely," Benson says. "The environment is always pleasant even without air conditioning or heating."

The units are arranged on every floor to form a staggered facade and will measure between 250 and 370 square feet each.