The rise of the front lawn and the height of the trees give the house a subtle presence amid magnificent surroundings.

An expansive skylight gives a feeling of spaciousness to the kitchen/dining area.

With the purchase of a Bogobrush, the company will send one to someone in need. They have also partnered with three Give One members (Detroit, Minnesota, and Atlanta) to ensure that no one lacks adequate access to dental care in the USA.

The materials palette that I chose is light in color with a few splashes of color. This lightness holds the space open and gives it a contemporary feel.

Although the loft is relatively small, high ceilings and an open floor plan give it room to spare.

Lawrence Weiner sits at his daylit desk. The bare walls are perfect for tacking up new projects, and the steel ductwork gives the space an industrious feel.

The runs give the hens plenty of room to zoom and peck.

The black tile in the entryway mirrors that used in the bathroom, giving the small palette of materials a kind of interior coherence.

Fully enclosed by glass, Hiller’s kitchen and living room give the feeling of being in a tree house.

The olive wood collection is made by hand from sustainably certified olive trees. “Give Me Some Sugar” bowl and spoons, shown here.

The knot-flecked staircase leading down to Bornstein's office gives serves as a solid core to the home's circulation.

Opening Keynote presentation by Joao Segurado, Challenge winner at Design Like You Give A Damn: LIVE! 2012. Photo via Architecture for Humanity. Photo by: Betsy Kershner

Exposed beams and a cantilevered loft soar over the high-traffic eating area, giving the family a sense of spaciousness.

Arco’s Jolly Jubilee chairs, designed by Ineke Hans, give the downstairs living room a shot of color.

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Another shot of the sun shades gives a sense of their massive size.

The header imagery gives a glimpse of what's to come at Hyperbole and a Half.

The Deans’ new kitchen is long and narrow, punctuated by the small windows that dot the façade and one large light-giving window at the end.

The curving, bulbous walls of the bath and shower reveal an unexpected secondary role as a screen for film projections, giving the house a sci-fi glow.

Exposed pine boards dominate the interior, giving a subtle, warm backdrop to the splashes of color that his stove and collection of books provide.

Though the Cook Inlet is nearby, from the street, the house’s simple facade gives little indication of the sights that await a visitor.

Most beachfront houses treat the ocean as part of the visual landscape with panoramic views and wraparound balconies. Tom Lloyd-Butler’s beach house by Ernest Born, however, is deeply interior, and far more interested in its tranquil inner courtyard than anything beyond. One transparent addition later, the avid surfer has a new outlook. Aidlin Darling took pains during construction to preserve the cypress trees that give the Great Highway House so much of its charm.

Pyatt's office is the sparest room in the house, with the straw panels "left raw to give a sense of the monolithic nature of those walls," according to Pyatt.

Moonshine is beautifully set in an isolated spot in the English countryside outside of Bath. The dramatic juxtaposition of a stone gamekeeper's cottage and a modern timber framed addition gives the home a quaint, pastoral feel while capitalizing on the dramatic view of St. Catherine's Valley.

Instead of giving something tangible to someone who has it all, consider giving to someone who has very little. Many non-profit organizations sponsor gift drives, including the UK-based Good Gifts. One effort we particularly like is a funding initiative for subsistence farming in Rwanda. 20x10 foot greenhouse for growing hydroponic food in Rwanda, £1,200 at Good Gifts.

You don’t need to have a complicated harvesting tank built if you want to conserve water. A simpler way is to place a rain barrel—found at your local home and garden supply store—under the downspout on your roof to collect rainwater for gardening. Invest in a good water filtration or treatment system, and you can even use your rainwater for bathing, laundry, cooking, and drinking.

Black stone worktops, waxed concrete walls, and the traditional rustic tiles (called “witjes”) give textural and tonal variety and offset the warm woody tones that dominate this kitchen. The rustic theme is continued in the iron hooks and bars—simple but effective fittings.

The cabin hovers over the site on stilts, giving it a floating effect.

Project H's latest initiative is a vending machine that gives you California poppies, not cavities.

A skylight in the compact bathroom opens the space, and green tiles give the room a spa-like feel.

Inside, a suspended staircase rises up past the couple’s bookcase over a well-lit seating nook. Aalto stools by Artek join Eames molded plywood dining chairs by Herman Miller to give an especially modern touch to the kitchen.

“The kitchen didn’t really have a home,” says Colkitt. His solution was to build the sleeping loft directly above it, giving the kitchen some architectural congruity, and implement recessed lighting into the dropped ceiling, also the underside of the floor of the sleeping loft. Like the reading loft, the sleeping loft is open on both sides to bring in light and air, with a single ladder leading up to it. “The sleeping loft ‘fold’ is a complement to the reading loft ‘fold’—they balance each other out,” says Colkitt. Photo by Cheryl Ramsay

The overall home is constructed with larch timber, a British wood, and features a central ridge beam that gives it a butterfly-shaped roof. Shou sugi ban was done on the wood to give it a charred finish.

A view toward the garden from the living room (right) gives perspective to the double-height space.

…along with fern-like plants that keep the space open and give us a dense green environment.

A mirror near the mailboxes in the lobby gives the illusion of more space. A team from Lighting Planners Associates, based in Japan, added the uplights behind the bench for effect. The architectural firm left the ceilings raw concrete to make the space "more enigmatic," says Schultz.