Just up a ladder is the green roof, which is planted with maintenance-free sedums and tall grasses near the patio that Monkman tends carefully.

A Good Reed The most changed area of the home is the small guest room–office, where Neely, who works from home, removed the closet doors and added a grass-cloth wall treatment to distinguish it from the rest of the house’s decor. “Many of the Eichlers originally had grass cloth as a covering on the sliding closet doors,” he says. “The guest room–office is the only other room that can be seen from the public areas across the atrium, and I wanted this wall to add visual interest.”

Anglepoise Original 1227 Brass Desk Lamp in deep slate designed by George Carwardine

The kitchen features custom stained white oak cabinetry by INTERIOR-iD with eye-catching brass accents. A custom brass extractor hood sits over a Gaggenau range. The space-efficient workstation is anchored against one wall, and the mirrored panel helps reflect light and visually integrate the kitchen into the rest of the living area. A utensil rail, along with ample cabinet and drawer space, all offer organizational solutions. An open shelf above the cookspace is cleanly accented by minimal strip lighting.

They installed water-saving artificial grass on their patio for pup Moxy to enjoy.

Pros: Also known as composite quartz, engineered quartz comes in a wide range of colors and textures with the general durability of real stone slabs, but with the ease of manufacturing and installation of a man-made product. As a result, engineered quartz isn’t as expensive as other natural stone countertops. Cons: On the other hand, customers can expect to see these qualities reflected in the price of engineered quartz, which can be on the higher end. Quartz also doesn’t handle extreme heat as well as granite does.

Native grasses spill forth from the green roof toward a stairway leading to the main level.

Simple brass screws affix the bathroom’s antibacterial copper cladding, reclaimed from a barn roof in Connecticut, to the walls. Bronze screen frames, salvaged from buildings on Shope’s Amenia property and then cut into small decorative strips, line the bathroom door frame.

Desk and table lamps typically provide light in a downward direction, illuminating the surface directly below it rather than providing a general glow, which prevents them from often being used as ambient lights.

Winkelman Architecture delivers grown-up summer-camp vibes with this unassuming retreat on the coast of Maine.

A pair of double doors leads to the large screened porch. At the ceiling, rafters underscore the skylight, casting shadows that mark the passage of the sun.

Facing a COVID-19 shutdown, Taylor and Michaella McClendon recruit their family to build a breezy tiny home on the Big Island—which you can now purchase for $99,800.

The newly released Original 1227 Brass Desk Lamp in Dusty Blue is both cheerful and sophisticated.

Numerous louvre-style windows wrap around the home, flooding it with greenery and sunlight. "High windows are important to allow for cool breezes in the summer," says Adam. "Louvre windows are very traditional in this area, as they allow for airflow and can remain open when it's raining."

"Under my bed, I have storage cubbies that hold clothing and art and cleaning supplies," Mariah says. "The picture ledge above my bed is a storage and display area for books and small art pieces."

The interior also features numerous local touches, including a pair of oak Krysset chairs in natural leather by the Norwegian furniture company Eikund.

A view from the bedroom loft.

Helen & Hard built a pair of pine cone–shaped cabins that wrap around tree trunks in the forests of Odda, Norway.

Sasaki placed an open-plan kitchen, dining area and living space on the second level; a flexible loft space is situated above the kitchen.

A pergola made of opaque, corrugated polycarbonate extends from the front facade and guards against bright sunlight, wind, and rain.

Brass has been a popular metal for doorknobs for years: its versatility and resistance to rust make it suitable for all uses.

A translucent pergola shades this 183-square-foot studio made from hardy OSB.

Landscape designer Bernard Trainor’s creative use of poured-in-place concrete pavers—such as off the living room, where they break up a low-maintenance lawn of June grass—give the irregularly shaped lot a sense of order. Foxtail ferns and blue chalk sticks, a succulent, lend dashes of color to the entry courtyard, while thyme makes for a fragrant accent between the pavers.

the reflectivity of the brass kitchen island makes it seem to dematerialize.

Want a light? The chromed surface of the Queue Metal Stick Lighter by Tsubota Pearl for Molla Space captures the flickering aspect of flames. Find it in the Dwell store.

A solid brass cream jug by British designer Tom Dixon is the gold standard of creamers, whether or not you take milk with your tea.

Office accessories—scissors, pencils, stationery—feature prominently in the collection, with pieces like these brass scissors.

Brass trivet by Oji Masanori, $90 from muhshome.com

To maintain a uniform look in the kitchen, Bjerre-Poulsen secreted most of the appliances, including the fridge, behind white Kvik cabinets. He installed can lights with brass-colored interiors on the ceiling; the halogen bulbs reflect the golden interior, giving off a warm glow. Every light in the house is an overbright fixture on a dimmer, for maximum flexibility—if you can adjust different levels for every situation, from working to entertaining, then you don’t need to rely on secondary floor or table lights, Bjerre-Poulsen points out.

Based on the travels of a beloved French naturalist, Mr. Plocq's Caballon is an egg-shaped cabin that takes cues from both naval and aircraft carpentry.

New residential buildings are few and far between in England, so architects like Phillips have increasingly been charged with creating groundbreaking modern environments within the shells of historic houses. “People just find it easier to work within existing houses to transform them to be sleek, stylish and functional,” says Phillips. “Extensions have almost become a requirement for any homeowner who wants to be a part of modern living within the U.K.”

Though seemingly whimsical and freewheeling, Sottsass was exacting in his designs: He had forbidden the Olabuenagas from repainting the home’s stucco facade, insisting that they let it “metamorph into what it wants to be,” but the couple ultimately decided to restore its faded colors last fall, using new elastomeric Behr paints that were blended to original specifications.

In the middle courtyard, the Jacks landscaped a small grass mound for Sadie, five, to play on. The house is topped with corrugated steel. “It’s essentially the cheapest material you can get for roofing in New Zealand,” says Beer.

Linden specified a black stain from Cabot for the house’s exterior. The shade draws on Scandinavian and Japanese building traditions and helps the structure blend into the landscape. Native grasses populate the courtyard.

The bedding is intentionally simple, without layers of unnecessary pillows, and the “non-headboard headboard,” as Santos describes it, is a loose macramé wall hanging by Sally England. The built-in storage wall that defines the space is painted Kendall Charcoal by Benjamin Moore in a matte finish—a shade used on millwork throughout the house. The Isaac brass sconces are from Schoolhouse Electric, and the floor lamp is from Crate & Barrel. The rocker was custom made by Onefortythree in Las Vegas.