With its easy access, the flat roof is never hard to maintain.

Swirl vase by Susanne Harder, $234. Susanne Harder is a Danish ceramicist whose delicate work is exclusively sold at Totokaelo.

Blade Runner by LaCie, $299 Philippe Starck took a break from designing motorcycles and furniture to create this four-terabyte hard drive. Besides the cool geometry, the blades dissipate the heat built up by the spinning disks.

The crew hard at work, in the shadow of a sculpture.

Harder, who photographed this story from Dwell's September issue on a 440-square-foot guesthouse, took this photo in Hong Kong. Follow Grant Harder on Instagram at @grantharder.

Photographer Grant Harder snapped this shot from the Blackcomb ski resort at Whistler.

Ivy softens the hard edges of the cinder-block structure.

The Muskoka chair is meant to resemble the classic Adirondack chair in angles and proportion, if not much else. (Fun fact: the designer of the original Adirondack called it the "Muskoka"; its more commonly known moniker refers to the region in which it was first produced.) This version, by Hard Goods, is made of weather-proof concrete on steel legs and weighs half as much as a sofa.

Rather hard not to be impressed with the University of Glasgow. Take that, Princeton!

Our new intern hard at work. Photo by Clifford Ho.

I couldn't resist taking in the view from my hard-won perch.

For all its hard environmental work, one of the most immediate of the Blue Sky Home’s pleasures is how it sits so snugly in its desert surroundings.

The hard part is cutting the fabric to fit properly says Artek upholsterer Aki Lehtonen.

Hard materials such as polished concrete were used for the interior floors and bench-tops. The interior brick walls were all painted white.

“You can’t help but relax being in the country,” says Nigel. Jane laughs and jumps in: “Though it’s hard work. We’re always doing something.”

Access into the garden is through the side of the kitchen and not the rear. This means the rear is protected for wildlife and the family do not have to go through the garden to access the BBQ and hard landscaping.

I love these brochures for Alcan Foil from the early 60s. There were designed by German Rolf Harder.

“They really wanted to have tile in the kitchen and at the front door, but everyone disliked that hard edge line,” says Gregga. “Doing the organic edge of the tile helped make the entry space and kitchen feel like one, and then it disintegrates into the living and dining room.”

The kitchen of the Birch Le Collaboration House features Durat solid surface countertops which are made from 30-50% recycled hard plastics and are 100% recyclable. "We worked with Cara Green, our healthy building materials partner to source these countertops," explains Karchner.

The organic curves of this loveseat from Don Shoemaker fits nicely with the chair from the previous slide. It too is made of cocobolo, a wood in the rosewood family, though not nearly as threatened environmentally. The wood is very hard, so hard that Shoemaker imported top-of-the-line Swiss tools to carve it.

'Powered by Nature,' Norway's 2010 Shanghai Expo Pavilion, designed by Helen and Hard. Photo by John E. Kroll.

Orange, NJ is just one of countless communities around the country that have been hit hard during the recession. Street view of residences in Orange, New Jersey (by MOS Architects and team, assigned to The Oranges).

This trend is made for small homes. "I think this type of floor treatment is most appropriate in areas of transition, [like] entry areas, open baths, or even kitchens," says Zunino. Why? "It's a creative way to delineate space without a hard line." Photo courtesy of Studio M #design #interior #tiletransitioning #floor #bathroom #mydomaine

Honed granite was selected for the kitchen surfaces because its matte-like finish is easy to maintain and hard to damage. Eight-foot sliding glass doors bathe the kitchen and adjoining living room in ample sunlight.

A hard-working galley kitchen with wood cabinets and stone counters.

The curving pattern of the metalwork softens what could be an overly hard design. It would work equally well inside or out.

Hard to imagine a more clever way to hang scores of pair of Nikes than at the company's first flagship store in Tokyo.

The cabin’s compact design makes it easy to build in hard-to-reach places.

It’s hard to believe that this is the interior of a camper van.

“We gave the architect a hard time by being ourselves, by being very stubborn,” adds Roi.

The clients and design team chose to forego an open floor plan in favor of defined, separated spaces. In this scheme, the vertically oriented spaces act as a cinematic "hard-cut" to their horizontal counterparts. The custom hot rolled steel kitchen, one of these vertical transition spaces, receives light from above through a Velux skylight. A GE Profile Induction cooktop and oven and Miele refrigerator complete the space.

In their query letter, Ben and Sarah were clear that they wanted a home that could accommodate all of life’s messes. “We don't want a white display kitchen that only looks good when it's clean and not in use. We want our kitchen to be able to work hard. We love to cook and when we do, there are usually lots of things on the go and a mess being made.”

The trailer’s original exterior boasts the hard-earned patina of decades spent on the road.

Doors and triple-glazed casement windows from Loewen work hard to form a tight thermal envelope.

The attention to detail is stunning and the shop is a blast to peruse. As for his choice in materials, Stark tells us, "It's hard to argue with wood."

Mirrored backsplash deflects light from the opposite window and softens a typically, hard, utilitarian surface.