Black and white kitchen cabinets painted with a triangular pattern add a whimsical touch to this funky kitchen.

Fir-veneer plywood wraps the entire interior of a compact guest cabin with a 12-by-15-foot footprint, smaller than a single-car garage.

In the bathroom, the teal mosaic tile hug the curves of the walls, ceiling, and built-in shelving.

A salvaged 19th-century soaking tub wrapped in stainless steel is topped by Hudson Reed faucets.

Architect Barbara Hill sits on a Casalino chair from Design Within Reach in the living room; on the wall is Quivers, a sculpture by her daughter, Claire Cusak. Collaborator George Sacaris made the stump table.

This 19th-century New York factory houses the apartment of Brandon and Amy Phillips as well as the workshop for their company, Miles & May Furniture Works.

Measuring only 180 square feet, this exquisite, off-grid tiny home features a big sense of style.

A single bowl sink is self-explanatory: it consists of a sink that is not divided up into separate areas.

With Maze and Dream, the architect had to find a balance between the practical needs of a hotel suite and awe-inspiring, spatial effects.

Keeping the original mottled, worn-brick walls and outfitting the kitchen with their own custom cabinetry were among this couple’s cost-saving measures.

A sunlit, open-plan living room, dining room, and kitchen are located on the first level.

The architect's selected starkly different dark and light hues to echo their contrast of new and old.

The bathroom evokes the building’s industrial bones. The pendant light is from Ikea, and the towel racks are repurposed train car luggage racks. The Carrara tiles are mismatched seconds. “It works if you let yourself not try to fix it,” says Brandon.

The home office of 19th St. Residence by Ehrlich Yanai Rhee Chaney Architects peeks into the lush side yard.

The dining area, with a table and hickory chairs from Miles & May, opens onto a kitchen the couple created as part of a DIY gut renovation. The result, says Amy, is an “intentional raw and polished combination.” The lamp is from M&M Electrical Surplus.

We snapped a shot just as workers poured the copper-brass alloy over a Bocci 19 series mold, click through the slideshow to see the rest of the process.

Inspirational spaces

ICON developed its Vulcan I 3D printer over a period of about two years. The gantry-style printer on rails is mobile and weighs about 2,000 pounds.

The bed is flanked by two staircases, one of which is hidden behind a white curtain. Hidden storage is integrated into the stair design.

Farnley Hey’s heart is a large, double-height living area, dubbed "the dance floor

This award-winning home by New York–based West Chin Architects is situated on a narrow corner lot in a Long Island neighborhood. The cedar-clad residence features a garage-style glass door that opens to welcome the salty sea breeze from the neighboring beach.

Lyng Hansen steamed and framed remnants of 19th-century wallpaper found during the renovation.

For our In the Modern World section, we shared a process shot of a Bocci 19 series. Here is a finished product of a Bocci 19 series bowl. Photo by Gwenael Lewis.

British artist Hannah Sawtell and technologist Avi Flombaum created sawbaum.com, where users can create visual collages using multiple vine streams. "We wanted it to look like a visual comic book, with overlapping panels," said Flombaum. "And we wanted it to be fun!" Photo courtesy Rhizome.

The lush spaces of the Garden Room interweave plants into its organic form.

Architect Javier Senosiain created this remarkable home on a hilly site near Mexico City. “The green dune wraps itself around the inside spaces almost completely, rendering it almost invisible. From the outside, all one sees are grass, bushes, trees, and flowers,” he says.

The board-formed concrete retaining wall holds firewood and is also a bench. Beyond, the garden lounge backs up against the studio and a retaining wall. “It’s a study in how little you can do to define a space,” Thomas says.

Nicolas Grospierre, Hydroklinika, 2004, D-Print on Wood, 19 3/4" x 19 3/4"

Dunbar describes the bathroom as an outside-in room because it has light, air, and sometimes, when it drizzles and the skylight left open, even rain. Designed for exactly these circumstances, a blue-glass mosaic tile floor is laid at an angle to drain with ease.

Activities diagram

With previous uses a butcher shop, grocery store, window workshop, hat shop, and a restaurant, the mix-and-match facade feels like an appropriate reflection of the renovated home's varied history.

reading corner - living room

The result is a “frozen lava texture, which contrasts with the inside of the bowl that we polish to an almost mirror finish,” says Arbel. “This is the first series of objects that has very little function. Mostly they exist for some sort of emotional response.”

The patio below the custom pergola is laid in a herringbone pattern with Techo-Bloc Borealis pavers and transitions to Blue Grande Slab laid in a running bond pattern for the uncovered patio