Architect Christian Tonko played with a double metaphor when designing the Camera Lucida studio. The name of the cantileverd hillside space, Latin for "bright chamber," references the open window facing the valley below, as well as the skylight that bathes the workspace in natural light.

Friends from Tonko's hometown of Bregenz, Austria, commissioned the studio when they acquired some land next to their home. They use it for drawing and sketching, as well as creating clay and gypsum sculptures that are later cast into bronze. Since the area is close to where he grew up, Tonko was incredibly familar with the view from the hillside.

What the original building lacked in period detailing, it made up for with massive interior spaces, natural light, and a hardy palette of wood and raw brick. Working with these loft signatures, David developed the hall’s liveable side, adding under-floor heating, and a gigantic kitchen on the upper floor running the width of the building, with a 37-foot-long solid walnut counter on top of stainless steel cabinets. This unites the dining, cooking and social spaces that run the length of the front façade on the upper floor.

A glass door on the north side sits opposite a glass window on the south wall that overlooks a birch tree forest. Skylights pull light into the interior. "Even though the artist paints landscapes, she didn't want to be distracted by the beauty of her surroundings while in the studio, which led to the limited apertures," Peterson says.

The gutting of the ground floor uncovered a former union meeting hall, with a steel beam spanning 45 feet. “With renovations on buildings like these,” says Berridge, “you never know what you’ve got until you start doing demolition. Once we started, none of us could figure out what was holding the building up, because there were no posts. It was quite something. That’s what allowed us to have this huge open space on the ground floor.” Bartlett didn’t want plugs that would protrude below where paintings hung, but the building code demands a certain amount per room, so the architect designed recessed ones that interrupted the plane of the wall as little as possible.

The approximately 1,800-square-foot studio is clad in redwood to match the ochre terrain.

A movable desk, sliding storage system for large canvases, and plenty of open space meet the artist's request for functionality. The sloped ceiling is made of Douglas fir.

On a scenic one-acre site in Inverness, California, Richardson Architects planted an artist studio in a hillside overlooking a coastal vista. The client, a painter who lives on the property, requested the addition be situated downhill from the main residence to provide a more secluded place to work.

An angled roof defers to the hill's incline. The windows are by Blomberg Window Systems.

Here Tim tinkers with works-in-progress in his studio space, situated across the courtyard from Nathalie’s.

A covered walkway provides a sheltered passage between the main house and studio. The fire pit is used during social gatherings.

Bartlett’s bedroom is in a ground-floor addition that was built onto the back of the building about 50 years ago. It is adjacent to her painting studio.

Screens can be used to alter the amount of daylight that streams into the studio.

The single skylight helps light the artists' workstation. The simple interior, really a shed with smooth concrete surfaces, provides a stark yet airy space for creative pursuits.

The bathroom tiles were a point of contention: Bartlett wanted Mexican tiles, while Berridge’s design favored a bare-bones, Donald Judd-like approach in keeping with the warehouse experience. The compromise was that he used industrial sinks and designed the stainless-steel hardware to be as utilitarian as possible, and commissioned a set of plain tiles with a strict color palette of five yellows, five blues and five whites, derived from Bartlett’s work. She then arranged them on one wall as she would one of her installations. That way, both upstairs and downstairs bathrooms have Jennifer Bartlett originals on the wall.

Finished this past fall, Camera Lucida lived up to Tonko's vision of a functional and earnest space for work and reflection. A staircase leads to a second level with additional workspace.

This project is Peterson Rich Office's first ground-up work, and was awarded the Jury Prize by the Architizer A+ Awards in the Gallery category.

This archetypal Swedish building form, shaped like a Monopoly house, serves as an artist’s studio, with a simple plywood interior and massive skylights to let in natural sunlight.

This 1,200-square-foot studio features a stained cedar exterior and an unusual roofline. "Bringing a hip roof into the massing brought down the scale of the overall structure while making the form more dynamic," architect Miriam Peterson says. "On the interior, the hip roof allowed us to create a tall space above the studio itself and make a more intimate space where the client has her desk and library."

Tonko positioned the "lens" of the building to look over the Rhine Valley below. The owners have considered hanging some of the bronze sculptures outside the window, to allow them to develop a natural patina over time.

The double-height artist studio showcases custom pieces by Dovetail, like a metal handrail and maple work tables, as well as Eames Aluminum Group chairs. The goal for the home, says Heliotrope principal Mike Mora, was to, “Create an interior space akin to an art gallery with white wall surfaces adequate to hang art."

The demolition of the upper floor, which had been carved up into many small rooms, revealed an expansive loft with an assortment of old skylights. Bartlett often works on a scale that demands the viewer stand 10 feet back to see it best. When each new piece is ready, it comes up here for the second part of her creative process, further work and viewing. The sofa is a custom plywood piece Bartlett designed for her last home.

The structure is located on a flood plain, so it is raised 30 inches from the ground by a floating deck. "This move had the added benefit of limiting exposure to ticks, which is a problem in Lyme," Peterson says.

Sophia and Henry relax in the open-plan living area of their tiny home with their dog Cora, a Labrador retriever and Siberian husky mix.

A sliding barn door accesses the bathroom, where the Jungbauers installed a compost toilet and low-flow fixtures for the sink and the shower.

Technically, this small building is not a tree house, since it’s braced at the ground by supports, but Grey didn’t want to compromise the tree, which “doesn’t have a very long lifespan,” the designer says. “So, I didn’t want to jeopardize however long that tree had with any excess baggage.”

Ryall Porter Sheridan Architects designed this artist's studio in Orient, New York, on the North Fork of Long Island, to conform to Passive House standards. It is a finalist in the office and special-use buildings category.

The sinuous interior is lined with CNC-cut wooden panels that define stepped sauna seating and porthole windows.

The sauna structure includes a small deck.

The structure is clad in weathered steel with an interior of concrete and untreated oak window frames. Tonko's design is meant to be what he describes as a "delicate workshop," an easy-to-clean, distraction-free space that allow for concentration and creativity.

A 25-foot custom bifold door made of corrugated plastic and twin-wall polycarbonate encloses an artist’s studio designed by Marc Frohn of FAR frohn&rojas.

The ribbon-like design affords the building three different gable profiles—one is symmetrical, while the other two lean in opposite directions.

Rose’s pottery studio opens right up to the back lawn to let the sunlight (or curious pups) inside.

A wood-burning stove from Harvia, of Finland, heats the sauna. The pavilion’s rough-cut pine walls are treated with tar, a preservative that yields a time-worn aesthetic.

Phillips designed Judith a stark white, glass-fronted art studio.