Architect Christopher C. Deam, Dwell founder Lara Deam's husband, designed Airstream's newest travel trailer, the International Sterling.

Texas. The Cricket Trailer, made in Houston, can sleep up to two adults and two children. With integrated fresh water and greywater tanks along with a water heater, campers can live off-the-grid in the easily towable unit.

Night settles in around the wanderers sheltered in El Cosmico's teepees and trailers. As El Cosmico shows, understanding a small space involves understanding the infinitude of the world beyond them.

With the residents awake inside, this trailer's burnished glow reflects the sunset.

Schmidt selected Oeuf’s Robin crib for Finn’s soon-to-be sibling. The bird mobile is by Tamar Mogendorff.

The Leaf House is a lightweight, mobile trailer that was carefully engineered to weigh less than 5,000 pounds. The designer, Laird Herbert, used a metal-mesh, open-joint rainscreen as the cladding on the front end, and spruce pine at the back.

A sky-blue vintage trailer blends in with the sky.

"I like the more boxy, modern look," Herbert says, "and I think it fits the small space better. You have more space in a box. As soon as you put a peak on a roof, you lose a lot of that usable space."

By reducing the bedroom to its essentials and filling it with windows, the El Cosmico staff has made this small space as expansive as the desert beyond.

A super-insulated envelope and a heat-recovery ventilator help keep the Leaf House comfortably warm, even in the brutally cold Canadian winters.

The structure is super-insulated, making use of quad-paned windows and vacuum-insulated panels.

Here's the custom-built galley kitchen and bar. They installed new mahogany laminate to match the original furniture. Brandes designed the ceiling lights, and Area 63 fabricated and installed them.

“When we first set out on this crazy adventure, we always pictured parking Woody in a place like this,” Brian says. “We honestly couldn’t have imagined it would be this spectacular.”

With a built-in sofa and sleeping loft, ATLAS can accommodate three adult travelers.

Howard and Shumate in the living room, where Commune designer Steven Johanknecht introduced custom built-in daybeds with storage beneath. The carpet-fragment pillows are from Commune, as is the table, designed by Joshua Tree–based sculptor Alma Allen. The poster is by Mike Mills.

When planning regulations limited what could be built in an English forest, PAD Studio devised a prefab structure that can be moved by crane. “The whole building is based around a steel frame, which provides us with the stability to be able to top-lift it easily,” explains designer Ricky Evans.

Brian and Joni Buzarde’s self-designed home sits on a customized chassis by PJ Trailers that’s just eight and a half feet wide. The 236-square-foot trailer is clad in cedar.

Suzanne and Brooks Kelley at the back of their 1,100-square-foot guest cottage.

In 1962, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill architect Arthur Witthoefft won the AIA's highest honor for a home he built in the lush woods of Westchester County. Having fended off a developer's wrecking ball, Todd Goddard and Andrew Mandolene went above and beyond to make this manse mint again.

With expansive EcoHaus Internorm windows, the space feels larger than its 1,400 square feet.

The kitchen cabinetry echoes the new blue ceiling. The brick tile is from Heath Ceramics, as is the dinnerware. Behind the Viking stove is powder-coated corrugated metal (“Very trailer,” says the designer). The refrigerator is from Big Chill. On the table is a bowl by Victoria Morris.

In the DoghousePaul and Shoko's dog, Mei, has lucked into a small prefab home of her own. Making use of a water jet cutter at his office, and using Adobe Illustrator as his design tool, Paul fashioned a series of panels that slot together without any nails or screws.

More fragment pillows adorn the bed, which is covered in a reversible bedspread by artist Jane Kifer. To the left of the window is a painting by Shumate.

Milgard sliding doors were added with the future in mind. “We really wanted it to feel big since we planned to live in it full-time,” Brian says.

Inside the renovated Airstream, a woman prepares a meal. The skylight above the cook top lets fumes escape the small space. Photo by Sadamu Saito.

With a last-minute deadline, architect Burton Baldridge transformed a decaying trailer into a modern green home for Stubb's, an Austin, Texas club. Baldridge teamed up with Branson Fustes of Pilgrim Building Company to work on the interiors and building custom furniture, such as a bar on one end.

With a last minute deadline, architect Burton Baldridge transformed a decaying trailer into a modern green home for Stubb's, an Austin, Texas club. Baldridge teamed up with Branson Fustes of Pilgrim Building Company to work on the interiors and building custom furniture, such as a bar on one end.

Unpacking the deck and awning reveals a glass wall that opens the trailer to its environment, wherever that may be. The ATLAS can be hitched to a truck to travel easily from campsite to campsite.

A 55-inch Samsung Smart TV, a gift, is one of few indulgences.

+Farm is based in upstate New York, where land can be cheap but new housing prohibitively expensive: when a resident breaks ground on a waterfront site, their taxes can dramatically increase. What if new housing didn't need to technically break ground? "Our thought," says +Farm Director William Haskas, was "let's discuss ideas for a new type of dwelling....one that could potential help the people that actually live in the area."

Just because your kitchen is on the smaller side doesn’t mean you can’t make it as efficient and effective as possible.

Their creative confections may ruin our diets, but we’re happy to be their taste testers anytime.

The Kelleys furnished the cottage with help from Suzanne’s daughter Betsy Burbank of Betsy Burbank Interiors. Classic modernist icons, such as a Saarinen Womb chair for Knoll, a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair, and an Eileen Grey E1027 side table look at home alongside present-day pieces such as an Encore sofa (which handily folds down into a sleeping surface) from Room & Board and a Doka rug designed and produced by Stephanie Odegard. The Wohlert pendant lights from Louis Poulsen were designed by Vilhelm Wohlert in 1959, but grouped as such, they appear distinctly contemporary.

“The client wanted an interior space where you could read the materiality of the building elements like understanding the ingredients in a recipe,” principal architect Elizabeth Webster explains. The extension features distinctly textured materials: an exposed timber ceiling, painted brick walls, and polished concrete floors. Warm lighting by Brinklicht unifies the space.

A double bowl sink is also quite self-explanatory, created either out of one large sink with a divider or from two distinct bowls framed into a single sink.

This dreamy, glass bedroom by the lake was created as an early prototype for the prefabricated greenhouse/she kits known as the Kekkilä Green Sheds.