“In this house, the roof is the only facade—the rest is dissolved beneath it.” —Architect Aljoša Dekleva

According to Remijnse, since the only direction they could build on the small site was up, they decided to add height with a gabled roof.

Green roofs are aesthetically pleasing and have multiple positive environmental benefits, even if they are small in terms of square footage. Here, a green roof blooms atop the detached garage of a home.

In an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, a verdant green roof of native grasses, wildflowers, and fruits creates an oasis.

Using technology to design a home as energy-efficient as possible was a priority for Hague, both from a financial and philosophical standpoint. Along with Passive House certification for the main house, a solar array on the roof of the barn keeps energy use near zero. In fact, the entire property was Net Zero before the addition of the pool, and it may soon generate an energy surplus with the addition of a second solar array at the main house.

Edgeland House, built on a cliff-top lot in Austin by architect Thomas Bercy for lawyer and writer Chris Brown, is topped by a living roof to help it blend into the landscape. The concrete, steel, and glass house is divided into two distinct public and private halves.

A 1400-square-foot roof deck offers panoramic views, overlooking White Rock Lake with one of the highest elevations in the city.

The contrast between the barn’s original exterior structure and the new architectural elements is a large part of the finished studio’s charm. The aluminium roof peaks out of the existing façade, providing the traditional barn with an air of modernity.

Purple thistles, California poppies, clover, and dandelions have all taken root in the roughly 10-inch-deep, lightweight humus and grape-husk soil in this 580-square-foot green roof. Designer Peter Liang says that he "wanted to plant a green roof for its thermal mass, but I wanted it to be as natural as possible."

"In this project, we got so much benefit out of this 'secret garden' for the master suite along with all of these environmental benefits that the residents were excited to embrace. It's one of the pieces we are happiest about," says architect Jonathan Feldman.

Landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand helped fill out the completed prefab by planting sedge grass on one of the house’s two green roofs to reflect the texture of the surrounding meadow.

The house is oriented to maximize views of the ocean and Edgartown to the west, and Nantucket and Cape Pogue Bay to the east. Natural sea grasses sourced from the surrounding area cover the roof of the building, providing thermal insulation while also dampening the noise of rain, improving air quality, and helping to manage rainwater flow.

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 small box atop the home looks out onto a green roof, designed by local landscaping firm Toits Vertige.

A tract house with a butterfly roof designed in 1956 for Joe Dunas.

As you ascend towards the roof, the house becomes increasingly transparent.

One of the main goals of the construction was to do as little harm as possible to the existing environment, which includes waterways that salmon depend upon. Herrin and his team created a garden roof that covers the full extent of the home to meet this objective. “This helps control storm water runoff and also replaces lost insect habitat—insects being a critical food source for juvenile salmon,” he says.

In the original design, steel structural elements were meant to support a distinctive fabric roof but the material was not weather-resistant.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, food scraps and yard waste make up 20 percent of what we throw away. Composting organic materials keeps them out of the landfill, which cuts down on greenhouse gases, and enriches the soil. To compost at home, make a pile in your backyard, or introduce an indoor bin for throwaways like apple peels and eggshells.

The roof deck is a place for entertaining, and offers scenic hillside views. During the design process, the team was challenged with preserving these views while adhering to the required 3.5-foot railing height mandated by building code, a height that would block all views while seated. As a solution, the team came up with open metal railings that would maintain safety while preserving the view.

The roofs of each of the three sections of the home are constructed of zinc and are insulated for added protection.

The architects discreetly sunk a pool into the roof terrace of the old corral. In order to shade part of the terrace, the architects designed a freestanding sun shelter. So as not to damage the outer walls of the old building, a galvanized-steel frame is secured to the terrace floor. A bamboo-reed covering projects a soft, filtered light onto the outdoor living area below.

The winglike dips in the roofline situate and hold the house against the region’s brutal winds. As the outdoor chairs attest, lifestyles here pass easily between inside and out; a long hike and a good swim are always just steps away

“We have all these different destinations,” says Sardinas, a writer who works from her home office. “I’ll be working, get stuck on a passage, and take a break to go read outside.” On the lower roof, red Vegetal chairs by Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec for Vitra provide moments for repose.

Waechter Architecture reimagined a traditional gabled home in southeast Portland without significantly altering the original building. A simple coat of red paint abstracts the century-old structure, creating a residential work of art.

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.

House O, designed by Jun Igarashi, forgoes hallways and interior doors in favor of casually interconnected rooms.

Marcus Lee and Rachel Hart’s wonderful wooden home sits at the end of a quiet London lane and politely turns its back on the workshops next door.

Corporate high-flyers and admitted neat freaks Bruce Thatcher and Kirsty Leighton couldn’t handle the chaos anymore. Read more about this Victorian terrace in London here.

The 925-square-foot house Maggie Treanor calls home blends into the landscape somewhat; with a galvanized steel shed roof and siding, it looks like a high-design little brother to the barns on the surrounding farms.

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, author Chris Brown and his dog Katsu head to the river; the path was once a dumping ground on top of a long-defunct underground oil pipeline. The green roof was conceptualized by John Hart Asher of the Ecosystem Design Group at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin.

At the entry looking upward towards a Velux skylight, a vertical "sleeve" is made of stacked end grain plywood. The theme of vertical and horizontal architectural elements providing different environmental perspectives carries through to the rest of the home. Horizontal forms look out to the lake, while the vertical columns look up the sky.

“There’s a presence to that place—it’s vast, and constantly shifting,” Moffitt says. “It was clear that this house should be an observation shed for the changing landscape beyond.”

Seen in the architectural context of its London neighborhood, the house is all the more extraordinary: compact, materially innovative, and easy on the eyes.

Previously, the house had just a small screened-in porch as its only outside space, “unless you wanted to put plastic chairs on the front lawn, which some people did,” Braver says, laughing. A generous roof deck atop the garage was a winning way to allow a survey of the neighborhood during Massachusetts’ Indian summers.

Some 35 percent of the materials from the renovation were resurrected in the yard: Redwood panels became fencing. Blocks cut from original concrete patios form the snake wall. And Purdy plans to crochet colorful cozies over various branches and stumps.