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

The owners toured this home, which surrounds a mature tipu tipu tree, while visiting relatives for the day. The brick is original to the 1947 construction.

“A building can have far greater impact than the space it stands in.”—William Carpenter, architect and resident

Sliding doors by Quantum were made to look like the original panes that couldn't be saved, and they lead to a fire pit outside.

New zoning allowed for a zero-lot-line structure, but required a public storefront, which Carpenter uses as an art gallery.

See Arch restored the exterior fireplace wall and painted it a deep blue hue to match the repainted blue timber cladding.

The bath’s Kohler Purist fixtures and Frederick Weinberg animal figures sit on a Corian countertop

The Airstream Haus’s interior is minimalist, but comfortable, boasting a fully functional kitchen and queen-size bed that doubles as a couch.

The Airstream Haus, parked in Ojai, California. August says that when your dwelling is small, it’s important to make the most of outdoor space.

“I really believe buildings are part of a city as an organism.”—William Carpenter, architect and resident

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.

Architect Christi Azevedo, along with homeowners Lorena Siminovich and Esteban Kerner, transformed this 1,485-square-foot, multilevel, mid-century maze into a modern and efficient family home in just three months. “It was the craziest frickin’ thing,” laughs Azevedo. “It was like a Tetris game, putting it all together, trying to squeak out space wherever we could.” Purchased as if straight out of 1955, the home is now the ideal small space for Siminovich and Kerner to raise their young daughter, Matilda.

The house maximizes vistas of the region's natural terrain.

Pleased with the pop-up they designed last summer, Frame approached i29 again this fall to construct a more long-term installation: a shop meant to evoke a 3-D walk through of an issue of their magazine.

Dump Truck by Green Toys, $20.

Fashion-tech designer Anouk Wipprecht’s white Spider Dress 2.0 was developed with Philip Wilck along the lines of a previous dress she made inspired by arachnids. The 3D-printed robotic garment with eight jointed arms (activated by sensors and Intel Edison chips with artificial bio-signal intelligence) protects the wearer. Depending on the wearer's mood—agitated or pleased—the arms of the dress spring upward to ward off intrusions.

Part of the PIXEL series, the Ripple 2.0 Coffee Table, shown in walnut with powder coated steel pulls, takes the same inspiration of the movement created by a ripple of water and brings it to a different, slightly darker, place by using a different kind of wood and pixelating the motif further.

Black and white kitchen tiles add visual interest to this stunning modern kitchen by IKEA.

Neutra's Kaufmann home was initially designed for living just two months out of the year. Yet after the original owner passed, future tenants attempted to retrofit the space for year-long use. An air conditioning unit was placed atop the roof, and square footage was added, enclosing this courtyard. To return it to its original state, the current owner underwent a five-year restoration and reopened this courtyard to honor the original design. Photo: Tim Street-Porter

The first step was to tear out the existing wall-to-wall carpeting and replace it with cabin-grade, oak flooring to give the house a classic feel and to help anchor the more modern walls and trim. They ordered the flooring from a large company and despite it being the cheapest option offered, the total expense came to $2,300 for materials, making the wood floors—according to Anderson—their biggest splurge.

The apartment is accessed via an old freight elevator. The cabinetry around the elevator entrance—including a massive bookshelf and storage space—is black, contrasting with the white brick walls and the white oak joinery.

The dining room and upstairs view from the courtyard.

The glassy pavilion containing kitchen, dining, and living areas is elevated three feet off the ground on posts so it appears to hover among the dunes.

A small, single-story addition to the row house adds a playroom without eating up too much outdoor space. A green roof also helps makes up for lost garden beds, while creating attractive, leafy views from the second and third floors. In summer, when the sliding doors are left wide open, indoor and outdoor spaces blend together.

A Simple Plan A Marmol Radziner–designed prefab house, trucked onto a remote Northern California site, takes the pain out of the construction process.

"It only cost about $48,000 to build, which was incredibly cheap," says Turner of the Stealth Barn. "We got the Timber Frame Company to supply the shell, then we clad it and fitted out the interior and windows ourselves. The idea was to take the archetypal black tar-painted agricultural building and make an almost childlike icon of that."

The project’s unique challenges—a tight budget and steep, difficult terrain—led architecture firm _naturehumaine to a creative solution that gave the house its delightfully sculptural appearance. Making the first floor’s envelope slightly narrower than the top one’s saved money while minimizing the amount of excavation required.

The Floating Farmhouse’s semitransparent addition has a roofline that matches the pitch of the original 1820s farmhouse. A porch, tucked under the side eaves, is cantilevered over a stream that runs through the property. Ikea loungers are illuminated from the interior by commercial gymnasium lights repurposed as pendant lamps.

Raising the bed above floor level, architect Kyu Sung Woo converted this tiny studio into an open and comfortable home for Wonbo Woo. Photos by: Adam Friedberg

In the shadow of Denali mountain, amid Alaska’s meadows and icy streams, a former teacher and a four-time Iditarod winner calls upon Mayer Sattler-Smith to design a modernist cabin as expansive as the Last Frontier.

The floor tile is from Virginia Tile, while the wall tile is from Daltile.

See Arch replaced many of the original single-pane wood windows with new thermally broken aluminum windows. They also painted the exterior.