Architect Charlie Lazor opted for a wash of black on the prefab cabin he designed on Madeline Island, Wisconsin.

Moreland House

The renovation, which focused on the living-dining-kitchen area, strikes a balance between intimate and inviting, hence the project's name, the Open/Private apartment.

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.

The apartment's entryway features a hidden storage wall and media console.

The new volume houses the dining area, which includes stairs to the bedrooms. The table is from Blake Avenue and the walnut chairs are from Room & Board. “You don’t want bright colors to take away from that relationship between the interior and the exterior,” Walker says.

Open Embrace by Keith Greenwald and Lisa Ekle The living quarters, set on clay brick piers, embraces the cyclical nature of the local climate, protecting against floods while opening up space to socialize in the dry season. The corrugated zinc roof, indented slightly to let in natural sunlight and the occasional breeze, not only reduces heat gain, but captures rainwater in cisterns. Photo provided by Building Trust International

Open Embrace by Keith Greenwald and Lisa Ekle “The materials of the house are familiar and largely produced locally, stimulating economies and connecting communities,” says Greenwald. Photo provided by Building Trust International

The living room and dining room were originally separated by a central fireplace, which interior designer Nicole Hollis removed to create this great room. She installed a modern, custom eight-foot-long open gas fireplace in the living room, equipped with sensors that automatically turn it off when someone gets too near to the flames.

The house’s street-level entrance shows an openness to its surroundings, and a glass door allows curious passersby a glimpse of the interior.

A double-height space encompasses the kitchen, dining and living area, and features 36-feet-wide glass doors that pocket into southern and northern walls.

The kitchen opens to the elements thanks to sliding doors from C.R. Laurence. The anigre in the kitchen is the same employed in the master bedroom.

The house captures meadow views, thanks to three large sliding doors by Loewen that lead out to a big deck. “We wanted to hide the view from visitors until you get inside, so it would feel like a surprise when walking in,” Bronee says. “This also gives us the sense of being tucked in and cozy in the winter with a view of the meadow, and in the summer it feels like indoors and outdoors are connected. We live just as much on the deck as we do inside.”

In the sleek kitchen, the white Ikea cabinet uppers seem to disappear into the wall, while the bases get a distinctive custom walnut wrapping. Flanking the cabinets are open bookshelves, which provide secondary function as a spacial divider for the children’s play area. A Dornbracht faucet sits on a slab of Vermont Olympian White Danby marble, which is also used for the island and backsplash.

The Aiyyers’ midcentury furniture collection adds personality and color to the open-plan interior. A sofa by Kofod-Larsen for Selig, chairs by Viko Baumritter, shelving by Regner Christensen, and a coffee table by a local craftsmen accentuate the living room, while a dining table and chairs by Calligaris, custom cabinetry with pulls by Mockett, and an overhead Bel Occhio light from Pablo Designs complete the kitchen. Leigh’s harp, from Lyon & Healy, sits nearby.

The elevated dining room opens out to a side patio, which climbs the wall just behind the house.

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.

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

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.

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

Two smaller, adjacent structures house autonomous bedrooms, each equipped with a full bathroom.

The neutral color palette extends to the kitchen, which is overhung by several pendant globes.

The main bathroom is only partially separated from the sleeping area by a glass partition. The absence of opaque walls creates a feeling of openness and cohesion in the bright mezzanine space.

Soheil steps into the music and screening room, which is concealed behind a masonry-veneered door. “We were able to hide a lot of the square footage below the main level, but not in a way that would hurt the design,” he says.

A view of the stretching Carrara marble countertop.

An installation by Willem Cole hangs in the gallery, which leads to an open stairway to the office and private bedrooms upstairs.

Designed by Jagoda, the door swings open to fit in front of a bookshelf.

The resident, a Tokyo transplant, commissioned architect Tadashi Murai to create a fully-equipped structure that comes with its own power, heating and cooling, water, and waste-disposal systems.

Joaquin Altamirano and Silvia Martín worked with Daniel Bergman Vázquez of Estudio Untercio to create an open-plan oasis in an apartment building in central Madrid. Estudio Untercio designed the medium-density fiberboard cupboards, which are coated with lacquer paint matching the ceramic-porcelain countertops. The tubular hood above the island is by Teka.

“There is a lot of glass so you can enjoy the view and the outdoor lifestyle even inside,” Henrik explains. “You live in the middle of the weather somehow. It’s a really harsh environment, as you have these southwesterly winds blowing through the house. But it is really beautiful as well.”

All of the glazing along the house’s 95-foot-long western elevation can be opened to the out of doors.

“My brother and I were searching for a place of our own that we could rent to people visiting Berlin,” says co-owner Chris Laugsch. “We found the boat by accident in a Berlin marina. After a few minutes on the boat, we knew we found the place.” The kitchen countertop and floor are both Pandomo, a poured concrete surface. The ceiling is a stained pine. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows cover two of the largest walls on the boat.