The Whole Home Energy Boost Box.

The Garden Water Boost Box.

The Whole Bathroom Boost Box.

The wooden box is as functional as it is finely crafted, with room for clothes up top. Each niche holds treasures from travels, family keepsakes, books, and more.

A Kite wall sconce by Foscarini and mirrors from Gedy by Nameeks are installed above a polished chrome faucet from Kohler’s Purist collection.

Made of stainless steel and TEKA hardwood, a Curzon dining table by Modloft is surrounded by a quartet of Victoria Ghost dining chairs by Philippe Starck for Kartell. A striped Missy pendant light by Filipe Lisboa hangs overhead. Four Chill White media consoles from CB2 line the western wall.

This bathroom, tiled in bright blue mosaic to offset the home’s limited materials and color palette, calls for a simple vanity. The sinks, toilets, and tubs are by Villeroy & Boch, while the faucets and towel rails are by Grohe and Avenir, respectively.

The bathroom includes a walk-in tub.

Sævik designed the wood tub in the bathroom, which features an adjacent sauna. The Inxx A5 faucet is by Mora.

“A critical aspect of the project was the incorporation of natural light and ventilation within a broad footprint,” Simpson says. Conventionally private areas, like bedrooms and bathrooms, are therefore reinterpreted with more openness in mind. For instance, this bathroom’s skylights mirror those found throughout the rest of the property. The bathtub, basins, and showerhead were all purchased at the Australian retailer Reece.

Clothing can play a vital part in post-disaster comfort and survival. Be prepared with lightweight, versatile items that are appropriate for the highs and lows of your region—bonus points for bright colors like neon yellow or orange that might help emergency workers spot you. Make sure you have clean underwear, layers (including a light jacket), and a hat that would protect you from the sun. Extra blankets, shoes, boots, socks, and bug spray might be necessary depending on where you live.

HotBox: Michaela MacLeod and Nicholas Croft (Toronto) A mysterious monolith on the landscape, this warming hut, a cubic room wrapped in rubber and egg shell crate foam, provides a space for socialization.

When the Casali family gave Michael Krus and Prishram Jain of TACT Architecture free rein to work with unconventional materials, the architects responded by creating a geometric 4,300-square-foot smart home encased in aluminum panels by Agway Metals. The front facade features Cor-Ten steel fabricated by Praxy Cladding.

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.

The ultimate luxury: a hot bath in the clawfoot tub, with the fiberglass door open wide to the woods.

White tiles envelop the en suite master bathroom.

The subway tile-lined bathroom was kept as simple as possible, with Hansgrohe fixtures and cabinets made of vertical-grain Douglas fir above a top-mounted Duravit sink. Since installing a window was unfeasible given the bathroom's proximity to other properties, Storey added a skylight over the shower.

In modern bathroom vanities, timber can be used a number of different ways. It’s at its most basic in this simplistic modern bathroom, tied together neatly with matching shelving in the cut-out above.

The minimalist bathroom boasts Cararra marble surfaces, Hansgrohe faucets and shower fixtures, and a skylight by Velux.

The upstairs showers are particularly ingenious: Operable skylights loom above, and perforated, galvanized-steel platforms open up to spacious, sunken bathtubs.

Benjamin Moore’s “Mountain Peak White” coats the western red cedar walls in the master bathroom, which is detailed with the same Carrara marble countertop seen in the kitchen. Waterworks tile covers the floor, and an Agape tub stands across from a vanity light fixture custom-made by the firm’s interior designer, Erin Martin.

itHouse, view from court to bathroom.

The bedroom opens directly into the master bathroom to complete the open feel.

The bathroom features Chromtech tile, a Toto toilet, Kohler vanity, and powder-coated steel countertop.

Part of the master suite, the bright bathroom embraces texture and pattern. The space clad in bold, graphic tile and features a custom steel vanity.

The Salvatori marble tiles in the bathroom were added at the last minute, once everyone was confident that they would not put the project over budget.

Opposite the inner courtyard and master bedroom, the bathroom enjoys a view of the lush garden space. Polished concrete floors and walls, and white Carrara counters offer cohesion with the rest of the home. American Standard plumbing fixtures and reclaimed midcentury pendant lamps round out the space.

In the bathroom, Roca wall tile in Rainbow Azul continues the citrus color scheme, and the floor is clad in ceramic plank. The Ikea sinks and faucets also helped the design come in on budget.

Dual, white square-shaped sinks make the perfect modern bathroom vanities for granite countertops, like the contrasting black one seen here.

Architect Joaquin Castillo blends inexpensive materials, the odd splurge, and a refined modernist sensibility to create an affordable weekend house for brothers Alfredo and Guillermo Oropeza. The facade is a juxtaposition of rough-hewn local stone, smooth concrete, glass, and steel—the material palette used throughout the structure.

The entire room is surfaced in white mosaics from Hisbalit; the bath fixtures are brass and sourced from a local Czech retailer.

Though most of the home's interior comes without a splashy designer's name attached, the bathroom is kitted out with a toilet, sink, and bath/shower from Jasper Morrison's line for Ideal Standard. The cabinets are from an Ikea kitchen system.

A modular shelf system by Alu provides a more sculptural take on the classic bathroom vanity in this Toronto home.

A large skylight looms above a Duravit tub and a Runtal Radia towel warmer in the en suite bathroom.

Light Box Peter created a simple uplight at the top of the wood box by wiring together energy-efficient fluorescent fixtures typically used under cabinets and countertops. “The cheaper magnetic models hum unacceptably loudly, so make sure you get the electronic ballast types,” he warns. He then painted the cavity white to reflect light and covered them with quarter-inch-thick acrylic from TAP Plastics. homedepot.com tapplastics.com