The backyard sports a sequence of raised flower and vegetable beds and two green roofs—one atop the workshop and other atop the back entrance.

Skylights draw sunshine into the apartment.

The renovation revealed a 30-foot-deep well beneath the bedroom, which the team half-jokingly considered turning into a fish tank. Instead, they opted for a simple bedroom with plenty of built-in storage.

Shibata made the 10-person dining table using $130 sawhorse legs from Maruki Wood Products Company topped with a sheet of birch plywood. A hole in the sliding wall fits over the table, enabling it to be used in both the library and the meeting room. malki.jp A movable wall clad in wainscoting on one side slides along tracks in the dining-room ceiling, dividing the room into a meeting space and a library. The Shiro Simple Modern Pendant lights can be easily removed and reattached after moving the wall. vanilladesign.jp

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

A Coral pendant lamp by David Trubridge hangs in the dining area.

In the master bedroom, a small, cramped closet was replaced with a wardrobe that is partially obscured by a slatted wooden screen that was built by Metalworks & Design Studio of Seattle. "The idea was you see through it, so in a sense it doesn't feel like a small space," Smith says.

To update the kitchen for this apartment in the Leather District, Chris Greenawalt of Bunker Workshop and contractor Michel Beaudry created a clean-lined space. The space is designed to accommodate the client's busy schedule, which affords him little time for cooking.

During the renovation, Grimley and Smith added built-in storage to keep clutter in check.

An alcove above the kitchen discreetly houses a sleeping space for guests.

The Laccio side table in the bedroom is by Marcel Breuer for Knoll.

The kitchen is equipped with a custom Statuario marble countertop, shelf, and sink.

A handwoven silk ikat print, which Molineus acquired in Uzbekistan, is draped between the kitchen entrances. A Sapiens bookshelf by Bruno Rainaldi stands at far right.

The office, which is also Lily’s room, features a Babyletto crib and a Smileywalls wall decal applied atop Normandy paint from Benjamin Moore.

Inside Out Architecture renovated an apartment in the Clerkenwell section of central London, removing interior walls to create an open, loft-like living space. The architects were taken in by the "dramatic geometry" of the existing board-formed concrete ceiling, and their design maintained and emphasized its dynamic criss-crosses and texture.

An older building doesn't mean that it can't also be modern, particularly in the kitchen.

Home Renovation Tip: Decide on a Sensible Scope of Work

Owner-architect Lyle Bradley moved the stairs in his home against a party wall, and a new skylight above the staircase now bathes both floors in natural light. In the living room, the stair's lower step reaches out to form an arm, while the ascending stairs create a natural incline for cushions.

The apartment occupies the top floor of a converted Georgian house.

An added benefit of installing the skylights was adding headroom over the day beds, Smith says.

The couple’s white Bulthaup kitchen is set within a double-height volume hung with Tom Dixon Beat lights, arranged in a custom configuration by interior designer Maria Rosa Di Ioia. Overhead, Cubit shelving artfully displays books and objects, accessible by a glass-walled footbridge added during the renovation.

Lyle Bradley spent years of weekends and evenings resurrecting an East Boston structure using his carpentry skills, repurposed materials, and clever space-saving interventions. The revitalized 800-square-foot residence joins a rejuvenated backyard, where Bradley’s wife, Kara Lashley, and their daughter, Lily, pose next to Bradley’s new freestanding workshop.

The renovation was designed to preserve and call attention to the angular pattern of the crisscrossing concrete ceiling beams. Photo by Jim Stephenson.

Architects who practice in dense cities know its almost impossible to add square footage to an apartment. Yet at a garden-level residence in Boston's historic Beacon Hill neighborhood, Chris Greenawalt of Bunker Workshop was able to unearth 70 square feet of living space through a little excavation.

The home’s interior design, featured in Vogue and widely celebrated, was an unusual foray into residential surrealism by Le Corbusier and his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret.

In the kitchen, the custom cabinets contain special compartments that hide appliances from sight. The room draws in natural light from the balcony.

Molineus designed all of the storage units in the apartment, including the lacquered medium-density fiberboard cabinets under the kitchen sink, which is outfitted with a Vola faucet.

In the master bathroom, the Smiths worked with a Boston-based company, Artaic, on the mosaic tile.

Above the 606 Universal shelving by Dieter Rams for Vitsœ, Molineus displays a Central Asian ikat wedding garment that dates to around 1900. The Gaku floor lamp at left is by Dagmar Mombach and Ingo Maurer.

The custom shoe cabinets at the top of the stairs double as a balustrade.

The New Project Group renovated a cramped, uninviting space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The company gave the 400-square-foot apartment a gut renovation, with a new kitchen and bathroom designed for efficiency. A parallelogram-shaped window pane, rescued from an architectural salvage yard, was outfitted with steel edges and casters, and repurposed as a coffee table.

The historic apartment has been updated throughout with white paint and minimalist accents, adapting its rustic character to the 21st-century.

Johanna Molineus’s peripatetic childhood is reflected in the Chinese and Central Asian textiles and objects found throughout her small London apartment, including a square-patterned horse blanket.

“The upper floor includes the entry, cloakroom, guest bathroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, and terrace,” Hammer says. “In contrast to the lower floor and its separated rooms, the living area is composed as an open space with no walls.” Nerd Chairs by David Geckeler for Muuto surround a handcrafted nutwood table in the dining room.

Abbes and Davison removed drywall to expose the brick on one wall in the living room. "As we began to expose that brick, we found the old metal framing that they used to use," Daivson says. "They used to stick chicken-mesh wire on it and put plaster on top. When we exposed the brick, we found this metal detail and decided to keep it." Photo by Alan Gastelum.

"In the kitchen, we changed the layout," Davison says. "It was a galley kitchen, extending lengthways into the room. We spun it back along the back wall. The tiles are Moroccan concrete tiles that came from a supplier here in Manhattan. The idea was to inject some color and playfulness into the space with the blue cabinetry." Photo by Alan Gastelum.