The stairs are partically hidden behind a slatted ash screen that supports steel bookshelves.

Positioned on the ground floor, the office enjoys spacial privacy, while still having intimate interaction with the living area above and common courtyard.

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.

Consisting of two barnlike volumes set atop a stone foundation, the Depot House by Gray Organschi Architecture offers a locally rooted vision of New England modernism.

The Shingle House near Romney Marsh: Among an artist’s enclave on the beach, NORD’s simple structure reflects the moody landscape around it.

The Balancing Barn in Suffolk: On the edge of a nature reserve a few miles from the Suffolk coast, the MVRDV-designed Balancing Barn cantilevers over the surrounding meadow.

Photo by Patrick Barta

This 3,200-square-foot structure was assembled with a prefabricated foundation, concrete panel siding, and efficient built-ins, minimizing construction debris and toxins—such as concrete foundation tar—on the site.

New interior finishes, furniture, and a guesthouse were part of the restoration/renovation of John Lautner's Chemosphere, a 1960s house that makes frequent cameos in film and television.

The Li Yuan Library’s coffered walls provide a built-in storage solutions for all those books. Li Xiaodong, Li Yuan Library, Jiaojiehe Village, Huirou, Beijing, China. Photo by Li Xiaodong Atelier.

At their A. Quincy Jones house in Los Angeles, architects Cory Buckner and Nick Roberts used permeable pavers to help the soil retain moisture.

Home Renovation Tip: Get an Understanding of What’s Already Around

Many tiny home dwellers develop eco-friendly habits when they downsize—like adopting a capsule wardrobe, carpooling more, and harvesting rainwater.

The clients insisted that none of the trees on the property be disturbed, so Kevin Alter and his team at Alterstudio Architecture built a deck and an overhang around two of them.

Emilio Fuscaldo sits in the garden outside the brick house that he designed for himself and his partner, Anna Krien, on a small subdivided lot in Coburg, a suburb north of Melbourne, Australia. Photo by Nic Granleese.

Another view of the deck.

Architect Gregory Phillips connected the original house to a new modern extension that doesn’t interfere with the surrounding houses. “I try to be true to the location,”he explains, “so it doesn’t seem like some spaceship has landed.”

“The house is a piece of origami made out of triangular shapes, which we then draped over the landscape,” says Arbel.

A backyard garden with an outdoor grilling station.

Alterstudio Architecture of Austin designed this house in the Texas capital for a young family of four.

Located in Aarhus, Denmark, Villa R is a minimalist, serene structure clad in zinc panels. "The objective was to create a house that brings the forest inside through large glass panels—and create an ever-changing seasonal backdrop for the interior living spaces," stated the architecture firm, C.F. Møller, of the 3,200-square-foot abode.

Karen White, David MacNaughtan, and their sons, Griffin and Finlay, hang out on the front deckof their narrow home in Toronto’s leafy Roncesvalles neighborhood. A narrow modernist composition of glass panes and purple brick, the house slips like a bookmark between two older buildings, a bright three-story abode on a lot narrower than most suburban driveways. Photo by Dean Kaufman. Read more about the small house here.

Large clerestory windows face the street at the Higashibatas’ house in Tokyo, optimizing both privacy and natural light within.

Situated between two forest, the 23.2 House by Omer Arbel offers a buffer between the distinct woodlands. White Rock, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Photo by Omer Arbel Office.

Simultaneously rustic and space-age the Elqui Domos Astronomical Hotel would be an ideal environment for a night under the stars. Rodrigo Duque Motta. Pisco Elqui. Chile. Photo by Rodrigo Duque Motta.

Mike Kurokawa and Paul Fishman set out for the beach from their house in the Puna region of Hawaii. A bridge leads from street level to the upper floor of the house, which is situated in a natural depression, or kipuka.

The combination of raw materials and a vertically oriented open floor plan make Hiroyuki Shinozaki’s House T one-of-a-kind. Tokyo, Japan. Photo by Hiroyasu Sakaguchi © A to Z.

WMR Arquitectos didn’t just build with wood – they incorporated trees on the grounds of the Surazo Hotel into the design. Matanzas, Chile. Photo by Sergio Pirrone.

At over 500 square feet, the house’s green roof may be its most powerful—and most expensive—environmental statement. It cost $8,000 to waterproof, and $7,000 to landscape. Water from the roof feeds the toilet and the garden’s watering system, and the garden itself insulates the house and keeps gas bills low in winter. Photo by Nic Granleese.