Architect Tamira Sawatzky used Ikea components—one-inch Lagan butcher block countertops and inexpensive Ekby Lerberg brackets—when designing the bookshelves along the living room wall in the home/studio he designed for himself and his wife in Toronto.

30E Design transformed a hallway in a Boston brownstone from a “dumping ground for all the plumbing and utilities with an existing metal ductwork laundry chute” into a modern space that houses the laundry, furnace, and boiler.

Windows in the laundry room offer a glimpse of the garden.

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.

A glass slider and a stackable LG washer and dryer maximize space in the laundry area, which includes a small utility closet.

When building such a modest structure in a large landscape, designer and client often had to defend their vision to their collaborators. “We knew this house was going to be for Maggie and she would live there alone,” designer Lauren Moffitt says. “But people are always projecting for future resale. Putting in the smallest size of anything—to any subcontractor, it’s just not reasonable.”

The kids room is outfitted with built-in bunk beds.

The upper two levels of the home are set back from the street, increasing privacy and allowing light to flow uninhibited from the front clerestory window into the communal living spaces. On the top floor, the children's bedrooms are strategically veiled from the street by the slatted reflector screen.

Halfway through a pregnancy isn’t exactly the ideal time to buy a house. So after spending months scouting San Francisco’s Victorians and turnkey cookie-cutters—and almost defecting to the East Bay—Lorena Siminovich and Esteban Kerner decided to put the hunt on hold until after their baby was born. But then one afternoon Kerner, a design director with Old Navy, logged on to Craigslist on a whim. He saw a below-market listing for a single-family home in Noe Valley, their neighborhood of choice. With crumbly brick cladding, peeling rust-brown paint, and rotting garage doors, the house lacked curb appeal. But the Argentine couple was drawn to the interior. "It was amazing and strange at the same time," says Kerner of the 1,485-square-foot, multilevel, midcentury maze. "Mind-boggling," adds Siminovich. "It was just a knot of doors and a series of insane stairs to nowhere."

A small space for laundry.

The bedroom and bath share a glass wall.

Builder Ross Percival helped finesse the finely tuned detailing that separates the internal slope from the rock outside (opposite). The Pedro wire stool is by Craig Bond for Candywhistle.

The concrete wall mimics the slope of the hill outside as a reference to early Maori structures that were dug into the land. The simple kitchen has strandboard cabinetry and an MDF island that conceals a fireplace at one end. The ceramic works on the built-in seat at right are by Raewyn Atkinson and Robyn Lewis.

Rodriguez, a designer and architect who runs the studio Agi Miagi, created the pendant lamp and terrariums in the dining area. The space is open to the living area, where Brown’s son, Hugo, sits on a Living Divani sofa. The countertop-table is by Bercy Chen Studio.

The family sits around, and under in the case of four-year-old Kaz’ma, the sunken table for a snack. Makiko made the covers of the mats her mother sent from Japan by hand. The black lamp is from Ikea.

The dining table, made from a single piece of teak, is a little over 13 feet long and was custom made for the space. It can seat up to 24.

Interior designer Anne Sophie Goneau gave an apartment in a former factory a bright makeover. The minimal gas fireplace is from Ortal, acting as a focal point in the room, complete with integrated shelving.

Amazin Apartments is a minimal concept created by London-based design company Future Facility. According to the designers, despite the implicit promise of digital technology to make our lives simpler and easier, there is a crisis afoot for the growing, older population. Although many household appliances are easily acquired, these same products are inherently difficult to manage and maintain over time; what was once purchased as a convenience has potential to become a burden in later life. As we age, we become less likely to navigate the conditions that shops and manufacturers require of youthful consumers. This puts the ageing population in an unfortunate position – abandoned at the exact moment when they need better products, increased assistance and servicing. Alienated by the speed of change in trade, manufacturing and technology, older consumers would benefit from a revolutionary domestic independence: the Amazin Apartment. In the installation, three segments of a typical Amazin wall have been created to demonstrate the visual and functional differences between the apartment and service sides. For example the washer/dryer has a single button with one setting, not endless interfaces. It is positioned at standing height, with a shelf below, to avoid the need for bending down. The back side of the walls house the Amazin Service corridor, organized like an advanced warehouse, so that goods and services can be passed through, historically analyzed and replaced as needed with minimal impact on the Apartment, allowing staff to repair or replace an appliance should it break – all without staff entering the apartment.

The drawing room, the couple’s principal entertaining space, contains many highlights of the exhibition, including two Tonico lounge chairs by Sergio Rodrigues; a jacaranda bench by Alberto Reis; a leather-and-rosewood sling chair fabricated by Liceu de Artes e Oficios de São Paulo; and drawings by the contemporary Brazilian artist Paulo Climachauska. "Furniture is more beautiful with a patina—and this comes from years of careful and loving use." —Kathryn Smith

A 606 Universal Shelving System by Dieter Rams for Vitsoe hangs tough on the only opaque wall of the living room. Russell-Clarke and Moolsintong designed the coffee table, and Marcel Wanders gets credit for the Bottoni sofa for Moooi.

For the outdoor dining room, interior designer Damon Liss selected a Soho pendant lamp by Joan Gaspar, Trennza chairs from Janus et Cie, and the Portica outdoor table from Room & Board. The sliding glass doors are by Arcadia.

Edgeland House, built on a cliff-top lot in Austin by architect Thomas Bercy for lawyer and writer Chris Brown, is topped by a living roof that helps it blend into the landscape. The concrete, steel, and glass house is divided into two distinct public and private halves.

The family room is situated at the apex of the house, with picturesque views that extend up the meticulously landscaped north slope. The concrete floor sits just low enough that the main elements of the scene—the succulent garden and large limestone ledges—are at eye level. A bank of NanaWall folding windows breaks up the fourth wall.

In 2006, Claus—director of Claus en Kaan Architecten, one of the Netherlands’ top architectural practices—finally got inside Perret’s apartment. He was duly impressed. “It’s the sheer abundance with which limited materials are used here that first struck me,” he says. “The wall-to-wall French oak paneling, combined with materials that were ahead of their time—columns made not from marble but from stone-blasted concrete, the extraordinary round plaster ceiling inset, and the fiber-wood paneling—and his attention to the tiniest of details.” He tracked down the organization that owns the apartment, the Association Auguste Perret, to see if he and his wife could rent the unit as a pied-à-terre. To his surprise, they said yes. In the dining room, a marble-topped table by Eero Saarinen is ringed with Eames wire chairs. Through oak accordion doors, the atrium beckons with red Utrecht armchairs by Gerrit Rietveld and a yellow Diana table by Konstantin Grcic.

The focal point of the sleek, white space is a glowing laundry chute illuminated from within by fiber-optic cables.

The architect worked carefully to create ample storage for myriad uses, since the space doubles as a wet bar for entertaining due to its proximity to a garden terrace.

The Pyrex tube was produced by a manufacturer of laboratory vacuum equipment and was sand-blasted from the inside to contain the light.

An architectural designer and an artist harnessed the collective power of their design firm to remake a dilapidated mid-century gem into a hillside perch for their family.

The living room is further lit by three protruding skylights angled to catch morning and afternoon light.

Shophouses are a staple of Southeast Asian urban architecture. A team of designers including Yong Ter, Teng Wui, Andrew Lee, and Edwin Foo renovated this shophouse into a contemporary sanctuary over the course of two years. They left the roof completely open from the beginning of the original airshaft to the back of the house. The heart is a cooking/dining area with a 13-foot-long Indonesian table made from a single piece of teak.

Arched Brazilian cherry doors open to a spacious laundry room/pantry set near the kitchen.

The home’s original living and dining rooms were updated with custom cabinetry and new fir floors. The living room sofa, coffee table, and lounge chair are from Blu Dot.

Together, Bosch's sleek 24" kitchen and laundry suites address the trend toward smaller living by extending modern, European-style design to even the closest quarters.

French doors in the living room let light into the kitchen and open onto a lovely garden.

The cabinetry cleverly conceals everything, including a custom drying rack.