Suzanne and Brooks Kelley at the back of their 1,100-square-foot guest cottage.

The owners toured this home, which surrounds a mature tipu tipu tree, while visiting relatives for the day. The brick is original to the 1947 construction.

Sliding doors by Quantum were made to look like the original panes that couldn't be saved, and they lead to a fire pit outside.

“A building can have far greater impact than the space it stands in.”—William Carpenter, architect and resident

New zoning allowed for a zero-lot-line structure, but required a public storefront, which Carpenter uses as an art gallery.

See Arch restored the exterior fireplace wall and painted it a deep blue hue to match the repainted blue timber cladding.

The custom cedar tub, fabricated by Dovetail, elegantly fits into the master bathroom.

The bath’s Kohler Purist fixtures and Frederick Weinberg animal figures sit on a Corian countertop

The bathroom includes a walk-in tub.

The Airstream Haus’s interior is minimalist, but comfortable, boasting a fully functional kitchen and queen-size bed that doubles as a couch.

The Airstream Haus, parked in Ojai, California. August says that when your dwelling is small, it’s important to make the most of outdoor space.

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.

“I really believe buildings are part of a city as an organism.”—William Carpenter, architect and resident

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

A bedroom in a renovated townhouse in Harlem, New York, makes the most of a tight space with orange-tinted pink walls. Pink bedding keeps the space monochromatic but adds depth with a range of reddish tones.

Black and white kitchen tiles add visual interest to this stunning modern kitchen by IKEA.

Neutra's Kaufmann home was initially designed for living just two months out of the year. Yet after the original owner passed, future tenants attempted to retrofit the space for year-long use. An air conditioning unit was placed atop the roof, and square footage was added, enclosing this courtyard. To return it to its original state, the current owner underwent a five-year restoration and reopened this courtyard to honor the original design. Photo: Tim Street-Porter

The first step was to tear out the existing wall-to-wall carpeting and replace it with cabin-grade, oak flooring to give the house a classic feel and to help anchor the more modern walls and trim. They ordered the flooring from a large company and despite it being the cheapest option offered, the total expense came to $2,300 for materials, making the wood floors—according to Anderson—their biggest splurge.

The apartment is accessed via an old freight elevator. The cabinetry around the elevator entrance—including a massive bookshelf and storage space—is black, contrasting with the white brick walls and the white oak joinery.

Pleased with the pop-up they designed last summer, Frame approached i29 again this fall to construct a more long-term installation: a shop meant to evoke a 3-D walk through of an issue of their magazine.

Dump Truck by Green Toys, $20.

Fashion-tech designer Anouk Wipprecht’s white Spider Dress 2.0 was developed with Philip Wilck along the lines of a previous dress she made inspired by arachnids. The 3D-printed robotic garment with eight jointed arms (activated by sensors and Intel Edison chips with artificial bio-signal intelligence) protects the wearer. Depending on the wearer's mood—agitated or pleased—the arms of the dress spring upward to ward off intrusions.

Part of the PIXEL series, the Ripple 2.0 Coffee Table, shown in walnut with powder coated steel pulls, takes the same inspiration of the movement created by a ripple of water and brings it to a different, slightly darker, place by using a different kind of wood and pixelating the motif further.

In the master bathroom, a matte Ove tub from Wetstyle is one of Maca’s favorite getaways. The angle of the custom window, designed with a minimal frame to maximize the view, mimics the roofline.

For the bathroom inside a renovated Hollywood bungalow, architect Noah Walker used a simple palette of gray and white tile, black countertops, and stainless steel fixtures.

The lower terrace, which features a hot tub, is farther down the hill to immerse its users in the landscape.

Japanese showers are usually set low down so the bather can sit on a stool and scrub, then pour cedar buckets of hot water over their heads for a refreshing rinse. This homeowner in Venice, California mounted a handheld shower head on the wall for added flexibility. The drain is under the removable cedar floor slats, keeping the room design uncluttered. Wood tubs are cleaned with a simple rinse and last for decades, as the antiseptic properties of cedar guard against mold and rot. This ofuro was designed by Santiago Ortiz and fabricated by Bartok Design.

What advice would you give an architect taking on a similar project for the first time? JH: It's critical to have several long conversations with the residents. It's different when you're doing a childcare center or school, but with a residence you really learn about the individuals. It's important to get a feel for how the family lives and listen to them closely. You can spend your entire fee on research and not be any closer to solving the design problems. Listening is critical to designing a successful residence for someone who has special needs kids.

An Almond bathtub by Porcelanosa is accented by a tub filler from Hansgrohe.

The floor tile is from Virginia Tile, while the wall tile is from Daltile.

In the master bathroom, Chris clad the tub and walls in Carrara marble. An AJ Wall sconce by Arne Jacobsen for Louis Poulsen sheds some light on bathtub reading.

See Arch replaced many of the original single-pane wood windows with new thermally broken aluminum windows. They also painted the exterior.