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A pair of chairs designed by architect Cliff May.

With an angled roof designed to resemble the surrounding cliffs, a house in Maui, Hawaii, is built to meld with the landscape.

The Cliff House at Post Ranch Inn, Big Sur, California The most epic getaway on this list, Post Ranch Inn’s Cliff House (designed by famed local architect Mickey Muennig) overlooks the Pacific and offers 960-square-feet of glass and wood surroundings. The room comes together with purposeful angles, mirroring the ocean-side cliffs below.

Ancient Cliff Caves Hundreds of caves like these are found in the region, built thousands of years ago. In this particular photograph, the caves are easily accessible, but many are halfway up high cliffs. I thought of the wandering yogis who made their home for years inside and wondered how they managed to get down the cliffs and into them. Just recently, researchers have gone in to excavate some of the high caves, and many well-preserved ancient artifacts have been found.

"All of these sites have something special. Some of them are quite exposed locations, places that leave visitors speechless when they look into an abyss or find themselves at a fjord or a bay," Schluchtmann says.

Casa Malaparte is perched on the cliffs of Capri and was designed by Adalberto Libera in 1938.

The Arnolds’ architecture studio—right next door to their new home—occupies a 1941 structure by Cliff May.

The remote location made construction a challenge. Horne ended up widening the road to the cabin in order to move the shipping containers up the cliff.

Set high on a cliff along the south end of the beach, this residence of three glass-and-copper pavilions offers a mighty reward for conquering the steep ascent.

Perched over a cliff face, the hooded deck of the Gambier Residence reads like a ship’s prow over Howe Sound, the scenic waters near Vancouver.

The lovely view of the sea from the cliffs of Avenida Saenz Peña.

Fong has designed a range of interiors, including Michael Voltaggio’s Ink restaurant. In 2009, he opened Galerie Half in Los Angeles, which showcases 20th-century design, European antiques, architectural elements, and art.

This house is one of 170 prefabs manufactured by Cliff May Homes (designed by Cliff May and architect Chris Choate), and it was erected by a local builder in 1955. It features one of the L-shaped plans offered by the company, which included a main wing with living areas and two bedrooms, adjoined by a wing containing a private master suite. Starbursts accent the wall in one of the house’s bedrooms.

Details at the front fence and carport gate.

The island of Møn in Denmark has a remarkable landscape with dramatic white-chalk cliffs, so it’s fitting that Birkedal—a vacation rental property not far from the beach—features a shape and form that matches its impressive locale.

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.

A vintage looking mailbox resides inside the carport. Mail is still delivered by foot in this 1950s enclave.

The architecture of Hood Cliff Retreat defers to the landscape, as evidenced by the cedar planks incorporated into several rooms of the home. Wittman Estes Architecture repurposed beams and siding from the original cabin as countertops and interior cladding. The firm's focus on simple details and a restrained material palette kept the construction budget to a minimum.

The thousand-foot cliffs and precipitous mountains of Big Sur, California, have a long history of attracting contrarian thinkers. Taking cues from the flora, fauna, and rocky cliffs of the region, California, Mickey Muennig's brand of organic architecture doesn't stop with the terrain.

Cliff Dwelling | Olson Kundig

C & G Construction made the kitchen shelving from reclaimed cypress not used in the siding and decking. The White Cliff countertops are from Cambria, and the faucet is from Ikea.

Cliff Dwelling | Olson Kundig

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