Jacobs transformed the roof into a series of decks, this deck features Crate & Barrel’s Dune sofa and coffee table.

Ten-year-old Henry cuddles with three-year-old Grace.

In fall, the color of this backyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, changes daily with the foliage. Elizabeth Birdsall marvels how new outdoor spaces on her property, like a patio furnished with upholstered seating from Gloster, make enjoying the woods an easy experience: “It’s like comfortable camping, all the time.”

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.

Pierre Paulin designed this sculptural piece in 1968 for Artifort in two variations: sofa and love seat. This vintage offering, a sofa, was manufactured in France. Read more about the ABCD Sofa here.

Looking downwards from the second floor, the void creates an invisible barrier between the family room and the living area. The reflection from the skylight exaggerates the idea of an even more depth within the house.

Designer Paola Navone transformed a 200-year-old factory in Umbria into an inviting home for Andrea Falkner-Campi and her husband. Once a tobacco-drying plant, and before that a silkworm farm, the home sits 90 miles north of Rome.

Read something. If you already watched Contagion, try out some pandemic-related reading—Severance by Ling Ma, or Pale Horse Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. Or, read the Social Distancing Manifesto. Find out what the heck “Cottagecore” means. Hint: it’s as quaint as it sounds. Create an Instagram account for your pet. If ever there was a time to post and share infinity pictures of your cute (or ugly) dog doing cute things, this is it. Dream about travel. Dive into Dwell Travel stories to plan that next trip, for when this whole thing finally settles down.

The curvy, off-white sofa, which forms a perfect conversation pit, was purchased on Ebay (and cost as much as it did to buy).

Two pieces from E15’s Shiraz sofa flank the company’s wooden Leila side tables. Hill chose to use flat paint in Benjamin Moore’s Decorators White throughout the home because it emphasizes the chalkiness of the plaster walls, making them “look almost like slate.” The sconce shown in the foreground—David Chipperfield’s Corrubedo design for FontanaArte—gives off a soft glow and replaces the dozens of paper-lampshade wall fixtures the owners found in the house when they bought it. Stewart Cohen’s zany photograph of a gun-toting Marfa resident encapsulates Barbara Hill’s offbeat brand of decorating: bright and minimal, yet darkly humorous.

Though Bruce has thus far only managed a week or two here or there on the island, he's hoping to make it a more frequent—and extended—part of his regular routine. "I'm thinking about going out for a month to write," he says.

Brothers Nima and Soheil relax in the family room on an Eames lounge chair and a custom sofa they designed. “Mid-century architecture draws the outdoor environment indoors,” says Soheil. “There’s a lot of natural light, a lot of ventilation.”

A 1959 teak-framed nine-foot-long SW 50-4 sofa by Illum Wikkelsø for the Danish furniture company Søren Willadsen sits pretty.

A vintage lamp and George Nelson’s Marshmallow sofa and Spool clock embody the mid-century feel of Soheil and Nima Nakhshab’s design for a California family home.

Antarctica - Setting foot on the 7th continent Private tour groups have been visiting Antarctica since 1969. Today there are lots of choices among operators sending ships, planes, and helicopters to Antarctica between November and March (the summer season). Many trips start in Southern Argentina, and ship-bound journeys include on-board lectures and access to experts on the ecology of the Antarctic during the cruise. Passengers can kayak around icebergs, or spend a day watching penguins, seals, and whales off the coast. Photo by: Christopher.Michel

North America - Biking the wine valleys of Northern California Almost half of the wineries in the United States are located in California, and many of those are in the valleys north of San Francisco. Wine tasting and winery tours are a drunkenly entertaining way to learn how grapes become wine, but the process involves more than crushing and fermenting grapes. One needs to see the agriculture that goes into America’s wine making, and touch the grapes on the vine, to really appreciate the drink. Work off that hangover by cycling along the winding roads of Napa and Sonoma. Photo by: needoptic

South America - Volunteering in the Peruvian Amazon The Peruvian Amazon is only home to 5% of Peru’s human population, but about 5,500 plant species and 760 animal species unique to Peru live here. Animal rehabilitation centers protect sections of this diverse ecosystem, and trained conservationists help create a safe place for wounded and sick animals. The goal of these reserves is to release healthy animals back into the jungle and teach visitors about the importance of the Amazon. Many encourage volunteers to become involved in the care and preservation of the Peruvian Amazon, giving them a firsthand understanding of the region's ecological diversity. Photo by: cavallotkd

Europe - Touring the cultural centers of Central and Eastern Europe Paris and Rome are beautiful, but there's more to Europe than taking the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower and eating gelato at the Colosseum. Eastern Europe is home to castles, cathedrals, world-famous symphonies, modern art museums, and great beer, wine, and pastries. The cities of Berlin, Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, and Budapest are important cultural centers with citywide art and architecture dating back to the Renaissance. Charles Bridge in Prague has been standing since the 12th century, and Vienna’s city center is home to both Habsburg architecture and modern design. Photo by: Dimitry B

Africa - Summitting and safariing in Tanzania At 19,341 feet, Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain in Africa. It takes a minimum of six to eight days to reach the summit, during which climbers contend with not only changes in altitude, but changes in climate as well (snowstorms occur close to Kilimanjaro's peak). But reaching the top via one of six routes is a serious achievement, and offers the chance to see both Tanzania and Kenya from above. Serengeti National Park is a five-hour drive, or short flight, from Kilimanjaro airport and is home to some of Tanzania’s biggest animals, including lions, cheetahs, leopards, elephants, and rhinos. The park has safari lodges and campsites, and tour operators organize excursions throughout the park. Photo by: Tambako the Jaguar

Asia - Exploring nature and culture in China The Chengdu region of China is home to the world's largest population of Giant Pandas. Panda reserves in and around Chengdu focus on protecting the bear’s natural habitat and researching their behavior (best job ever?). Certain reserves allow volunteers to interact with and care for these endangered species. Elsewhere in China, Beijing has some of the country's most important cultural landmarks. Principal among them is the Forbidden City, built during the Ming Dynasty and now home to the Palace Museum. Xi’an, located between Beijing and Chengdu, has the Terra Cotta Warriors archaeological site. This necropolis was originally built for Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, and is thought to have contained over 4,000 life-size soldiers and other figures sculpted out of terracotta. Photo: Chi King

Australia - Transitioning from Outback to tropics by train Riding the Ghan makes for a three-day transcontinental train journey over the plains, deserts, and mountains of central Australia. The route starts either near the beaches of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, or north in Darwin. In between, travelers get a sense of the continent's changing environment as they trundle to Alice Springs, from which a six-hour drive will bring them to Uluru (Ayers Rock). Near the top of the Northern Territory, travelers can stop at Katherine and spend a day at nearby Nitmiluk National Park, a tropical counterpoint to the arid Outback. Photo by: huskyte77

Mayor Sofa by Arne Jacobsen Jacobsen designed this canape in 1939 for the city hall in Søllerød, Denmark, and it has never been produced for the retail market. Its Danish modern form is updated with bright yellow upholstery (though it’s also available in gray and black for the less adventurous). $6,495

Alex relaxes on the first-floor couch, with is filled with an array of pillows from Crate and Barrel, CB2, West Elm, Muji, and Blu Dot.

Antonio Citterio’s 1997 design for B&B Italia is now well into its second decade of popularity, with a pair of successful updates—2003’s deeper Charles Large and 2010’s polypropylene Charles Outdoor—already on the books. “I try not to copy but to perceive and assimilate aspects specific to the work of great masters,” says Citterio of the Charles’s nod to the Eameses, but he notes that the similarities between his sofa and the couple’s mid-century designs “are more in spirit than in fact.” Charles Sofa (1997) by Antonio Citterio for B&B Italia bebitalia.it

Not everyone has a credibility bookcase. Your kids’ discarded toys and jackets may be strewn on the floor, or your roommate is in the throes of an online boxing class. Perhaps your cat is licking its unmentionables, and it’s not quite the scene you want to set for your one-on-one. Luckily, Zoom makes it easy to manifest the environment we want if the environment we have isn’t ideal. If you’ve ever wanted to dial in from a Dwell house, now’s your chance.

Thanks to its shallow frame, this sophisticated, retro design fits well into small spaces. The seat and back are all built-in, so its clean lines remain intact. Available in numerous environmentally friendly fabrics and fillings. Over 2,000 fabric options and colors, or you can provide your own. The Ason Sofa is also available as a chair.

Today, the Charles remains one of B&B Italia’s best-selling pieces—so much so that its inevitable mate, the Ray, arrived in 2012. “Like Charles, the Ray is a modular system, which starts with a linear element that can be extended to include chaises longues, end pieces, and ottomans,” Citterio reports. Suita sofa (2010) by Antonio Citterio for Vitra vitra.com

Citterio has designed scads of sofas at this point, not only for B&B Italia but for storied brands like Vitra and Flexform as well. Though he was already decades into a glittering career of sofa design, Citterio confirmed his mastery of the form with the Charles’s slim, strong frame, long seat cushion, aluminum corner supports, and suite of free pillows. Diesis (1979) by Antonio Citterio for B&B Italia

For a concrete guesthouse in Stone Ridge, New York, LevenBetts designed an onsen-inspired bathroom with a steam room and a hinoki tub.

A primary suite was created on the new second level, complete with a freestanding tub.

Nodding to the bay windows so common in San Francisco, the AetherSF shop's second in the stack of three shipping containers cantilevers out over the entry not only to provide a bit of shelter from a rainy night, but also to permit an expansive view of the neighborhood from the second floor lounge.

Last night, January 23rd, Dwell and Aether Apparel teamed up for the Dwell Conversation Prefab's Progress. We were joined by a two architects, a metal fabricator, and a prefab entrepreneur to talk about how prefabricated architecture can solve the problems presented by difficult sites.

Douglas Burnham, principal of Envelope A+D, and designer of the AetherSF shop describes how the trio of shipping containers are connected by just four bolts, making them entirely mobile. Because the buildings at the Proxy are intended to be temporary—San Francisco has designated the lot for mixed-income housing when it has the capacity to build—Burnham and his colleagues faced a difficult site not in terms of topography, but in terms of time.

Seth Krubiner (plaid shirt) and Benjamin Parco (black blazer) describe how they used prefab tools to build a pair of Bay Area Houses. Krubiner is a founder of Simpatico Homes and lives in the firm's prototype house in Emeryville, California. A hybrid site-built and modular system, Simpatico Homes build as much as they can in the factory but as Krubiner argued, certain elements (like the garage) are better done on-site. Parco designed a panelized prefab system for a house high in the Berkeley Hills, too high for a big truck and a crane to move a modular solution to the site.