The house's open plan is neatly divided into public and private spaces, with the front containing the kitchen and living areas and the back holding the bedroom and bath, overhung by a small mezzanine. A hidden wooden panel can be drawn closed between the two sections for greater privacy.

The bedroom and bathroom make up the private zones on the top floor.

The renovation, which focused on the living-dining-kitchen area, strikes a balance between intimate and inviting, hence the project's name, the Open/Private apartment.

The cavernous living room takes advantage of its height with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

If you're looking for the ultimate minimalist bed frame, a platform bed with edges that extend beyond the mattress allow it to double as a bedside table, eliminating the need for other furniture.

The Parisian flat that American-born architect Michael Herrman shares with his wife, Cécile, and their 2-year-old daughter, Rose, had been nearly untouched since the 1790s, when it was built. “But I wanted to try and reveal some of its age in a fresh new context,” Herrman said.

The Floating Farmhouse’s semitransparent addition has a roofline that matches the pitch of the original 1820s farmhouse. A porch, tucked under the side eaves, is cantilevered over a stream that runs through the property. Ikea loungers are illuminated from the interior by commercial gymnasium lights repurposed as pendant lamps.

The apartment's entryway features a hidden storage wall and media console.

The new volume houses the dining area, which includes stairs to the bedrooms. The table is from Blake Avenue and the walnut chairs are from Room & Board. “You don’t want bright colors to take away from that relationship between the interior and the exterior,” Walker says.

Apart from a “generous” master bedroom, Mitchell says that the couple also wanted a rooftop deck to see views of downtown Denver. A sloped roof kept the building up to code, and the outdoor deck “was achieved by shifting the upper volume backwards from the front of the house,” he says.

Luke channels Jimi on the concrete floor of the open living and dining room.

The living room and dining room were originally separated by a central fireplace, which interior designer Nicole Hollis removed to create this great room. She installed a modern, custom eight-foot-long open gas fireplace in the living room, equipped with sensors that automatically turn it off when someone gets too near to the flames.

In the house’s front room Monkman relaxes on a stool from local retailer Andrew Richard Designs. A new window system draws in sunlight and views of the front courtyard designed by local landscape architect Terry McGlade, the building’s former owner.

A double-height space encompasses the kitchen, dining and living area, and features 36-feet-wide glass doors that pocket into southern and northern walls.

The kitchen opens to the elements thanks to sliding doors from C.R. Laurence. The anigre in the kitchen is the same employed in the master bedroom.

In the sleek kitchen, the white Ikea cabinet uppers seem to disappear into the wall, while the bases get a distinctive custom walnut wrapping. Flanking the cabinets are open bookshelves, which provide secondary function as a spacial divider for the children’s play area. A Dornbracht faucet sits on a slab of Vermont Olympian White Danby marble, which is also used for the island and backsplash.

Kitchen

Two smaller, adjacent structures house autonomous bedrooms, each equipped with a full bathroom.

The neutral color palette extends to the kitchen, which is overhung by several pendant globes.

The main bathroom is only partially separated from the sleeping area by a glass partition. The absence of opaque walls creates a feeling of openness and cohesion in the bright mezzanine space.

Soheil steps into the music and screening room, which is concealed behind a masonry-veneered door. “We were able to hide a lot of the square footage below the main level, but not in a way that would hurt the design,” he says.

Sliding doors cast shadows across the concrete floor.

A view of the stretching Carrara marble countertop.

An installation by Willem Cole hangs in the gallery, which leads to an open stairway to the office and private bedrooms upstairs.

Designed by Jagoda, the door swings open to fit in front of a bookshelf.

The resident, a Tokyo transplant, commissioned architect Tadashi Murai to create a fully-equipped structure that comes with its own power, heating and cooling, water, and waste-disposal systems.

Joaquin Altamirano and Silvia Martín worked with Daniel Bergman Vázquez of Estudio Untercio to create an open-plan oasis in an apartment building in central Madrid. Estudio Untercio designed the medium-density fiberboard cupboards, which are coated with lacquer paint matching the ceramic-porcelain countertops. The tubular hood above the island is by Teka.

A view of the second floor from the top of the staircase. Open shelving open to the stairs further contribute to the open and airy feeling of the space.

“There is a lot of glass so you can enjoy the view and the outdoor lifestyle even inside,” Henrik explains. “You live in the middle of the weather somehow. It’s a really harsh environment, as you have these southwesterly winds blowing through the house. But it is really beautiful as well.”

Although the loft is relatively small, high ceilings and an open floor plan give it room to spare.

A carpet of custom tile created by Navone punctuates a corridor on the first floor.

The kitchen occupies one corner of the L-shaped structure. As throughout, the floors are made up of reclaimed eucalyptus that Chris planed himself.

Exposed boards that were salvaged from the original apartment were installed into the master bedroom. They provide a rustic atmosphere, enhanced by the addition of DIY industrial lighting. The bedding, curtains, and bedside tables are all from IKEA.

The Perth residence of Renee Coleman via the Design Files.

“When we bought it, the apartment felt rather uninspired and confined, but it had such great potential,” resident Bart says. The building, on Sixth Avenue, is part of the Ladies' Mile Historic District, which once housed the city’s most famous department stores. The building was commissioned by Irish merchant Hugh O’Neill to house his dry-goods emporium. It now houses a mix of commerce and condos.

The cantilevered main floor creates space for bracken fern and other indigenous vegetation to flourish.