Sævik compares her house to a contemplative hideout. “It’s very quiet,” she says. “You can concentrate and let thoughts fly.” Her favorite summer pastimes include reading, painting, drawing, yoga, and “just sitting and feeling the forest,” she says.

Sævik designed the wood tub in the bathroom, which features an adjacent sauna. The Inxx A5 faucet is by Mora.

Anna Hoover, founder of the non-profit First Light Alaska, sought a "thought refuge, a room with a view to sit and contemplate future projects and reflect on recent travels and interactions, plenty of ‘headspace’—tall ceilings—and the ability to host other artists for studio time," she says. A longtime resident of the Pacific Northwest, Hoover was familiar with the work of Olson Kundig and contacted the Seattle-based firm to design her abode.

The interiors are clad in white-glazed pine, a contrast to the black-stained facade. The brick fireplace is original. Near a Polder sofa by Hella Jongerius for Vitra is a coffee table of Sævik’s design. The rocking chair is vintage and came with the house.

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The house is divided into three sections connected by a series of outdoor galleries. “When I walk from one room to another, I have to go outdoors and feel the weather and nature—rain, cold, and sun,” says Sævik. Instead of emphasizing the expansive panorama of oak, pine, and aspen trees, the house frames select views—a move inspired by Japanese design.

A section of the roof reaches over a rock outcropping—a detail that visually connects the house to the landscape and offers a handy way to climb up to the roof deck without using a ladder.

Shope and his wife carefully designed an eco-friendly landscape: For instance, they did not fell any tree with holes that could support an owl’s nest. They also planted flower species that feed hummingbirds and monarch butterflies. Shope laid out the pathway of reclaimed granite slabs that leads toward the Hudson River below.

Olson Kundig Architects' Delta Shelter, in Mazama, Washington, is a 1,000 square-foot steel box home with a 200 square-foot footprint. Photo by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects/TASCHEN.

A door next to the bed drops down, opening the room to its surroundings. "It's a fantastic way to ventilate the space, but also makes sleeping in the loft feel like camping when it's down," Eerkes says.

“There had been two or three primitive cabins on the property in the past, which resulted in a clearing that we utilized for the site,” Joseph Herrin says. “This allowed us to avoid any further tree removal for construction, and provided an opportunity to begin to restore that portion of the property with native landscaping.”

With a construction budget of less than $200 per square foot, architect Les Eerkes (with the mentorship of Tom Kunding) looked for ways to build the structure efficiently. He specified glulam—glued laminated timber—for the structure and spanned the skeleton with structurally insulated floor and roof panels. The structure is stationed atop a six-column foundation. "The 'six-footed' solution was balanced against a spread footing and stem wall approach," Eerkes says. "Cost analysis led us in the direction of the column footing approach because it minimized excavation and form work costs."

Rolling Huts (Winthrop, United States) A series of six modernist huts created by Tom Kundig of Olson Kundig Architects, the Rolling Huts look like rustic case study homes, a herd of designer cabins that just may exemplify the term 'glamping.' Elevated on stilts, the 200-square-foot structures offer another level of outdoor accommodation. Photos by Chad Kirkpatrick

In the sleeping loft, floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the fir canopy of the surrounding forest. "The house faces east, so the sun and moon rise and reflect on the water," Hoover says. "The moon rising with the fire crackling is a delight. And on sunny summer mornings, the sunbeams magically shimmer off the Puget Sound and reflect onto the ceiling of the bedroom, we could never have planned this."

A concrete wall between the garage and the main house is fortified with external insulation and covered with wood cladding and plaster. The additional protection prevents heat transfer between the concrete floor and heated living space.

Look no further than online shop Rodale's for a well-edited selection of eco-friendly items. Products span clothing to kitchenware to bedding, all selected because they're manufactured in a responsible manner. Rodale publishes some of the world's best-known lifestyle magazines, including Runner's World, Bicycling, Running Times, and Organic Gardening, and its e-commerce venture fits with its mission to promote healthy living. We've gathered a handful of items from the site to give you an idea of the wealth of designs available. Vintage Patchwork Blanket ($625–675)

With clever storage and a retractable skylight, a London apartment designed by metalworker and owner Simone ten Hompel and Roger Hynam of Rogeroger Design Solutions feels larger than its 576 square feet. The team worked in a uniquely collaborative way, with Ullmayer Sylvester planning the space, Hynam creating the built-in storage and the kitchen island, and ten Hompel making models and scrawling on the wall to better envision their proposals. The kitchen island features a compact cooktop by Whirlpool and an integrated drainboard incised into the countertop for easy cleaning.

"We did our best to tuck the buildings into the site—the goal was to get up high on a perch. It was a matter of setting that elevation and working back down with the topography," says architectural designer Riley Pratt.

A simple design was key to keeping the Casa Cuatro environmentally friendly. "You can go a long way to make a house sustainable in the early parts of the design process instead of throwing a lot of expensive technology at it later," Foster says.

“The home is quite small, but designed in such a way that you don’t feel it,” Herrin says. Lift-slide openings by Quantum Windows & Doors, which were fabricated fewer than 50 miles from the house, make the main living space seem larger.

Dogfish Head Brewery (Milton, Delaware: 2009) What’s more off-centered than a steampunk treehouse? When the eccentric craft brewery needed a quick expansion, DIGSAU delivered a playful design, filled with tilted angles and expressive geometry. Salvaged materials, LED lighting, and daylight modeling give the new space its green credentials, and the treehouse conference space adds a fitting outdoor touch. Photo by Halkin/Mason Architectural Photography

Hale and Maisie peer out of one of the living-room windows, from where Edmonds (pictured at left with Pippa) dreams about installing a zip-line directly to their garden patch.

When not in use as the headboard, the large redwood slab folds down to become a desk.

The Miller House and Garden features a custom-made sofa in the open-plan living area designed by Saarinen with textiles by Girard. The home was widely published and is in part credited for the popularity of conversation pits in the 1950s and 1960s.

superrkül dubbed this project the Stealth Cabin because it's hidden in the landscape and will continue to recede in view over time. Photo by Shai Gil.

Perched high in the Spanish Pyrenees, this old stone building needed major changes to become habitable again. Originally built in 1900 as a hostel of sorts, its strucutre was not incredibly robust: for instance, its windows couldn't be expanded for risk of weakening the wall. But architect Josep Bunyesc still saw a chance to turn it into a model of energy efficiency.

Bunyesc was asked by a family of four—a couple with two young children, aged 1 and 2—to transform this aged structure into a modern home. The architect wanted something energy-efficient, and while he had several renovations under his belt, he turned to an unusual material to harness the sun's energy: polycarbonate, a rugged plastic common to industrial architecture, sheds, and other lightweight construction.

Perhaps the greatest challenge of the project was trying to pack so many energy efficient features in under a budget. Not only does the bathroom feature NuHeat radiant floor mats but all water is heated with a GE Hybrid Heat Pump Water Heater, saving on heating expenses by around 67%.

Built as a live/work space for a sculptor, Indigo by Dutch practice Woonpioniers is an eco-friendly, prefabricated cabin with bent wooden walls.

Olson Kundig Architects created Studhorse in Washington's remote Methow Valley as four structures oriented around a central courtyard, each positioned to best enjoy the surrounding vistas in all four seasons.

Located in New Zealand, this compact prefab vacation home in the seaside community of Onemana Beach was a collaboration with architecture students from Auckland’s Unitec Institute of Technology.

The design team used 3/4-inch PureBond Maple plywood from Columbia Forest Products, featuring formaldehyde-free, soy-based assembly.

One of the main goals of the construction was to do as little harm as possible to the existing environment, which includes waterways that salmon depend upon. Herrin and his team created a garden roof that covers the full extent of the home to meet this objective. “This helps control storm water runoff and also replaces lost insect habitat—insects being a critical food source for juvenile salmon,” he says.

Studhorse | Olson Kundig

The eco-friendly Ann Arbor home of Tom McMurtrie, Genia Service, and their son Gary features a brilliant reflective steel cladding.

Closet Case To consolidate most appliances and food storage, keep his compact kitchen looking neat, and save money on cabinets, Sherman built a closet into the kitchen wall (“Cabinets are expensive but closets are cheap,” he offers). Inside is a countertop, blackboard surface, toaster oven, garbage cans, magnetic knife rack, and plenty of shelves. When the doors are closed, the unit recedes from view.