Kate’s father predicted they would never use the crow’s nest–like tower, which is reached by climbing a narrow staircase.

Green roofs are aesthetically pleasing and have multiple positive environmental benefits, even if they are small in terms of square footage. Here, a green roof blooms atop the detached garage of a home.

“We sought to create a house that would not damage the environment and not be too visible,” says architect Tina Gregorič. A single zigzagging roof stretches over 5,380 square feet, doubling the area of the interior spaces and serving as an ideal spot for sunset cocktails and whale-watching.

The large patio leads to a newly landscaped back garden. An expansive glass wall promotes seamless indoor-outdoor living. Inexpensive brick pavers were chosen for the rear patio; they offer textural contrast with the steel of the door, brick of the rear facade, and pale gray wood of the interior floors.

Designed by Atelier Lina Bellovicova, House LO marks the country’s first residential project to use hempcrete, a sustainable and fire-and-mold-resistant materil.

One of the home's bathrooms features wallpaper from Etsy retailer AwallonDesign.

The master suite on the second level features a terrace and a lofted area.

The open plan living room and kitchen areas utilize natural materials, from reclaimed oak flooring to custom-made cabinetry. The Oscar sofa by Matthew Hilton from Future Perfect marks off the living room area.

Landscape architects Reed Hilderbrand helped fill out the completed prefab by planting sedge grass on one of the house’s two green roofs to reflect the texture of the surrounding meadow.

Large sliding glass doors suspend the living room within the landscape for family gatherings or larger events.

The relationship between interior and exterior becomes crucial in the articulation of the residence.

The two structures are connected by green space.

The first floor consists of two long and narrow structures that intersect in an open kitchen, providing distinct programmatic areas and settling into the tree-lined landscape, allowing yards to surround and permeate each room.

Plant Wall Design created a custom, self-sustaining vertical green wall for the show.

Maximizing daylight is only one of the sustainable design strategies used in the Low/Rise residence.

The couple initially painted partition walls between the children's room and their own with black metallic paint creating both a writing surface for the children and a magnetic bulletin board for notes. However, "the black looked too oppressive," Astrakhan says. So they applied several coats of lively lime green paint to brighten up that section of the house.

Ryan Anderson of RAD Furniture designed the stools as well as the table and benches on the pool deck.

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, author Chris Brown and his dog Katsu head to the river; the path was once a dumping ground on top of a long-defunct underground oil pipeline. The green roof was conceptualized by John Hart Asher of the Ecosystem Design Group at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin.

Rian and Melissa Jorgensen's 2 Bar House in Menlo Park boasts all the usual green design suspects: energy-efficient lighting, good insulation, renewable material finishes, radiant heat, and the roof is pre-wired for future PV panels. Still, one of the homeowner's favorite aspect of green design is the living roof planted with succulents, aloe, viviums, and ice plants.

Emilio Fuscaldo sits in the garden outside the brick house that he designed for himself and his partner, Anna Krien, on a small subdivided lot in Coburg, a suburb north of Melbourne, Australia.

The sod roof is angled to create a sweeping elevation on approach and is planted with grass tussocks cut from the hillside during construction. “The tussocks camouflage the house, melting it into the landscape,” explains architect Kate Brown.

“I wanted to plant a green roof for its thermal mass, but I wanted it to be as natural as possible,” Liang says.

Nataša Stanaćev and Manu Granados of Stanaćev Granados Arquitectura designed and built this beachfront cabin in Matanzas, a rustic, windswept area of Chile, while they were living in Spain.

Pros: Laminate is at the low end of the price range for countertops, is scratch- and stain-resistant, and comes in a tremendous range of colors. It’s also easy to install, making it a viable DIY option for the handy crowd. Cons: Because laminate countertops are created by layering pieces of plywood and plastic, edges can chip off easily, and the surface can even melt if too much heat is applied directly.

Guess used inexpensive graded pine plywood so that he would get heavy grain patterns on the surfaces. One of the main goals in the kitchen was simplicity. To that end, he opted for a poured-in-place concrete island. "We didn’t know if we could afford to do that, but we found a great subcontractor [Nate Francis of Countertop Creations] here who had never really built anything like that," Guess says. "Because he was interested in giving it a shot and adding it to his portfolio, he didn’t charge an exorbitant amount of money because it was sort of an experiment for him as well." The kitchen features a GE Profile refrigerator and KitchenAid range, microwave, and dishwasher. The sink and faucet are from Kohler. The project's builder was Joe Doherty with Custom Homecrafters of Austin.

Stanaćev and Granados not only thought about views from the cabin, they also considered views of the cabin. With that in mind, they designed a green roof planted with creeping redflush that harmonizes with surrounding cypress forest.

The Heath tiles in the bathroom were hand-selected from boxes of factory seconds.

Anne Suttles waters the bamboo muhly, palo verde, strawberry tree, and magic carpet thyme thriving in their Austin yard.

The cabin’s basic structure was reclaimed from a barn built in 1840 and purchased from Heritage Barns out of Waco, Texas. The same company supplied the recycled wood that clads the walls, though the ceiling boards are new. “We stained them with a gray wash to match the tones of the post and beam, but with a more clean look,” Bronee explains. The concrete floors were polished and waxed for a sleek finish.

In this sustainable home in Silicon Valley, the primary suite opens to a deck and fern garden with large, sliding glass doors.

Steel pipe columns and wood beams were recycled from a 1960s church carport; the old-growth fir sliding screens, fence, and gate originate from a heavy timber warehouse in Pioneer Square; the aluminum-and-glass garage door is reclaimed from a downtown condo conversion; and the studio’s shelving and track lighting is courtesy of workstations from another downtown building.