Get the whole family involved in the kitchen, whether it be teaching young ones a tried-and-true recipe or exploring a new dish together.

This room can be a family room, office, or guest suite. The flooring is the same throughout: Riva Floors, Engineered Wood Select Grade, in Crystal Thunder, and the couch is from Restoration Hardware. Unseen is the foosball and ping pong tables.

The architect placed the windows at Sabrina’s eye level so that she’d be able to see her son, Rocco, playing in the yard outside. "You can feel the seasons changing here," says Chiavelli. "I grew up three miles from here, outside in nature. This is a house for experiencing life."

Miha hangs out with Kea, the dog, on the wooden deck that extends the living space outdoors.

Van Beek’s extra space is home to her office. She works on a Tense table by Piergiorgio and Michele Cazzaniga and Flow chairs by Jean Marie Massaud, both for MDF Italia.

He worked around existing oak and eucalyptus trees for the new building, and retained the vernacular of an original barn, at right, where Frankel hosts concerts. Check out MVRDV's Balancing Barn.

Located in Aarhus, Denmark, Villa R is a minimalist, serene structure clad in zinc panels. "The objective was to create a house that brings the forest inside through large glass panels—and create an ever-changing seasonal backdrop for the interior living spaces," stated the architecture firm, C.F. Møller, of the 3,200-square-foot abode.

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.

BSC designed suspended powder-coated and walnut open shelves to demarcate the kitchen from the rest of the living space. The detailing on the cast-iron columns inspired the perforated pattern of the semi-transparent screens.

The family’s two cats, Baron and Jula.

The Baumann family residence in Gowanus, Brooklyn, is all geometry up front, with a rectilinear grid of steel and cypress comprising the structure’s double facade.

The second-floor office is housed inside a rounded rectangle of concrete that the architect inserted on top of the old farmhouse.

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.

Parents Mitra and Sasan Nakhshab join sons Nima and Soheil (with daughter, Sofia) and Soheil’s girlfriend, Susana Mora (with son, Shayan), on the main floor.

The subway tile-lined bathroom was kept as simple as possible, with Hansgrohe fixtures and cabinets made of vertical-grain Douglas fir above a top-mounted Duravit sink. Since installing a window was unfeasible given the bathroom's proximity to other properties, Storey added a skylight over the shower.

The bedroom is enclosed with a glass wall. A blackout curtain can be drawn closed for privacy. An IKEA cabinet and white lacquered shelves help to provide plenty of closet space.

One major directive was to “honor the tree,” referring to a particular 85-year-old cottonwood on the property. Photo by: Kirk Gittings

Have your children help you go through their book collections and pick out what books they haven't read yet. If you are able to safely leave your home, you can coordinate curbside dropoff book exchanges with friends.

Though the fire pit was “kind of an after-thought,” says Hannah, the family uses it year-round. “In the spring and fall, it warms you up on cool nights, and in the summer, it just adds ambience.”

The door to Eoghan Mahony’s office is set on a caster and has a hinge that runs the entire ten-foot height.

The family spends summers and school vacations at the bach. New Zealand's relatively mild winters mean they use the house year-round.

The family sits around, and under in the case of four-year-old Kaz’ma, the sunken table for a snack. Makiko made the covers of the mats her mother sent from Japan by hand. The black lamp is from Ikea.

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.

“Peter and I’ve got shockingly similar and far-reaching design inspirations. Our conversations would move easily from brutalism to driftwood to kachinas and then flow right back to something applicable to architecture. I can’t tell you how many times I will do that with a less-design-literate client and just get a blank stare!” —Architect Craig Steely

Wood from the property’s felled trees was incorporated into every room in the 3,000-square-foot house.

Located in California’s Sugar Bowl neighborhood, this shadowy lair by Mork-Ulnes Architects looks like something out of fairy tale. "We call the house Troll Hus, with a reference to the otherworldly beings in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore that are said to dwell in remote mountains," architect Casper Mork-Ulnes says.

A Movie sofa, by CB2, and a Rais wood-burning stove are in the living room.

Designed by Stockholm firm Waldemarson Berglund Arkitekter, this prefab artist studio called Ateljé 25 is shaped like a Monopoly house, serves as an artist’s studio and has simple plywood interiors and massive skylights.

The sunken family room is enlivened by Alvarez-Calderón’s addition of fabrics from Designers Guild and glossy paint.

In their concrete-walled courtyard, Yuka and Aaron watch as twins Emerson and Jasper, daughters Maude and Mirene, and Alfie the dog play. The house is painted in Black Bean Soup by Benjamin Moore, a color in keeping with the period of the original architecture. The garden was designed by Lauren Hall-Behrens of Lilyvilla Gardens.

Taking inspiration from Arlberg Valley, Austria to classic Nordic materials, the Troll Hus certainly adds a European touch to the California landscape. “The inspiring concept is that of a treehouse that, as if suspended between treetops, seamlessly and ingeniously blends with its surroundings.” Casper says.

Roberto Burneo designed this home for his eldest niece, her husband, and their three young children in a suburb outside Quito, the capital of Ecuador. The house is set on a flat expanse of land with fruit trees, and Burneo's design "guides the social areas inward in order to link them to the gardens.”

Otto is a handsome complement to the Persian Sarouk rug and Gray’s sophisticated interior design work.

Burneo took advantage of the perpendicular orientation of the volumes to create outdoor spaces that look out to the gardens.

Herron Horton Architects converted a garage into a place for kids to study and play.

The family room is situated at the apex of the house, with picturesque views that extend up the meticulously landscaped north slope. The concrete floor sits just low enough that the main elements of the scene—the succulent garden and large limestone ledges—are at eye level. A bank of NanaWall folding windows breaks up the fourth wall.