Architect Gregory Phillips connected the original house to a new modern extension that doesn’t interfere with the surrounding houses. “I try to be true to the location,”he explains, “so it doesn’t seem like some spaceship has landed.”

Yang Yeo and his girlfriend Ching Ian relax on the back stoop of their renovated and radically updated Singapore shophouse—an archetypal building type in this busy port city. “Shophouses brought back memories of our childhood,” says Yeo.

The beanbag chairs and outdoor sofa and chairs are from West Elm and the Case Study Museum Bench is from Modernica.

The hardscaping helps keep water use to a minimum. The Lais used gravel—accented by drought-tolerant bamboo—to create their side yard.

Though the front of this 1880s home in Adelaide, Australia, maintains a traditional facade due to strict heritage laws, the rear is modern eye candy at its best. See more of the home.

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.”

Plantings Meet Stone at Edge

Planting Strips with Stone Pebbles & Wall

When the Ferguson Sauder family—parents Meg, a school counselor, and Tim, a design instructor, plus kids Cole, Olive, and Asher—wanted a multifunctional backyard addition, they decided to build it themselves. Two Liftoff chairs by Tim Miller, one of Tim’s former students, surround an oil-drum fire pit set in granite dug up on the property. On the deck, the Panamericana chair is by Industry of All Nations.

The first thing landscape designer Laura Cooper asked Devis and Purdy was to recall childhood gardens and outdoor play. In that spirit, she designed their backyard, integrating the high ground with the low just outside the “kids’ wing.” The resulting series of outdoor rooms on this quarter-acre is full of memory and play.

Working with a limited budget, First Lamp designed and built one principle architectural flourish: exposed Douglas fir rafters that would weather to a brighter red over the years and accent the white siding.

The modern addition sits on a concrete platform that extends past the house’s envelope, creating welcoming patios on each side. “From any space within the home you are no more than a few steps from one of the outdoor spaces,” Busick says. On the west-facing back porch, Green Kite Chairs by Karim Rashid and a poppy-red hammock offer ideal spots from which to take in the sunset.

Lisette requested the central work island, which cantilevers over the pool.

“I love the look of mass plantings,” notes Neely, near Mexican feather grasses--which thrive on the sunny lot.

@sticks.and.bricks: it's #treehouse season! please excuse me while I go #playintheyard.

The architects worked closely with the clients to match the aesthetic of the vintage furniture they collect. The midcentury modern Danish chair, seen right, has been refurbished and reupholstered.

Unable to alter the footprint of the building, the Deams created a backyard living area that nearly doubled the home's living space.

Pebble Time Round by Pebble, $249 at pebble.com Pebble, the wearable tech company whose signature timepiece is a favorite among Silicon Valley disruptors, recently unveiled Pebble Round Time, the world's thinest, lightest smartwatch yet. Available in rich finishes, including rose gold, it is a dream accessory for the tech-forward and design-conscious.

A gravel path leads to a guesthouse, where Trainor supplemented an existing garden of yuccas and palm trees with succulent aeoniums and flowering euphorbias.

On an idyllic afternoon, members of the Oropeza and Castillo clans splash in the backyard pool framed by Trex decking and outfitted with furniture by Móbica.

The house is oriented toward the expansive backyard, where the family spends 80 percent of its time. Alfredo’s wife Lorena, son Lorenzo, nieces Camila and Valentina, and Castillo’s daughter, Regina, hang out by the pool—the focal point of Transepto’s restrained landscape design.

Megan Lea built a backyard retreat with reclaimed materials figuring prominently into the design. What resulted is a polychrome of salvaged 100-year-old barnwood by West Salem-based Barnwood Naturals that makes the facade of this Bernard Maybeck-inspired design as unique as it is environmentally friendly.

The studio occupies the corner of a backyard filled with carefully-tended plants. They positioned the studio at the yard’s far corner, diagonal from the main house’s back door, to create a path through the garden that would engage visitors in landscape.

It’s simple to make lasting changes to your home, wardrobe, and everyday life that are kind to the planet.

The outbuilding serves as a studio, a guest house, and a playroom. A Murphy bed sourced from Craigslist was customized with a birch surround to give it a built-in appearance.

A picnic table in a matching hue to the Stealth Barn rests between the two structures.

Walker left the site in its natural state, but added grasses along the path to the entrance. For more ways to use grass in your home.

A found Eero Saarinen Executive chair was restored with help from a local auto body shop.

The resulting effect is a backyard with a pool at the center that is as nice to look at as to be in.

The culmination of the collaboration was the design’s simplicity: a single neutral, durable, versatile volume that can easily host a changing collection of hobbies, art, furniture, and guests.

The single main room features ample glazing to provide natural light for cultivation of artistic endeavors. In the words of Witt, the “studio is the anchor for the backyard."

Sultan of Sit Even if your carpentry skills peaked in eighth-grade woodshop, reclaimed lumber and a bit of sweat can stand you in good stead when it comes to outdoor furniture. Whitlock created a ruggedly beautiful bench (below) from scratch. He bought a chunk of trestle lumber at a local salvage yard and lag-bolted four Ikea Sultan stainless steel bed legs to its base. “It took me two hours, including lumberyard drive time,” he says. “I spent $70 total.” ikea.com

The nuri-en (an exterior overhang) is one of the few Japanese touches on the home's exterior. Paired with the continuation of the interior floor right out into the backyard, the home opens up to the outside quite nicely.

The renovation added a new outdoor living space to the house.

Without altering its turn-of-the-20th-century facade, architect Christopher Polly transformed the rear of this Newtown, Australia, home from bleak to bright.