The outdoor hearth is primed for cooking in the summer.

About her collection of cookware, Tyler comments: “I use accessories as the color in spaces so these items are an integral part of the overall design."

Shoku enjoys cooking.

The material was gathered from soil with high sand content on the property as well as a second site in the vicinity. Certain volumes of the home consist of a concrete structure and brick masonry.

Here's what the kitchen looked like before.

This "local prefab" home on the Isle of Skye is made mostly from materials sourced in northern Scotland. The timber-framed model, meant to evoke the simple agrarian barns of the area, can be constructed on-site in as little as a day and is designed for affordability.

Workspace at the Practice Space Incubator Broadly speaking, the Practice Space concept rethinks what an incubator does. In contrast to the dominant trend of seeding tech-based startups to revitalize the region’s economic base, Practice Space supports brick-and-mortar concepts, such as coffee shops and grocery stores, with ideas, implementation and design. Photo by Doug Coombe

Here's a wider view of the exterior.

Here's what the living room looked like before.

Arba, the architecture firm founded by Jean-Baptiste Barache and Sihem Lamine, designed a 1,786-square-foot residence for Dominique Jacquot 45 minutes outside Paris. The house is her sanctuary from city life.

Black and white kitchen cabinets painted with a triangular pattern add a whimsical touch to this funky kitchen.

Here's a conceptual design drawing of "Screenplay."

The Hang Around cooking set designed by KiBiSi for Muuto.

Interior designer Martine Brisson took to this Quebec country home's terrace with gusto, furnishing it with many of the same amenities one would expect indoors.

“We want guests to come together and eat and have a drink,” says Judith, “but we also want guests to feel like they have their private space.”

Here's what the glass bottle looks like sans covering.

The Hoover Dam, one of the country’s great engineering feats, is just a few miles from Vegas and warrants a visit.

Here's the interior of the Hadid-designed tasting pavilion.

Glass doors printed with a serigraphy technique (above) are on two sides of the house. Jacquot sits at a dining table and benches designed by Arba and built by Menuiserie Ressy.

Here's the "monstrosity."

When Abbie and Bill Burton hired Marmol Radziner to design their prefab weekend home, their two requests were “simple-simple, replaceable materials,” says Abbie—such as concrete floors (poured offsite in Marmol Radziner's factory) and metal panel siding—and “the ability to be indoors or outdoors with ease.” Deep overhangs provide shade and protection from rain, so the Burtons can leave their doors open year-round and hang out on their 70-foot-long deck even in inclement weather. They visit the house once a month, usually for a week at a time, with Vinnie and Stella, their rescue Bernese Mountain dogs. Their two adult children occasionally join them. The couple hopes to one day retire here.

Here's the exterior of the Paul Rudolph–designed structure.

At no more than $25 a pop, these affordable goodies are downright perfect for everyone you know.

Here's what the site looked like before Bernstein arrived on the scene.

The house has four varieties of wood that relate to one another with a similar material vocabulary. “It is all about finding ways to assemble pieces of the same nature,” says Lamine.

Another tactic is perishable items that look good enough to display on a kitchen counter. This line of Greek olive oil fits the bill--it even won a Red Dot Design Award for packaging in 2012. FIVE Organic extra virgin olive oil, $49 each at Ultra Lavish.

Here, a rendering of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects' design.

Here is a pair of handsome candlesticks designed by Lilith Rockett.

In the entryway, what at first appears to be a rug is actually cut blue glass terazzo designed by Marwan Al-Sayed.

Here, a rendering of the Solar Shuttle designed by SolarLab Research and Design.

The concrete wall mimics the slope of the hill outside as a reference to early Maori structures that were dug into the land. The simple kitchen has strandboard cabinetry and an MDF island that conceals a fireplace at one end. The ceramic works on the built-in seat at right are by Raewyn Atkinson and Robyn Lewis.

Here are a few testers I did before I started printing on my cards.

After living on and studying a woodsy acre of land in North Zealand, Denmark, architect Jesper Brask cleared a stand of pine trees and, from the timber, built a getaway open to its surroundings. The house, which Brask shares with his wife, Lene, and sons, Kristian, Jens, and Niels, is used mainly in summer, when the weather is optimal for throwing open the glass doors.

Train tracks run adjacent to Beam & Anchor, adding to its romantic charm.