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.

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.

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.

Regain focus and boost your productivity—here, we walk you through seven steps to soundproofing your home office.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The three levels of the house transition from public to private: The ground floor is composed of the kitchen and living-dining area; the bathroom and closet occupy the mezzanine, accessed by a ship’s ladder; and the sleeping loft hovers a couple steps above. The seminal 1970s tome A Pattern Language, written by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein, inspired the layout. “I’m a huge proponent of the [book],” says Azevedo. “I like the ideas of a bed as an alcove, natural light on two sides of a room, varying ceiling heights, and different levels of privacy.”

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."

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.

Steel rods surround the staircase. A MayDay lamp by Konstanting Grcic for Flos is affixed to the rope wall.

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."

The ultra-compact "sleeping berths" are a couple of steps up from the ground. Deep frame windows mediate views to the outside and the white walls bounce diffused light to illuminate the space as if it were a light box.

Architect Chris Pardo designed the Element 1 model for prefab builder Method Homes, cladding it in Cor-Ten steel and cedar. Pardo’s design “is the definition of simple, elegant, straightforward building,” resident Karen Kiest says.

Muji's compact sofa is suitable for small spaces, whether it's a tight-squeeze apartment or a small guest room. Available in brown, light grey, and dark grey, this couch makes saving space and money easy.

Unlike your typical sawhorse desk, which often comprises a pair of struts and a board as the desktop, the QuaDror system can support a much sleeker aesthetic.

Compact Desk “Designers always like the idea of sawhorses for desks,” Benshetrit says. “They’re cheap and easy to move, multiply, and put away.” The QuaDror version has a slightly smaller footprint than a standard sawhorse, which means more lateral leg room, “and if you orient the V side of the triangle toward where you’re sitting, it’s even roomier.” Additionally, “it folds flat, doesn’t require assembly, and works with any desktop.” Studio Dror plans to self-market the desk, first on the Web, then through selected stores, and to hit different price points depending on the quality of the wood. “I like the Johnnie Walker approach—birch is Red Label, mahogany is Blue.”

"This piece came out of a need for a bread bin which carried our aesthetic into the kitchen space," Pedersen says. "Kitchens have become increasingly smaller; we are aware that it's precious real estate, hence the more compact size and the added feature of the lid flipping over to become a recipe book stand."

The interior dry walls are made of layered spruce plywood panels, rubbed with transparent oil. The ceiling is concrete.

Two bedrooms flank a petite loft space, bringing the apartment's total sleeping spaces to three.

Inside a Rolling Hut by Tom Kundig of Olson Kundig Architects, a metal fireplace keeps the compact interior of the chalet cozy.

The bed is located just behind the desk.

Boom Boom by Matthieu Lehanneur for Binauric, $249 Taking an angular tack to audio electronics, Boom Boom is more akin to an objet d’art than to its brick-like brethren. It’s chargable via USB port or outlet, Bluetooth-enabled, compatible with Apple and Android systems, and works as a speakerphone.

The Sound1 Speakers are a small audio solution that Dad can take on the go. Created by Korean design house cloudandco for 11+, the speakers combine minimalist styling with the freedom of wireless listening. The speakers deliver clear, crisp stereo sound throughout the room and pair with Bluetooth-enabled portable devices and computers.

Low-ceilned and darker than the other quarters, it’s not a surprise that the designers call Narek Gevorgian’s room “the cave.” A work in progress, it’s their first attempt to slowly introduce color to the double-insulated interior walls.

The plaster on the bedroom wall was too hard to remove, but Vorontsov is glad the clients kept it; its unique texture adds dimension to the six-foot-wide bedroom. It owes its tiny size to two bearing walls Crosby Studios had to work around.

Loop by Libratone, $500 Whether mounted to a wall or stationed on its stand, the Red Dot Award–winning Loop delivers crisp, all-encompassing sound in a handsome yet compact package. The Italian-wool cover is available in eight colors. Stream tunes wirelessly from your computer or phone.

Located at the rear corner of the installation, down a progressively narrowing hallway, and reached by a steep staircase, Eric Juron’s attic-like space is the most remote of the bedrooms. A window over his desk looks down through the gap between the Major and the Minor.

Working within the constraints of a modest budget, the design team creatively mixed custom-designed pieces with more affordable items. For example, the shared kitchen features a Franke kitchen sink and IKEA cabinetry and appliances. Framing the kitchen wall, an old gymnasium ladder adds an historical touch. The biggest challenge of the project, says Wierciński, was to “execute a low budget project with a unique original style.”

Justin Smith’s cell-like quarters are packed full of books and art. “Each room gets the bare minimum: a sleeping area, a desk, and storage,” explains Ionescu. The designers carefully laid out the space so that the beds in each room are as far apart from each other in plan as possible, in order to get as much privacy as possible.

The Alvar Aalto dining chairs, which sit against a table (Table 86A) and lamp (Pendant Lamp A110) by the same designer, were deliberately chosen because they sit slightly lower to the ground and can be used in the living area as well. The back wall unit includes a television, garden-view windows, and fireplace, surrounded by an Aalto chair (Armchair 400) and a daybed from a Melbourne designer. The window’s placement allows residents to look out on the garden while blocking the views from the neighboring eight-story apartment building.

SOCIAL HEAT What’s the best way to warm a small studio? Ekaterina Voronova opted for a compact wood-burning stove to keep her space cozy.

The new laundry layout features built in compact washer/dryer and painted shaker cabinetry.