This 450-square-foot apartment includes an origami-like desktop that unfolds to reveal a perforated-steel divider that allows the passage of computer cables hidden inside the office compartment. This transformer-like cabinet helps maximize limited square footage.

Whether you’ve given up on houseplants after past failures, are totally new to the green thumb game, or just want to get a refresher course on the hardiest plants out there, this list is for you.

The kitchen and dining area opens onto a patio. Photo by Ken Pagliaro Photography.

Gartnavel garden. Art installation by Archie McConnel. Architect: Rem Koolhaas, OMA. Landscape Architect: Lily Jencks. © Nick Turner.

Gartnavel interior. Architect: Rem Koolhaas, OMA. © Nick Turner.

Maggie's Gartnavel exterior. Architect: Rem Koolhaas, OMA. © Nick Turner.

Gartnavel kitchen table. Architect: Rem Koolhaas, OMA. © Nick Turner.

Like a Murphy bed, the dining table tucks into the wall when not in use.

The streetside facade, dominated by site-poured concrete, contains the garage, from which Jacobson and Dukes escape for a quick surf.

In the master bathroom, the couple traded an outdated tile tub for the BOV 02 from Wetstyle and added fixtures, towel bars, and hooks from Vola. The hallway, which retains its original black granite floor, leads past paneled walls to a deck.

Their location just below midtown, where they’ve been since 2002, occupies 20,000 square feet and includes a walk-through retail space that spans 23rd to 24th Streets.

The custom zinc cabinets and quartzite countertops of Mark Berryman’s Tribeca apartment reflect the sun as it sets over Manhattan. Workstead designer Robert Highsmith kept the apartment’s original fir beams and painted its existing pipes Onyx by Benjamin Moore. The counter stools are by Sawkille, and the floors are white oak from LV Wood. The range is by Viking.

In Situ Design and Lilian B Interiors adapted a six-story brownstone in midtown Manhattan into a boutique hotel with 33 guest suites. Each floor received what the designers call a “visceral” color treatment using Benjamin Moore paints, including Outrageous Orange.

The cavernous living room takes advantage of its height with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

This New York City home is studded with pieces by such famous names as Knoll, Saarinen, and Risom. Deployed throughout the loft, these modern icons at once unify and separate work and life. Like the architecture, they can be read two ways: as recognizably typical office furniture or as prized home-design collectibles.

2006: Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup This massive, egg-shaped orb, like a blimp about to achieve flight, lit up Kensington Park during the summer of 2006, with a roof that literally floated free of the main structure. The structure played host to an array of event and live broadcasts, including a day-long discussion featuring Koolhaas dishing with leading designers, philosophers and filmmakers about the hidden levels of London. Photograph © 2006 John Offenbach

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German designer Maximilian Schmahl created the DIY beacon while considering the philosophy behind his new fifti-fifti label, making a equal connection between the object and the customer. “I wanted to make a product you can customize, something that gives you joy while using it, a vibrant product,” he said. “I started to experimenting with perforated paper and it was just perfect to design a lamp with it. The owner can decide for him or herself where the light comes through the shade.”

Custom curtains by Manhattan Textiles delineate the kitchen and sleeping room from the main space. A Rais Pina wood-burning stove keeps things cozy on the West Elm Henry sofa and Eames lounge chairs.

Marcia takes in the view.

Take-Off Light These flat-packed, laser-stitched lamp shade invites endless customizations.

Rendering of the different pieces of the lamp.

The bedroom takes up the small second floor of the house.

A well-placed writing desk takes advantage of the view.

Although the apartment had existed since 1981, this Manhattan home was originally a 1900s warehouse. Despite the high ceilings, the rooms were a series of confined spaces. Clients Graham Mills and Jac Nolan hired Dale Riedl and his firm, DRD Studio, to open up the the 1,200-square-foot apartment by renovating the living room, kitchen, and half bathroom on the first floor along with the full bathroom and bedroom on the second floor.

This living room is filled with an array of plants that include a moss wall, an air plant wall, Staghorn Ferns, a variety of potted plants, hanging ceiling plants, and trees.

Eric Schneider and Michael Chen take in the space-efficient renovation.

A view of the house from the front. Photo by Ken Pagliaro Photography.

Photo by Ken Pagliaro Photography.

"Architecture helps influence the mood and set the scene," architect Jon Handley of Pulltab Design says. That mindset is quite evident in this 700-square-foot Manhattan apartment, where a young couple now maximizes their small space with a clever, fold-away dining table.

Another view of the upstairs hallway, which features bamboo flooring. Photo by Ken Pagliaro Photography.

Flatiron Penthouse When violinist Joshua Bell hired Charles Rose Architects to turn the upper floors of an old manufacturing plant in the Flatiron District into his home and salon, he had an unusual request: Make this contemporary penthouse feel like a 300-year-old Gibson Stradivarius violin. And while the central design features of the 4,000-square-foot apartment—like a dramatic oxidized steel-and-glass stair, rooftop atrium, outdoor spa, trellised pergola, and copper-clad chimney—aren’t a strict interpretation of the brief, Rose has replicated the richness and graceful details of the prized wood instrument.

An outdoor hangout sits beneath an arbor-like overhang. A waterfall wall partitions a neighbor's terrace, and adds ambient noise.

The great room takes shape.

The modular construction is visible in the exterior, where individual units jut out to create a stepped facade that celebrates the construction process while still relating to the scale and texture of the surrounding architecture.

In Manhattan, where space is the ultimate luxury, a clever design workaround makes a dining table disappear after supper.