Architects Joan Soranno and John Cook of HGA developed five site-specific cabins that tread lightly on the land at Marlboro College in rural Vermont. These deceptively simple structures update the regional vernacular. Every year, Marlboro College hosts the Marlboro Music Festival in which classical musicians join together to hone their craft. These cabins help support the musicians that live, work, and rehearse together.

Our expert spent an arvo lounging on chaise longues to decide which would make the short list.

Video Doorbell This goes one step further than the door opener, and allows you to see who is at your door through a video camera that is attached to the door bell. This is a great way to add security to your home, as you only have to let in people that you trust. But there is also the added bonus of a remote control that you can use to unlock the door without ever having to leave your seat. Photo via Digital Trends.

The entire family makes good use of the music room, where they hold public and private Sunday concerts with local and international musicians.

In one area of the apartment, Tagliabue’s son, Domenec, plays drums in front of a sliding wood panel of the architects’ design.

The clients intend to retire to the house. They asked that rooms be constructed flexibly on a non-domestic scale. This one, with an Eames lounge and floor-to-ceiling glass windows, frames a serene mountain vista like a painting.

2011: Peter Zumthor Wrapped in stark, black wood, Swiss architect Peter Zumthor’s Serpentine scheme presented a frame for Piet Oudolf’s lush garden, a use of color and space that manages to create a secret garden in an already outdoor space. Photograph © 2011 Walter Herfst

Brill's practice area features a ’50s Wurlitzer piano and a mid-’60s Ludwig drum kit. For acoustics, the architect insulated the walls with two layers of Sheetrock stuffed with denim insulation. The floor is made of pegboard—an unusual, albeit cost-effective, material choice.

Near the entrance is the front room, or music room, their daughter’s current favorite play area. “Every space needed to be used efficiently,” Parisien notes of the home’s remodel.

A new Lightroom exhibit by multimedia artist Bojana Ginn is set to open at the end of January 2016. Here, a three-channel video installation reinterprets the act of drawing through a new medium.

ISAM with Amon Tobin (2011) V-Squared Labs and Leviathan created this cutting-edge concert setup, which surrounds the Brazilian-born producer and DJ with real-time projection mapping and generative imagery. Image courtesy of Calder Wilson

Hundreds attended the kick-off party at New Center Park for the inaugural Detroit Design Festival in 2011. Photo by Noah Stephens.

Russell's Drawn to Music notebook, which features a built-in record sleeve, encourages you to doodle while listening to your favorite tunes. A line at the bottom of each page prompts you to note what you’re listening to as you draw.

Wolf mounted a platform for Kidd's video projector.

In Japan Style we explore the proliferation of Japanese design and how it's been folded into the story of modernism. Our cover story is actually in San Diego, and we hit a Japanese-inspired home in Edinburgh, Scotland too. Photo by: Daniel Hennessy

Untitled. From series "Funktionsorte," 2011.

Inspiration for the new season, Garden Furniture 2011, shot by Petra Bindel for Elle Interior.

In our 2011 small spaces issue we checked out the home of a pair of design-savvy Portlanders. And in the cover story we check out a small New York spot remade with 36 commercial doors. Photo by: Nicholas Calcott

Seen here, a sinuous rosewood music rack from 1980 along with Castle's original sketches."Castle should be better known, but in fact he is pretty well known among certain design circles, museums, and collectors," says Gordon. "I think he might be much more famous if he'd died a tragically young death in some violent American fashion and limited his output."

Formerly known as the Android Market, Google Play is a an Android phone-exclusive digital application that allows users to browse and download various types of media, such as music, books, movies, television shows, and apps published through Google. Here, Gison's design on the Android phone.

A balancing act, an earlier concept.

Tablet version.

Illustration for the launch of Google Play Music All Access by San Francisco-based graphic designer Zachary Gibson.

This one's an earlier concept, too.

The exterior of the Camerata Music Space and Gallery.

The Wilderness Downtown Video for Arcade Fire (2010) Directed by Chris Milk and created with friends from Google, Radical Media, and B-Reel, this interactive web and video project pushed forward the possibilities of HTML5. Image courtesy of the Barbican

The ground floor is a music room with a kind of blue vibe, thanks to the Richard Woods flooring.

Untitled. From series "Studie Eins," 2011.

Untitled. From series "Snow Blind," 2011.

Untitled. From series "Studie Eins," 2011.

2011, Studio Cerri & Associatti / Pierluigi Cerri and Allessandro Colombo.

Iwan Baan: Torre David #1 (2011)

Curator Marianne Bernstein and Penn Design students produced Not a Vacant Lot, a five-day exhibition re-imagining a vacant lot in the middle of Center City for DesignPhiladelphia 2011. Photo by Kevin Monko.

The yellow hall gives a bolt of energy as you head into to the lecture hall. © Greg Irikura 2013.

OD-11 by Stig Carlsson, Lars Lallerstedt, and Jesper Kouthoofd for Teenage Engineering, $899 First introduced in 1974, the OD-11 retains its minimalist styling but is updated to play cloud-based music. An added bonus: Its app mimics the look and feel of the physical remote (the red knob above).