The charred cedar exterior gently basks in the Alaskan sun.

The landscaping appears to be based on the mullet principle: business in the front, as seen here (manicured grid lawn, with native vegetation sprouting in careful symmetry), party in the back (sunflowers and wild mountain grass growing in harmonious chaos).

A family of cost-conscious Hamburgers converted a kitschy turn-of-the-century villa into a high-design home with a strict budget in place. To unite the quaint masonry of the original villa with the squat, ugly add-on built flush against it, the architects decided to paint the old-fashioned facade graphite gray and then covered the box next door in plain, light-colored larch. Photo by Mark Seelen.

Originally designed by locally renowned architect Arthur Dallas Stenger, this 1960s home featured an unusual awning that was maintained during a 21st-century upgrade by architects Rick and Cindy Black. The architects partially reconfigured the interior layout, updated the kitchen, and added new doors to the porch, all the while making sure the adjustments to the house honored its midcentury provenance while still avoiding creating a time capsule.

A family in Hamburg, Germany, turned a kitschy turn-of-the-century villa into a high-design home with a few exterior tricks, including sheathing the exterior in one-dimensional, murdered-out black.

A series of charred modern boxes, the home Petra Sattler-Smith and Klaus Mayer designed for Martin Buser and Kathy Chapoton, is organized around views of the Alaskan landscape.

A verdant tundra that the architect dubbed the “courtyard” separates Bullitt’s house from his 900-square-foot studio. The space, which is planted with Bog Myrtle, bearberry, and other native plants, “reinforces...the dominance of the landscape over the building,” the architect says. “The end result was an exceedingly naturalized setting.”

Megan: Modernist Cuisine Every Saturday morning at 11:00 am, my friends and family know where they can find me. I'm watching America's Test Kitchen on PBS and then Cook's Country. I love these shows because I love cooking, but more than just the act, I love the science of food. Modernist Cuisine is a great collection of cook books I just discovered that highlight science-inspired techniques for preparing food. The authors, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet and their 20 person team at The Cooking Lab got super creative with tools such as water baths, homogenizers, centrifuges, and ingredients such as hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, and enzymes. This is cooking for the modern age!

A small terrace outfitted with an H55 easy chair by Björn Hultén offers a view of the San Francisco Bay.

The ever-changing, lush wooded surroundings of Minnesota, such as those experienced at this 8,000-square-foot Type Variant House outside of Minneapolis designed by Coen and Partners, are right near the small town of New Richland.

The 1956 all-white La Casa di Ucello Bianca, designed by an unkown architect, was carefully restored by its current owners.

One of the most astounding views from the house extends all the way to Mt. McKinley, the highest point in North America at over 20,000 feet.

The landscape design, by Anna Boeschenstein of Grounded, followed a 2,200-square-foot extension by Formwork architects Robert and Cecilia H. Nichols. The front door is painted in Chinese Red by Sherwin-Williams.

Upon his first visit to Tasmania, an island south of the Australian mainland, resident David Burns was immediately smitten with its varied, pristine landscape. Working with architecture firm Misho+Associates, he built a self-sustaining, 818-square-foot retreat that would allow him to completely unplug from urban life.

Achieving such efficiency and maintaining the integrity of the wetlands and woodlands on the property meant more research for both the designers and the resident—just getting approval for the siting of the buildings and the driveway took eight months—but Hague is hardly one to do things half way. “A lot of times couples engage in house-building, like birds. I'm doing this solo, more like a monk,” he says of the deeply personal undertaking.

Sited parallel to each other, the two autonomous bedroom cabins frame perspectival views of the surrounding landscape. Exteriors of all three structures feature mitered corners and cross-laminated timber panels, all nailed by hand.

The backyard’s emphasis on nature is mirrored in the front of the home, which also underwent extensive landscaping by Considered Design. The owners and Parish wanted to “tone everything down” and turn the home into a backdrop for a natural setting.

To combat the site’s steep, uneven grade, Boeschenstein staggered a series of ipe decks around the two main volumes of the house. Atticus joins his brother, Bodhi, on the zigzag decks.

“It was very important to get the integration between the garden and the house right,” Maynard says. The architects worked with Bush Projects to strike that balance, laying down concrete pavers and planting native flora that add to the home’s relaxed feel. Permanent steel awnings protect windows from glare, while retractable fabric ones by Shadefactor offer residents optional shelter when they sit outside.

Glass Houses Though the original plans called for a frameless wall of glass in the back, it turned out that it would eat up most of the budget. Instead, they installed three wood-framed windows made by Fecon. fecon.de Cut and Plant For the landscaping, the couple literally took a page out of somebody else’s book. Winterhalder says their garden was lifted from page 38 of Peter Janke’s Kleine Gärten (Small Gardens), published by Becker Joest Volk Verlag. bjvv.de

Crushed stone paths and native plantings, including cacti, wildflowers, and grasses, encompass the surrounding landscape. “We’re nothing but natural,” says Austin. “The cacti, to me, are like pieces of sculpture, each with their own personality. I even named some.”

Shope and his wife carefully designed an eco-friendly landscape: For instance, they did not fell any tree with holes that could support an owl’s nest. They also planted flower species that feed hummingbirds and monarch butterflies. Shope laid out the pathway of reclaimed granite slabs that leads toward the Hudson River below.

A rug is one of the few home accessories that is also an investment piece. Consider Alyson Fox’s limited Landscape Dhurrie rug. $2,200

A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.

An Introduction to Landscape Design: Cover the history of landscape architecture and learn how to cultivate your own backyard oasis.

Vilhelm Lundstrom portrait of Juhl’s wife, Hanne Wilhelm Hansen, hangs above Juhl's Poet sofa (1941). The sofa faces one of Juhl's most recognizable designs, the 1949 Chieftain chair. The white brick hearth extends into the room to resemble an area rug.

Also in La Casa di Ucello Bianca, sunlight from a clerestory reflects off white ceilings to illuminate richly hued furnishings.

With input from her clients, Barensfeld used a computer to generate the circular patterns that were carved into a pair of Cor-Ten steel screens with a water-jet cutter. The perforations allow light and the green of the surrounding Koi bamboo to filter into the space while preserving privacy.

The bedroom pavilion is mostly hidden, thanks to a massive native California oak—part of a grove. “That’s the good thing about oaks—they keep their leaves in the winter, so you don’t have one view in the summer and another in the winter,” Suzanne says.

The recycled shipping containers were sourced from the Pacific Port of Caldera in Costa Rica. “Discarded shipping containers are all over the world and cost relatively little,” Saxe says. “With a bit of creativity and understanding of local building techniques, the interiors can be modified for any client.”

Sliding aluminum panels on the facade of Green Orchard not only mirror the local flora, they also allow residents Fred and Edna Wadham to control how much sunlight enters their 2,150-square-foot home.

Glass panelling creates light and space within the room.

"A flower that rises from the rock" is how Niemeyer described this organic, saucer-like structure, a home for art and design that boasts beautiful views of Guanabara Bay. An inviting red walkway snakes up towards the entrance towards the main cupola.

The structure is characteristic of the town's architecture. The city was rebuilt by modernist architects from the nearby Bordeaux school after it was destroyed during World War II.

Ray Kappe, now 80, sits in the master bedroom. He says he's as busy now as he was 40 years ago.

"The labyrinth | Map"