The home’s enclosed courtyard sits at “the heart of the structure,” says Baumann, who resides with his wife, Lisa Sardinas, and eight-year-old son, Oskar. “This is clearly the dominant space; everything flexes towards it.” Baumann cast the square concrete floor tiles himself, enlisting the help of his son. A small, neat patch of grass—a playful nod to the archetypal domestic lawn—is edited down to a charming folly.

The bedroom’s vertical, floor-to-ceiling window lets occupants admire the graceful trees outside. A Mini Tolomeo lamp by Artemide sits on the bedside table.

In an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, a verdant green roof of native grasses, wildflowers, and fruits creates an oasis.

The Gregory Residence is a masterclass example in design. Furnished by renowned New Hope woodworker George Nakashima, this private and rustic home offers ingenious versatility over its 1,644 square feet of space on a 10-acre lot.

The project’s unique challenges—a tight budget and steep, difficult terrain—led architecture firm _naturehumaine to a creative solution that gave the house its delightfully sculptural appearance. Making the first floor’s envelope slightly narrower than the top one’s saved money while minimizing the amount of excavation required.

The guesthouse hovers above the motor court. "The main area was broken up into four zones: the kids wing, the guest suite, the master suite, and the living-dining room and kitchen, which is a transition area, where public meets private," says Hawkins.

The architects stuck to a gray-scale color palette, installing slate tile floors that softly contrast with the white walls and Eames dining chairs. “It lets the views out the windows become the focus,” Dworkind explains. Doses of pure black accent important features, like the central wall that divides the kitchen and master bedroom behind it from the main living space.

In February of 2007, two San Francisco art and travel addicts purchased a 3,200-square-foot former Chinese laundry and tooth-powder factory with column-free interiors and a zigzagging sawtooth roof in lower Pacific Heights. They customized a pair of shipping containers to accommodate their collection and reflect their passions, and hired a local company to sandblast the interior to expose the board-formed concrete walls and replace the carpeted floors with Georgia hickory pecan planks to further lengthen the loft and make it look more like a warehouse.

Architect Lorcan O’Herlihy created a remarkable residence for himself and his wife, Cornelia, just off Pacific Avenue in Venice, California. Photos by: Misha Gravenor

Baumann designed the plywood bed frame and shelving unit in the master bedroom, adjacent to an exposed cinder-block wall, a new addition to the structure.

The house is oriented to maximize views of the ocean and Edgartown to the west, and Nantucket and Cape Pogue Bay to the east. Natural sea grasses sourced from the surrounding area cover the roof of the building, providing thermal insulation while also dampening the noise of rain, improving air quality, and helping to manage rainwater flow.

The Baumann family residence in Gowanus, Brooklyn, is all geometry up front, with a rectilinear grid of steel and cypress comprising the structure’s double facade.

The upstairs showers are particularly ingenious: Operable skylights loom above, and perforated, galvanized-steel platforms open up to spacious, sunken bathtubs.

Large sliding glass doors suspend the living room within the landscape for family gatherings or larger events.

The relationship between interior and exterior becomes crucial in the articulation of the residence.

The first floor consists of two long and narrow structures that intersect in an open kitchen, providing distinct programmatic areas and settling into the tree-lined landscape, allowing yards to surround and permeate each room.

Tom Givone's current weekend abode, nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, is—so far—his capstone project, a synthesis of personal taste, material experimentation, and historically sensitive restoration: a living laboratory for how to bring the vernacular past into the present.

Overhead cabinets now can be easily swung open for ease of access. The kitchens are priced at IKEA’s usual retails. A 10 by 10 foot kitchen fitted with Sektion cabinets will range from around $1,300 to $2,200, excluding appliances.

Maximizing daylight is only one of the sustainable design strategies used in the Low/Rise residence.

Long, unobstructed corridors along the spine of the house provide ample cross-ventilation during warmer months—as well as sightlines that unite different areas of the home’s narrow, linear footprint. “When you’re in the back of the building, you can literally see the front door of the person across the street,” says architect and resident Philippe Baumann. Thick industrial glass lines the footing of the stairwell with subtle transparency, allowing light to also traverse the space vertically.

One North Face tent sits atop a deck; another caps the main building, which contains a kitchen and dining area. Photo by: Dean Kaufman

Black and white kitchen tiles add visual interest to this stunning modern kitchen by IKEA.

The kitchen opens to the elements thanks to sliding doors from C.R. Laurence. The anigre in the kitchen is the same employed in the master bedroom.

Anne Suttles waters the bamboo muhly, palo verde, strawberry tree, and magic carpet thyme thriving in their Austin yard.

A tiny outbuilding offers a cozy living space inside a simple shell.

In this sustainable home in Silicon Valley, the primary suite opens to a deck and fern garden with large, sliding glass doors.

Working is much more pleasant when you have natural light to brighten up your space. If you aren’t lucky enough to have a window, then invest in some stylish lighting.

Architecture firm _naturehumaine designed a dream hideaway in eastern Quebec, complete with a centralized fireplace. The modern fireplace was built into a custom, multi-purpose cabinet welded from sheets of hot-rolled steel. It stores firewood on one end with an open shelve, holds a TV, and even acts as a guardrail for the staircase.

In the bathroom, the architects mounted a Kohler sink on a sloped, custom-slate countertop. Since the stone doesn’t hold up well in water, the architect switched to black mosaic tile in the shower. The faucets are from Cabano’s Century series.

In the kitchen, the architects reigned in the house’s high ceilings for a more intimate feel; its lower height also tastefully hides unsightly ducting necessary for ventilation. Beneath the bar sit two Kaysa Black Bar Stools by Baxton Studio. A Gessi faucet complements a Blanco Modex sink.

As the facade of a Bates Masi-designed home in Water Mill, New York, rises from eight to 14 feet high, the mahogany planks subtly widen. “It was quite a demand to make of the contractor,” architect Paul Masi says. “But the design was so much about traveling through the site and weaving [the house] together with the deck.”

Fed up with flashy, environmentally insensitive beach homes, architect Gerald Parsonson and his wife, Kate, designed a humble hideaway nestled behind sand dunes along the New Zealand coastline. Crafted in the image of a modest Kiwi bach, their 1,670-square-foot retreat consists of a group of small buildings clad in black-stained pine weatherboards and fiber-cement sheets.

The family spends summers and school vacations at the bach. New Zealand's relatively mild winters mean they use the house year-round.

The home’s lower level serves as a garage, allowing direct access to the house.

Tanya Wexler and Amy Zimmerman linger in the breezeway designed to draw eyes, and footsteps, from the driveway through the house to the gently sloping backyard and swimming pool beyond.