The outdoor fire pit.

Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers add a graphic touch to the garden.

Pavers and succulents in a yard in Malibu, California, help save water.

Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers add a graphic touch to the garden in the Mill Valley home of Dwell founder Lara Hedberg Deam and architect Chris Deam. Photo by Dustin Aksland.

A path created with Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers meanders through the garden past the master bedroom.

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.

Sphinx, the family Carolina dog, scouts the perimeter of the Concrete Collaborative pavers in the backyard. The pavers were installed on a slight angle to channel water to the surrounding gravel, lawn, and planting beds. This substantially lowers the landscape's water demand. Perforated PVC pipes and a pump move excess rainfall (which would otherwise go to storm drains) into an underground basin where it can later drain off. Redwood fencing reflects the material palette of the interior and creates visual continuity around the backyard.

In the back, ferns and other shade-friendly plants thrive beneath the home’s deep overhangs.

A mature avocado tree shades the hardscaped patio located just outside the great room.

Resident Brian Whitlock saved some serious cash by taking on much of the construction work himself. By wiring his house himself, he saved around $30,000. “People have a visceral fear of electricity, which is healthy in some ways,” he says. “But I think it gets a bad rap.”

A blend of Scotch moss and Corsican mint fills the space between pavers, adding a pleasant scent to the yard.

Usha and Mike Kreaden had a virtually blank slate when it came to the garden outside the 1958 Joseph Eichler house that they bought in Silicon Valley two decades ago.

Landscape designer Bernard Trainor’s creative use of poured-in-place concrete pavers—such as off the living room, where they break up a low-maintenance lawn of June grass—give the irregularly shaped lot a sense of order. Foxtail ferns and blue chalk sticks, a succulent, lend dashes of color to the entry courtyard, while thyme makes for a fragrant accent between the pavers.

An outdoor shower in the lower courtyard includes most of the materials that define the project, including Cor-Ten steel posts, horizontal ipe slats and decking, a custom seat and towel shelf set into a natural boulder, and concrete pavers. The yard includes many elements built for play, like a water feature embedded in a concrete wall that is fed by runoff rainwater collected from the breezeway roof.

For cross ventilation, the residents can open and close the large sliding doors around the porch, which the architect describes as “the heart of the home.” Likewise, windows are positioned to provide breezes when necessary.

Four-year-old Ian plays in the courtyard, which is the center of family life in warmer months.

“Before, the house turned its back on the landscape,” said Parish. “This renovation and addition really animates the garden.” Sliding glass doors match those of the living room beyond the deck, and both can be completely open to the yard.

Karen White, David MacNaughtan, and their sons, Griffin and Finlay, hang out on the front deckof their narrow home in Toronto’s leafy Roncesvalles neighborhood. A narrow modernist composition of glass panes and purple brick, the house slips like a bookmark between two older buildings, a bright three-story abode on a lot narrower than most suburban driveways. Photo by Dean Kaufman. Read more about the small house here.

Orpilla pecks, Apolo pedals.

This circa-1958 Eichler in Silicon Valley makes a mesmerizing first impression with its combination of ipe wood and neon-yellow resin. A garden, courtesy of landscape designer Bernard Trainor, fosters the illusion of more space.

The Opdahl House, designed by Edward Killingsworth for Richard and Joyce Opdahl, is located on the island of Naples, in Long Beach, California, and the design responds to the constraints imposed by the compact site.Unlike the neighbors, whose homes unflinchingly abut their property lines, Killingsworth set the Opdahl House 42 feet back from the street, dedicating half of the lot to a dramatic entryway that includes a carport, garden, and reflecting pool. The effect is one of entering a private sanctuary.

Outer Space Landscape Architects refreshed the courtyard with new hardscaping.

Unable to alter the footprint of the building, the Deams created a backyard living area that nearly doubled the home's living space.

Mila designed the home’s concrete pool, which is finished with a custom plaster. The pool area includes sleek chairs from Cast + Crew.

Like a lantern in the night, the cabin glows in its wooden setting once the sun goes down.

The internal courtyard looks into the living, dining and kitchen space of the home's ground floor.

Along with its durability, concrete requires very little maintenance.

The end of each bedroom opens up to a private brick patio connecting the two spaces. Doors along the side also open up to full expose the bedroom spaces to the pool.

For plantings, landscaper Aaron Teer helped select leafy specimens like the lion’s mane Japanese maples on the lower level.

The house was deliberately sited to preserve the two-acre property’s existing trees, three of which can be seen protruding through the surface of a rear deck.