Bruce Thatcher and Kirsty Leighton behind their London home.

Architect Paul Hinkin and his partner, Chrissy Pearce, bought and restored a 538-square-foot Deckhouse at Emsworth Yacht Harbour in Hampshire, England.

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.

With the help of builder Peter Watts, the couple returned the house to its original early-1970s glory, utilizing the space beneath for both boat and car.

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

Kayak in hand, Tom and Will make a break for the beach.

The two structures are in constant dialogue. Not only are their forms in sympathy, but as they're set at right angles to one another, they are rarely out of view.

The wood-frame residence and studio are clad in vertical cedar siding—back then, a daring competitor to clapboard—instead of concrete to save costs. The effect is equally seamless, however: “If you drive by it fast enough,” Charles Gwathmey once said, “you still might mistake it for a concrete house.” Photo by Norman McGrath.

Pacek and Roynon peeled away wallpaper to reveal layers of old paint that serendipitously complemented the color scheme of their new kitchen, and used a circular frame to preserve a section of it. The matte-chrome handles and pulls are by Mockett.

The dining room features a Glo-Ball T table lamp by Jasper Morrison.

Tucked away in a corner of Norfolk County, England, this pair of barns—one new, one renovated—sit low in the vast countryside.

The house is located on a 25-acre site. It sat unsold on the property for two years before the couple discovered it.

The sunny side of the home is clad in cedar weatherboards and features sleeping quarters on the upper level with living spaces below.

“I wanted to do a house that belonged on the site,” she says.

Who says kitchen islands can’t work in small spaces too? A design-minded pair ensures that their tiny seaside getaway in Hampshire, England, is shipshape. At 538 square feet, this home is efficiently designed, with an interior that was influenced by the compact housing that you see in Japan. The kitchen and island have been sized to fit the small space, but the island’s minimal finishings keep it feeling appropriate.

A circular tower echoes the former gas storage cylinder that once occupied its place. It houses a private study.

Near the room’s curving wall, a Verner Panton chair joins a K2 B console table by Tecta, topped by a vintage mirror by Robert Welch. The wall light is from Flos. “If I had more space, I’d just fill it with more stuff,” says Pearce.

The cedar-and-glass structure rises over an expansive rear patio. Although it is larger than some of its neighbors, the home nearly matches the height line of the surrounding houses due to its flat, modern roof.

The master bedroom echoes the house’s black-and-white exterior and includes a custom-built storage unit that the architect designed for the space.

The most unique feature of the Lighthouse is the windcatcher, or the vertical void that cuts down through the center of the house from the roof.

The walls of the bathroom are covered in large, white ceramic tiles, with the exception of one side clad in reclaimed wood with an IKEA cabinet.

"You become very much more aware of the landscape by putting objects in it," says Merer. The historical landmarks of the town are beautifully framed by the angular metal lookouts. The Cor-Ten exterior is corrosion-resistant and will develop a unique surface patina over time.

Daylight adds to the warm ambiance of the wooden millwork of the Nature Preserve House kitchen.

The Nature Preserve House in Middlebury, Vermont, won the AIA Vermont Merit Award for Excellence in Architecture.

In Kathryn Tyler’s finished home, a palette of wood, concrete, and painted brick forms a neutral backdrop for vintage treasures, including a $30 dining table, $3 poster, and a set of 1950s Carl Jacobs Jason chairs she snagged on eBay for $400.

These wood-wrapped spaces take oriented strand board to new heights.

"I think an architect’s job is to celebrate what people really care about and simplify and streamline the rest.” —Page Goolrick

For now, one-year-old Awa is small enough to sleep in the hammock that hangs from the ceiling.

Manning House by Jack Manning (1960)

To integrate the former postman’s cottage with the new design, architect David Sheppard added a concrete column adjacent to an existing stone chimney and a new slate chimney “at the heart of the composition.” From this, the roof structure fans out; the small structure now serves as an anteroom.

In the living room, Arne Jacobsen Swan chairs flank a Marcel Breuer for Isokon nesting table. Above the Florence Knoll–designed credenza is a print by English artist Terry Frost. The adjacent deck holds Breuer’s Folding Armchair and a table from Aram in London.

The house that Henri Sayes designed for himself and his wife, Nicole Stock, is distinguished by a cutaway in the cedar cladding that mirrors the angular double-height space within. In the yard, a grassy berm, fashioned from earth excavated for the foundation, takes the place of a fence.

Ballantyne House by Warren & Mahoney (1959)

A sectional sofa raised to dining height furnishes the dining area, along with vintage Hans Wegner chairs upholstered in ostrich leather. Serra custom-made the table, using Cosentino's Dekton x-Gloss Halo. The rug is from Scandinavian Made.

Waechter Architecture reimagined a traditional gabled home in southeast Portland without significantly altering the original building. A simple coat of red paint abstracts the century-old structure, creating a residential work of art.

The clients and design team chose to forego an open floor plan in favor of defined, separated spaces. In this scheme, the vertically oriented spaces act as a cinematic "hard-cut" to their horizontal counterparts. The custom hot rolled steel kitchen, one of these vertical transition spaces, receives light from above through a Velux skylight. A GE Profile Induction cooktop and oven and Miele refrigerator complete the space.