This garage space uses iconic checkerboard floor tiles to contrast the rustic barn door that provides entry to the rest of The Barn.

Another view of the garage reveals its extensive space to house vehicles and protect them from the elements.

A couple enlist Butler Armsden Architects and Leverone Design to reimagine their home as a multigenerational meeting point. In 1963, landscape designer Lawrence Halprin devised a master plan for a community that would live in harmony with the natural environment. The resulting Sea Ranch, which stretches 10 miles along the Pacific coastline in Sonoma County, California, is characterized by timber-frame, wood-clad structures that are in dialogue with the local climate and terrain. Sited on a bluff within this pioneering community is the vacation home of a lawyer couple. After purchasing the residence in 2007, they lived in the home as it was for four years, even keeping the previous owners’ furniture. Envisioning a retreat that would accommodate their extended family and guests, they then recruited Butler Armsden Architects and Leverone Design to help guide the project.

Lightroom 1.0, a photography studio, is a freestanding structure on the property. “Together, they represent an autobiography of my career,” Carpenter says.

Sleeping nooks that look like the grooves in a block of cheese.

Fashion designer Josie and her husband Ken Natori are big fans of traditional Japanese architecture, so when Brooklyn-based practice Tsao & McKown Architects designed their home in Pound Ridge, New York, they used a heavy, exposed-timber structure, and included Japanese-style gardens and landscaping.

The owners of this 2,300-square-foot converted loft in SoHo have a penchant for color and collections. To make way for these elements, BC-OA kept new materials simple and desaturated with super white walls; oil-finished, white oak flooring; and white lacquered cabinetry. In the dining area, a custom designed, built-in, tufted banquette adds soft juxtaposition against the live edge dining table. The velvet upholstery is meant to provide contrast against the exposed, white-washed original brick in both texture and era. Overhead a brass chandelier with exposed Edison bulbs references the former Swan Incandescent Electric Light Co. which occupied the loft after construction was completed in 1897.

A look at the home's front facade. In a Melbourne suburb, Splinter Society Architecture designed the versatile home for Mark and Cara Harbottle and their three young children.

Inspired by modern Japanese minimalism, Hong Kong practice JAAK demolished the walls of this two-bedroom apartment and remodelled it into a studio with an

The living area boasts nearly 10-foot-high ceilings that impart a feeling of airiness and spaciousness. Discreet, built-in storage in the floor at the top of the steps prevents clutter from accumulating.

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"In this project, we got so much benefit out of this 'secret garden' for the master suite along with all of these environmental benefits that the residents were excited to embrace. It's one of the pieces we are happiest about," says architect Jonathan Feldman.

Moonshine is beautifully set in an isolated spot in the English countryside outside of Bath. The dramatic juxtaposition of a stone gamekeeper's cottage and a modern timber framed addition gives the home a quaint, pastoral feel while capitalizing on the dramatic view of St. Catherine's Valley.

Living in between the woods

Behind an unassuming 19th-century facade in Singapore's Joo Chiat neighborhood, Ching Ian and Yang Yeo's renovation of a typical shophouse venerates tradition while looking squarely to the future. Photo by Richard Powers

A passage between the walls for hide and seek.

This "local prefab" home on the Isle of Skye is made mostly from materials sourced in northern Scotland. The timber-framed model, meant to evoke the simple agrarian barns of the area, can be constructed on-site in as little as a day and is designed for affordability.

In their concrete-walled courtyard, Yuka and Aaron watch as twins Emerson and Jasper, daughters Maude and Mirene, and Alfie the dog play. The house is painted in Black Bean Soup by Benjamin Moore, a color in keeping with the period of the original architecture. The garden was designed by Lauren Hall-Behrens of Lilyvilla Gardens.

Day takes a swim in a new lap pool framed by a lush Southern California garden. The lower wall next to the pool is made from stacked Pennsylvania bluestone, which was used for all exterior stone as well.

Niko Architect and landscape firm Ecopochva designed a Moscow home that doesn’t play by the rectilinear rules of conventional architecture. Vegetation blankets the home’s concrete form, and its walls sweep upward and outward to become roofs. Molded floor-to-ceiling windows curve to grant panoramic views of the backyard and swimming pool.