Pricing is not yet available for ENSAMBLE, but a single board of cholguán retails for about $5. By keeping assembly simply and using glue to join the system, the Andes House hopes to make it a cost-effective solution for the office and beyond.

Architect Tamira Sawatzky used Ikea components—one-inch Lagan butcher block countertops and inexpensive Ekby Lerberg brackets—when designing the bookshelves along the living room wall in the home/studio he designed for himself and his wife in Toronto.

After spending hours digging through her partner’s extensive record collection, Kate Koeppel began to look for an organizational device for them. “So much of what I found on the market was plastic, or just poorly made, it didn't make sense for me or my partner to buy disposable dividers for a music collection that is so carefully curated and personal,” she says. “Listening to music on vinyl is such a considered and thoughtful experience, the sound is so detailed and precise, I wanted to design something clean, long-lasting and effective that would help organize and display the collection.” After numerous requests from friends and several prototypes, Koeppel released the first collection in November 2013.

Working closely with the laser cutter, she ensures that there is as little waste as possible in the process.

After experimenting with different types of wood, Koeppel favors a combination of white birch for its neutral coloring and sleek appearance.

Koeppel is also the founder of Skill Exchange, a workshop series on hand making and self-reliance skills, taught by local makers and business owners. "Running both my design practice and Skill Exchange help me feel balanced between digital making on the screen and the physical crafting of objects and goods," she says.

An open plan helps the apartment feel larger. Translucent curtains that act as room dividers, allowing a measure of privacy while still letting light pass through. They also hide the double-stacked Maytag washer and dryer from view.

Design studio the Andes House saw potential for an office system in an unlikely material. Cholguán, a natural, lightweight composite wood board that's commonly found in industrial packaging and backing for furniture, has been manufactured by the Chilean forestry company Arauco for over 50 years.

The ENSAMBLE Project, as the system is known, includes smaller panels for subdividing desks. Perforations allow office accessories to be hung within easy reach, like a pegboard.

Collaborating with Arauco, the Andes House tested the durability of cholguán by exposing it to liquid. To their surprise, they found the material survived but bent gently, revealing that it could be shaped to divide offices.

The Kelleys furnished the cottage with help from Suzanne’s daughter Betsy Burbank of Betsy Burbank Interiors. Classic modernist icons, such as a Saarinen Womb chair for Knoll, a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair, and an Eileen Grey E1027 side table look at home alongside present-day pieces such as an Encore sofa (which handily folds down into a sleeping surface) from Room & Board and a Doka rug designed and produced by Stephanie Odegard. The Wohlert pendant lights from Louis Poulsen were designed by Vilhelm Wohlert in 1959, but grouped as such, they appear distinctly contemporary.

Piet Hein Eek's wooden chairs add a touch of color to the monochromatic Amsterdram apartment of Hunter Hindman and Shelby Carr.

Two San Francisco art and travel addicts overhauled a loft—and customized a pair of shipping containers—to accommodate their collection and reflect their passions. The shipping containers were stacked, joined with steel tubes, and lashed to reinforced floor joints to make them earthquake-safe.

In the dining room, which opens to the backyard terrace, original tilework on the floors and walls complement decidedly modern counterparts—an original 1938 Butterfly chair by Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy, and a 1983 TMC floor lamp by Spanish designer Miguel Milá.

Lightweight and configurable, the designers see the system as a flexible solution for workspaces, as well as schools, libraries, and emergency shelters.

The dining room.

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The acclaimed Italian designers Ludovica + Roberto Palomba carved a serene retreat out of a 17th-century oil mill in Salento.

In the living room, spare Scandinavian design takes center stage. Hans Wegner’s Wishbone chairs surround an Essay dining table by Cecilie Manz for Fritz Hansen; a mostly wood palette is enhanced by slate-gray brick around the fireplace. The paper lanterns throughout the home are a mixture of classics by Isamu Noguchi alongside those picked up in Japan and France.

“What often happens in our relationship is I come to Funn with an idea and he makes it into something livable.” —Vincent Kartheiser

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.

The new volume houses the dining area, which includes stairs to the bedrooms. The table is from Blake Avenue and the walnut chairs are from Room & Board. “You don’t want bright colors to take away from that relationship between the interior and the exterior,” Walker says.

In the living area of actor Vincent Kartheiser’s Hollywood cabin, redesigned by Funn Roberts to maximize every last inch of space, an Eames lounge chair and ottoman mix with a couch and coffee table by Cisco Home from HD Buttercup. The table in the main room is from West Elm.

At the client’s request the kitchen contains neither upper cabinets (Shino can’t reach them) nor an oven (they only used the old one once—to reheat a pizza). A modular Roche Bobois Mah Jong sofa adds a decorative flourish to the living area while maintaining as low a profile as the traditional Japanese furniture.

In the house’s front room Monkman relaxes on a stool from local retailer Andrew Richard Designs. A new window system draws in sunlight and views of the front courtyard designed by local landscape architect Terry McGlade, the building’s former owner.

“We didn’t go out and buy a living room collection,” Sofie explains. “In our home, we tried to avoid trends. The furniture we have are things we have collected over many, many years.” Vintage Eames for Herman Miller lounge chair; Isamu Nuguchi table; and Rocking elephant by Rocking Zoo.

The living room is furnished with a Tolomeo Mega floor lamp by Artemide, a Milo Baughman Recliner 74, a Morsø 7648 wood stove, and a Hampton rug by Capel Rugs.

The kids room is outfitted with built-in bunk beds.

National Design Collective's Solomon retractable desk dividers can easily turn open workspaces into private ones.

The upper two levels of the home are set back from the street, increasing privacy and allowing light to flow uninhibited from the front clerestory window into the communal living spaces. On the top floor, the children's bedrooms are strategically veiled from the street by the slatted reflector screen.

Van Dusen began making her own clothing as a teenager after convincing her mom to buy a sewing machine she'd use to reconstruct her closet full of thrift store garments. Color was her primary muse, often favoring bright hues in unexpected combinations and graphic patterns. What she couldn't find, she created, albeit inefficiently — the only way she knew how — by assembling her own printed textiles, one element at a time.

The compact living area is just off the kids’ room.

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

Operable panels of the built-in cabinetry, in chocolate and caramel colors, offer cues to the color palette of more mobile furnishings. Using the same panel material, the architect customized a West Elm couch for the living room.

Designed by Stockholm firm Waldemarson Berglund Arkitekter, this prefab artist studio called Ateljé 25 is shaped like a Monopoly house, serves as an artist’s studio and has simple plywood interiors and massive skylights.

The living and dining room look out to the central courtyard, promoting indoor/outdoor living. Here, five doors slide into a pocket in the wall to create a nearly 23-foot-wide opening on one side looking into the garden. Another set on the opposite side enhances cross ventilation.