“There is a lot of glass so you can enjoy the view and the outdoor lifestyle even inside,” Henrik explains. “You live in the middle of the weather somehow. It’s a really harsh environment, as you have these southwesterly winds blowing through the house. But it is really beautiful as well.”

The family room is situated at the apex of the house, with picturesque views that extend up the meticulously landscaped north slope. The concrete floor sits just low enough that the main elements of the scene—the succulent garden and large limestone ledges—are at eye level. A bank of NanaWall folding windows breaks up the fourth wall.

The clients insisted that none of the trees on the property be disturbed, so Kevin Alter and his team at Alterstudio Architecture built a deck and an overhang around two of them.

Another view of the deck.

Alterstudio Architecture of Austin designed this house in the Texas capital for a young family of four.

In consultation with the clients, Alterstudio opted to clad the house in local cypress rather than imported, FSC-certified ipe.

The family are avid fans of watersports of all stripes: “Windsurfing and the stand-up paddling board—the beach is right outside,” says Henrik. “It’s a fun house.”

The architect placed the windows at Sabrina’s eye level so that she’d be able to see her son, Rocco, playing in the yard outside. "You can feel the seasons changing here," says Chiavelli. "I grew up three miles from here, outside in nature. This is a house for experiencing life."

A bothouse in Georgian Bay, Ontario, by Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Ltd. is clad in black-stained resawn cedar.

A food-service area with a bar is a defining feature.

Mark Word Design did the landscaping, with an emphasis on water conservation. "It's about usage levels, but it's also about the way we treat storm water and runoff since it all goes back into our supply at the end of the cycle," designer Sarah Carr says. Word and his team chose plants that help reduce erosion, require little watering, and allow storm water to percolate. Mulch and living ground covers—including Big Blue liriope, marsilea, and Palisades zoysia turf—keep moisture within the soil and lower the temperature of the soil, protecting the roots of the live oak trees.

The interior combines modern and more traditional elements, such as this oriental rug.

The cypress cladding carries over from the exterior to the interior of the house.

On one side of the house, a white central staircase leads to a split-level landing the Robertsons call "the reading room." "We needed a place to hang out and for the kids to read," explains owner Vivi Nguyen-Robertson. Awaiting the birth of the couple's son, she relaxes in a built-in reading nook in the library.

Though the fire pit was “kind of an after-thought,” says Hannah, the family uses it year-round. “In the spring and fall, it warms you up on cool nights, and in the summer, it just adds ambience.”

Harper sits on the porch just off the entrance. James notes that the children spend their time “swimming in the dam, feeding the chickens, and riding their ponies or bikes. It’s really just the simple stuff that we had when we grew up in the late ’70s and ’80s."

Of the seven steps in Michael Pozner’s not-quite-500-square-foot aerie in Greenwich Village, five contain drawers. His small set of table and chairs is from CB2.

The family sits around, and under in the case of four-year-old Kaz’ma, the sunken table for a snack. Makiko made the covers of the mats her mother sent from Japan by hand. The black lamp is from Ikea.

A new coat of glazing (and a bit of a modern paint job on the exterior) brings a clawfoot bathtub back to life.

The house comprises a series of modules, with the main living areas occupying the center and the master bedroom on the right. A large deck juts off the living room.

Oskar and Karl, 12 and 9, share breakfast at their family’s summer getaway in Sweden. The table is from ILVA, and the CH36 chairs by Hans Wegner are from Carl Hansen & Søn.

On a trip to Naoshima, Japan, the Houston newlyweds behind Robertson Design fell in love with Tadao Ando’s concrete-composed museums. This led the couple to create a residence of their own comprised of a low concrete wall, concrete cube, and box clad in Siberian larch. The indoors are rounded out with white oak, marble, and leather-finished granite.

The low windows in the master bedroom focus the view on the backyard, not the neighbors. Christopher designed the solid poplar platform bed.

Roberto Burneo designed this home for his eldest niece, her husband, and their three young children in a suburb outside Quito, the capital of Ecuador. The house is set on a flat expanse of land with fruit trees, and Burneo's design "guides the social areas inward in order to link them to the gardens.”

Tina and Matthew Ford, here with daughter Daisy, are the owners of Shade House Development, the company that designed and is building the suite of houses that comprise Row on 25th in Houston, Texas.

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.

The series of pitched white buildings was inspired by the work of architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen. “The shell of the house is a very simple form,” says Matthew Ford, “no turns or intersecting roof sections. This allowed me to use solid but inexpensive framing and roofing crews. We are always looking for the point where simplicity and luxury meet.”

Burneo took advantage of the perpendicular orientation of the volumes to create outdoor spaces that look out to the gardens.

Sawn wood planks add texture to the interior walls.

Burneo oriented the house in a pair of perpendicular volumes. The ground floor houses the public areas, including a study, while the top volume, housing the bedrooms and a family room, is oriented north-south, allowing for warm sunlight and a visual orientation toward the gardens.

The custom kitchen counters are concrete, and the yellow dining chairs add a welcome splash of color.

Burneo added exposed brick to his palette of interior materials.

Using natural materials is one way of bringing nature indoors. Oiled white ash floors and ceilings, along with Italian poplar and Lawson cypress joinery, are found throughout architect Andrew Simpson’s 538-square-foot home outside Wellington, New Zealand.

The former dining room is now home to Russell and Fontanez’s custom kitchen, designed by LOT-EK and fabricated by Chef Restaurant Supplies. “We love to entertain,” Russell says. “Before, the galley kitchen was in the hallway; now we can cook and still be a part of the party.” The space-saving setup, which adjoins the living room, features stainless steel–paneled cabinets, DuPont Corian countertops, Onda stools by Jesus Gasca for Stua, and fixtures and appliances by Grohe, Liebherr, and Miele. To maximize space, the designers specified that the cabinets be built around a former fireplace in the kitchen. “Because there’s a bump out where the chimney is, we turned the sink lengthwise,” Lignano says. “The cabinet directly overhead is only four inches deep, so it’s just a huge spice rack.” The island provides ample additional storage.

Perched above a lake on Australia’s verdant Mornington Peninsula, James and Imogen Tutton’s teak-clad house was designed by Karen Alcock of Melbourne-based MA Architects.