Athens gallery The Breeder's booth featured Andreas Agelidakis' carpet-draped "Crash Pad," a chill-out spot featuring architectural miniatures, books, and hanging artwork.

Frieze Art Fair; Friday May 4th 2012

Frieze Art Fair; Friday May 4th 2012

Aki Sasamoto built a personality test in the form of a three-dimensional maze that wove its way through the fair as a series of Choose Your Own Adventure–like multiple-choice questions.

Tom Givone's current weekend abode, nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, is—so far—his capstone project, a synthesis of personal taste, material experimentation, and historically sensitive restoration: a living laboratory for how to bring the vernacular past into the present.

An exciting entry to a sea of art. Frieze New York, 2012. Photograph by Graham Carlow. Courtesy of Graham Carlow/Frieze.

A tiny outbuilding offers a cozy living space inside a simple shell.

As the facade of a Bates Masi-designed home in Water Mill, New York, rises from eight to 14 feet high, the mahogany planks subtly widen. “It was quite a demand to make of the contractor,” architect Paul Masi says. “But the design was so much about traveling through the site and weaving [the house] together with the deck.”

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.

Frieze Art Fair; Friday May 4th 2012

Frieze Art Fair; Friday May 4th 2012

In the kitchen, the cabinetry is walnut veneer with a weathered finish applied by cabinetmaker David Rogers. “The process involved sanding and rubbing in stain as well as adding a clear finish,” project architect Eero Puurunen says.

A 17-foot-tall freestanding play structure that designer Sharon Davis designed for her family in upstate New York can only be entered by climbing taut netting and entering through a trap door. Descending requires sliding down two structural-columns-turned-fire-poles.

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.

Frieze from afar; Randall's Island

London's Serpentine Galleries presented a suite of artist- and architect-designed wallpapers by Maharam, including designs by John Baldessari, Rosemarie Trockel, Lawrence Weiner, Ai Weiwei, SANAA, Toyo Ito, and Marc Camille Chaimowicz (seen here).

Travesia Cuatro, a gallery with locations in Spain and Mexico, presented a range of handpainted ceramic vases by Milena Muzquiz.

Frieze Art Fair; Friday May 4th 2012

Nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, this 200-year-old home inspired one former copywriter to delve into architecture as a living. Inside, renovator and owner Tom Givone mixes vintage and industrial decor. Photo by Mark Mahaney.

An Introduction to Modern Textiles: Kit out your furniture in luxurious silk or no-frills leather,; textiles can add just as much dimension to room as art, and can be equally collectible.

The great room in the 2,800-square-foot house that architect Drew Lang designed for his family in the Hudson Woods development north of New York City features generous amounts of white oak, which he says is his favorite material.

The Langs use an outbuilding as a rec room of sorts. "We call that the Grace Studio," Lang says. "It's designed so a car can pull in there, but we use it as more of a rec room and work space."

A yellow Pedestal filing cabinet by USM is tucked under a built-in desk in the guest bedroom. The leather-back chair was designed by Michael Robbins, a furniture designer based in New York's Hudson Valley.

The master bathroom features a cedar screen and quartzite tiles by Walker Zanger.

White oak makes a return appearance on the ceiling in the master bedroom.

The home is embedded in a hillside with five feet of soil above it. In addition to blending the structure into the landscape, the surrounding earth provides natural insulation.

Davis worked with contractor Ted Timmer to construct the playhouse on her family’s 30-acre property.

Sliding doors partition a cozy screening room, where the resident can enjoy films and television in the comfort of custom designed furniture.

SPAN Architecture recast this two-level space in New York City—previously a photography studio—as a loft-like residence that is rich in materials. A blackened steel staircase, executed by general contractor Richard Kaleta, leads to the private quarters on the duplex's second floor. The walkway is composed of custom etched glass, stretched across an open atrium to below.

An onyx "hearth" and a French limestone banquet form the perimeter of the warm living room. The carpet is from Tai Ping.

The polycarbonate interior is bounded by an exterior band of reclaimed white-cedar siding, open to the sky.

John Milich fabricated the slide in the freestanding treehouse.

Throughout the fair, massage chairs by Korakrit Arunanondchai offered an immersive experience where visitors could relax while enjoying one of the show's special projects—all in the artist's signature bleached denim, of course.

New York Pavilion 1964 World's Fair The structure, designed by Philip Johnson, is now a rusted relic.

New York Pavilion 1964 World's Fair The massive ring of steel and reinforced concrete piers, dubbed the “Tent of Tomorrow,” once held a cable suspension roof and was clad in a terrazzo floor featuring a Texaco highway map of the state. It was a platform for New York, and homegrown companies like Kodak and CorningWare, to show off to the world, and as critic Louise Huxtable said, “a sophisticated frivolity…seriously and beautifully constructed … a ‘carnival’ with class.”