Large sliding glass doors suspend the living room within the landscape for family gatherings or larger events.

The relationship between interior and exterior becomes crucial in the articulation of the residence.

The first floor consists of two long and narrow structures that intersect in an open kitchen, providing distinct programmatic areas and settling into the tree-lined landscape, allowing yards to surround and permeate each room.

Maximizing daylight is only one of the sustainable design strategies used in the Low/Rise residence.

“Who better than the farmer and the farmer's family to know how most effectively and easily to find efficiency?” says architect Alan Barlis. Regional architecture inspired the barn-life structure of the house, an open volume that aides in efficient heating and cooling of the space.

In this sustainable home in Silicon Valley, the primary suite opens to a deck and fern garden with large, sliding glass doors.

Through an integral relationship between use, form, and material, the Low/Rise House responds sensitively to site, nature, and neighborhood, creating a new type of suburban living – both urban and rural.

The Casa Cuatro sits above a 180-foot cliff that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. The locally quarried stone makes the house blend in with the landscape and acts as a thermal-mass wall, absorbing heat during the day and releasing it through the evening.

The house was built on piers (save for the lower-level bedroom) so that little of the natural landscape would be disturbed.

Having purchased the land from a friend who also has a house in the community, Schneider had a better sense of what she wanted—and what she didn't—her site. "From the experience at the neighbor's house," Foster says, "she knew she didn't want the house to have its back to the morning sun so we created a deck and somewhere to sit outside that faces east." Don't miss a word of Dwell! Download our FREE app from iTunes, friend us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter!

The 925-square-foot house Maggie Treanor calls home blends into the landscape somewhat; with a galvanized steel shed roof and siding, it looks like a high-design little brother to the barns on the surrounding farms.

Master Bedroom, opens to screened pool deck, includes walk in safe room/closet.

Guest Bedroom that opens to jack and jill bath and Shaded East and South Facing Light

The facade is clad with beveled siding, stained dark to meld into the forest.

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.

Visitors learn about energy and water conservation as they climb outdoor staircases that lead from the forest floor to the 125-foot-high rooftop rising above the leaf canopy.

Atop the 30-foot tower, a roof deck emerges through the trees, providing a unique vantage point of the structure below and the surrounding townscape.

A compact and vertical guest tower is sited at the western corner of the lot amongst tall evergreens, allowing for a more private guest experience, more compact floor plan, and the ability to effectively shut off (socially and energy-wise) the guest spaces zone by zone during typical daily use.

The outdoor room is backed by a gabion wall made of stone. Rainwater runs off the roofs into a channel before being funneled through pipes concealed within it to an underground concrete tank.

In London, students from the Architectural Association used beech trees leftover from thinning a forest at their school’s Dorset campus to craft a delicately framed shelter. Via Dezeen

Black and white kitchen cabinets painted with a triangular pattern add a whimsical touch to this funky kitchen.

Master Bath with shower room; dual, custom, polished concrete sinks with faucet designed for hair washing; Niagara Stealth toilets

In the bathroom, Martin selected Heath Ceramics Conclave Diamond tile in citrus green for the glass-enclosed Kohler tub, which is outfitted with nickel Kallista fixtures. A matching toilet by Kohler in the color Cashmere blends with the custom-fabricated concrete sink by Get Real Surfaces. Photo by Patrick Bernard.

The "Tippy Cup Rain Chain" teaches the children about water conservation.

On the hill behind the house, a wind-powered well brings water from a 150-foot-deep hole to the surface. That water then flows to the home as needed with gravity's helping hand.

Mithun designed the tree house so that it would tread lightly on the land. The firm originally considered prefabricating the entire structure offsite but, in the research process, concluded that craning large modules into place would potentially harm the canopy. A combination of a bolted-together prefab structure and site-built wood housing yielded the least intrusive construction option. The Summit Bechtel Reserve is located in West Virginia's coal mining country. The architects looked to the local structures—bridges, mining apparatus, and other industrial buildings—to inform the tree house's design. A 166-ton Cor-Ten steel megastructure supports the 125-foot-tall building. The use of regionally appropriate materials, like steel and black locust wood, was important to the architects.

Visitors scale a series of outdoor staircases that wind their way up the structure. Volume and Studio Terpeluk turned the risers into a teaching moment about energy use and the impact of every day activities.

Mithun wanted to engage the scouts with all elements of the forest: the floor, the canopy, and a perspective above the tree tops. In one of the viewing rooms, visitors get the feeling of being fully surrounded by leaves.

The structure's mission is to teach visitors about the environment and sustainability. San Francisco–based studio Volume designed the exhibition program, which offers interactive displays about water conservation, energy use, recycling, and more.

Detail for Kitchen showing granite backsplash

Kitchen with polished concrete floors and counters, built in ovens, granite backsplash, IKEA cabinetry

Jack and Jill Bath with step in shower room, polished concrete floors, natural light

When Abbie and Bill Burton hired Marmol Radziner to design their prefab weekend home, their two requests were “simple-simple, replaceable materials,” says Abbie—such as concrete floors (poured offsite in Marmol Radziner's factory) and metal panel siding—and “the ability to be indoors or outdoors with ease.” Deep overhangs provide shade and protection from rain, so the Burtons can leave their doors open year-round and hang out on their 70-foot-long deck even in inclement weather. They visit the house once a month, usually for a week at a time, with Vinnie and Stella, their rescue Bernese Mountain dogs. Their two adult children occasionally join them. The couple hopes to one day retire here.

A red print by Cris Gianakos accents a well-lit stairwell leading to a laundry area, library, and rec room on the full basement floor.

Two linked 1,000-square-foot pavilions are greater than a sum of their parts. The simply detailed, taut, flat-roofed home’s two wings form a T-shape. One wing runs north to south, parallel to a pool, and contains the open-plan living spaces. Photo by Matthew Millman.