Just up a ladder is the green roof, which is planted with maintenance-free sedums and tall grasses near the patio that Monkman tends carefully.

A Good Reed The most changed area of the home is the small guest room–office, where Neely, who works from home, removed the closet doors and added a grass-cloth wall treatment to distinguish it from the rest of the house’s decor. “Many of the Eichlers originally had grass cloth as a covering on the sliding closet doors,” he says. “The guest room–office is the only other room that can be seen from the public areas across the atrium, and I wanted this wall to add visual interest.”

They installed water-saving artificial grass on their patio for pup Moxy to enjoy.

Native grasses spill forth from the green roof toward a stairway leading to the main level.

Landscape designer Bernard Trainor’s creative use of poured-in-place concrete pavers—such as off the living room, where they break up a low-maintenance lawn of June grass—give the irregularly shaped lot a sense of order. Foxtail ferns and blue chalk sticks, a succulent, lend dashes of color to the entry courtyard, while thyme makes for a fragrant accent between the pavers.

This 3,200-square-foot structure was assembled with a prefabricated foundation, concrete panel siding, and efficient built-ins, minimizing construction debris and toxins—such as concrete foundation tar—on the site.

Linden specified a black stain from Cabot for the house’s exterior. The shade draws on Scandinavian and Japanese building traditions and helps the structure blend into the landscape. Native grasses populate the courtyard.

The kitchen includes backlit Bear Grass panels from 3form, a range by Capital, and a Thermador hood.

Based on the travels of a beloved French naturalist, Mr. Plocq's Caballon is an egg-shaped cabin that takes cues from both naval and aircraft carpentry.

New residential buildings are few and far between in England, so architects like Phillips have increasingly been charged with creating groundbreaking modern environments within the shells of historic houses. “People just find it easier to work within existing houses to transform them to be sleek, stylish and functional,” says Phillips. “Extensions have almost become a requirement for any homeowner who wants to be a part of modern living within the U.K.”

Though seemingly whimsical and freewheeling, Sottsass was exacting in his designs: He had forbidden the Olabuenagas from repainting the home’s stucco facade, insisting that they let it “metamorph into what it wants to be,” but the couple ultimately decided to restore its faded colors last fall, using new elastomeric Behr paints that were blended to original specifications.

In the middle courtyard, the Jacks landscaped a small grass mound for Sadie, five, to play on. The house is topped with corrugated steel. “It’s essentially the cheapest material you can get for roofing in New Zealand,” says Beer.

A mature avocado tree shades the hardscaped patio located just outside the great room.

This project also includes a swimming dock.

Buenos Aires-based Estudio Ramos designs a concrete, wood, and iron stable that houses 44 prized horses and melds with the surrounding plains. In central Argentina, the province of La Pampa is dominated by vast, grassy plains whose fertile soil supports myriad farms and ranches. Stretching out in all directions, the flatlands resemble an ocean in its sheer horizontality. When professional polo player Nacho Figueras—a champion of the sport and a longtime Ralph Lauren model—enlisted architect Juan Ignacio Ramos of Estudio Ramos to build a stable for 44 polo horses, the architect was sure to incorporate the region’s meditative flatness into the design.

The Pierre | Olson Kundig

From the grass roof patios, the house disappears almost completely, leaving only the landscape, water, and occasional passing orca.

The courtyard-facing side of the garage provides an overhang for a multifunctional playroom or entertainment space.

Burks's Man Made collection and his Dala line of outdoor furniture for Dedon—featuring stools, chairs, and ottomans crafted by weavers in a Philippines factory—have brought him to a pivotal point in his career. "My relationship with Dwell has been about taking my Man Made project on the road," he says. Dedon produces 300 of Burks's pieces daily, by hand. "It's the ultimate expression of where I can see my own brand and my own studio going someday," he says. Stephen Burks for Dedon, Dala planters in recycled polyethylene, 2012>

The dining and kitchen space opens up directly to an expanse of grass that leads to the water’s edge.

An artist and an architect built their home, studios, and an exhibition space inside a lushly landscaped Antwerp warehouse.

Kakuda also created this unique cell phone charger, which was inspired by a tape measure. It's manufactured by KDDI.

The Lai family—Mayuko, baby Shota on her lap, David, Maya, and Yumi sitting on a cushion on the deck—relaxes in their indoor-outdoor living space, made by opening the glass sliding doors to connect the living room and engawa deck.

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.”

Photo via Kingyobu

A slender wooden decked porch that looks out to the lake.

Emilio Fuscaldo sits in the garden outside the brick house that he designed for himself and his partner, Anna Krien, on a small subdivided lot in Coburg, a suburb north of Melbourne, Australia. Photo by Nic Granleese.

“Before, the house turned its back on the landscape,” said Parish. “This renovation and addition really animates the garden.” Sliding glass doors match those of the living room beyond the deck, and both can be completely open to the yard.

The engawa deck is a traditional Japanese feature. It's a place where guests are often greeted to sit with a casual cup of tea. The David and Mayuko also uses it as a viewing porch toward the back yard for when the kids play in the grass.

Architect Gregory Phillips connected the original house to a new modern extension that doesn’t interfere with the surrounding houses. “I try to be true to the location,”he explains, “so it doesn’t seem like some spaceship has landed.”