A house in Greenmeadow, a Joseph Eichler development in Palo Alto.

The development's four distinct yet interconnected volumes share a garden.

Lauren Strongin dances in front of the custom window designed by Shade House Development.

The pool feels as laterally finite as the house feels spacious—but the view goes up forever.

The development includes laundry facilities, storage, and parking. Common areas are located on all three floors for residents to lounge around. Douglas fir wraps the staircase with galvanized steel railing as well as the desk.

Architects Hariri & Hariri thrive on conceptual cross-pollination. Their research into geology and quarrying for the Sternbrauerei residential development in Salzburg, Austria, inspired the faceted, gemlike fixtures they created for AFNY and Rapsel’s Crystalline Bath Collection and, more obviously, their Swarovski-fabricated Kryptonite jewelry collection.

The Aqua development on Allison Island is the brainchild of South Beach’s development impresario Craig Robins.

“As an architect, I’m interested in making social hubs and creating communities that people feel connected to tribally," Bestor says.

In the development, single-family residences, duplexes, and triplexes are centered on a internal street. Parking is located at the rear of the houses, in order to avoid hindering community interaction.

“Do you really like your building?” the Brook’s director, Paul Pavon, was asked by an acquaintance, who compared the appearance of the 90,000- square-foot supportive housing development in New York’s famously blighted South Bronx to that of the Tetris video game. Indeed he does: “If you walk around this neighborhood, not too many buildings look like this. So there’s some kind of pride when the tenants come home.”

Istanbul (Atelier d'Architecture and Superpool) On flights into the Turkish capital, one of Europe's fastest growing cities, the rate of expansion becomes stark, and not only because you may catch a glance of the massive, centrally planned TOKI housing complexes out the window. According to Superpool member Gregers Thomsen, in-flights magazines are filled with ads selling the upwardly mobile lifestyle these middle-class starter homes promise. To fill in the gaps in community and infrastructre found among these drab structures, the Istanbul team proposed KOTI, an alternative housing alliance that seeks to spark entrepreneurship within the sharing economy while making the areas more livable. "It’s not just about green space, it’s about resilience and self-organization," says Doina Petrescu of Atelier d'Architecture. "We wanted to add layers to the existing TOKI developments." Social gardens, coworking spaces, and green spaces would blossom amidst the high concrete towers, supplementing an already popular system with more livable features. "We want people take action and be part of their surroundings," says Thomsen. "We’ve become a little fragile with everything coming to us. We can’t even grow a tomato ourselves or make simple repairs."

Blackbirds, with its community- and pedestrian-friendly design, is a “first step” toward creating senior housing within an urban context.

Though some of Diniz’s output had a kind of flat, highly graphic feel, he was unquestionably a master of perspective and could work in various visual modes. His renderings for the massive Canary Wharf development in London shows a clean, realist style. “CAD systems can create and manipulate visual imagery so much faster than the pen... Canary Wharf would have taken months of painful labor to accomplish in the old days of pen and ink. Now you can set up the drawings and alter them at the touch of a button.” —Carlos Diniz, from a 1988 Los Angeles Times interview

The best-made axe we could imagine, Thomas Kay Axe is created by Best Made Company of perfectly weighted high-carbon US steel with an Appalachian hickory handle and includes a leather sheath. Made in the USA.

Child development center for City College in San Francisco

Child development center for City College in San Francisco

"A steep or unstable site can make it difficult and costly to seismically retrofit a structure, or stabilize the site,” says Thomas Schaer at SHED Architecture and Design, a Seattle-based firm with extensive experience in adaptive reuse, as well as midcentury remodel. “There also may be land-use code provisions that limit or prevent development on the lot."

An unusual pairing of pink and deep green find a happy match in this renovated apartment, which was DIY’ed by the homeowner, comedian Mamrie Hart, and her friend Claire Thomas, a creative director. "I am used to painting," says Thomas, "but I was not emotionally prepared for the amount of trim in the bedroom." Cedarville, a pastel pink hue, and Green Bayou, both by Dunn-Edwards Paints, now cheer up the space.

Craig and Thomas infused the surfaces of the space with their bold taste by alternating the orientation of the wood grain in the millwork veneer panels to create a lively pattern.

Thomas and Vincent Dochter lounge in the living room of the blue apartment.

In development in Los Angeles is architect Barbara Bestor’s Blackbirds community. Scheduled to open in 2015, it consists of 18 stand-alone units in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles designed to accommodate people in all stages of their lives. Bestor will join fellow architect John Dutton onstage to discuss their projects that renew the notion of aging in place. See more of their work here.

Five-year-old Thomas Dochter plays outside the houses.

Clock Shadow Building (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 2012) Continuum Architects + Planners turned an abandoned brownfield green with this mixed-use development in Milwaukee’s Walker Point neighborhood. Using salvaged material and diverting construction waste from landfills was just the start. Cantilevered construction maximizes space on the upper floors, adding 15% more usable space to the building’s 4,000-square-foot footprint, and the green roof conserves energy while serving as a community space for tenants. Photo by Continuum Architects

The interiors of each residence are fitted with energy-efficient appliances and LED lighting.

The Kingston House abuts a rock shelf upon which architects Aaron Roberts and Thomas Bailey once sat, dreaming up ideas for the design.

Architect: Thomas Tornbjerg of Bercy Chen Studio Location: Austin, TX Price: $729,000 This four-bedroom new build in South Austin was designed with soaring living spaces, a monochromatic color palette, and a focus on indoor/outdoor spaces. Tornbjerg is formerly of Bercy Chen, whose cutting edge homes update the primarily midcentury housing stock of Austin.

A classic essential for camp, picnic or backyard fire-pit this stool is expertly crafted in Oregon with hardwood ash legs and a seat of jacquard fabric, woven in Pendleton's American mills.

Here, Rietveld plays around with a model of experimental housing designs. Look closely and you can see tiny versions of his Zig Zag chair at the dining room table. He was the first to apply the concepts of De Stijl to architecture, designing the Rietveld Schröder House in 1924.

The couple’s son Dylan and dog Petra enjoy the deck while Mary Kate and Thomas work in the kitchen below. Sliding doors open to the outdoors on both sides.

Cees, Jacquelien, Jillis, Lucas, and Thijske Noordhoek gather on the lawn; Andy Dochter looks out of the window while his wife Miriam stands on the terrace with sons Thomas and Vincent.

Each of the nine residential units was made with prefab timber frames to reduce costs and make it easier to work on such challenging terrain. The homes achieve a high environmental rating (Code For Sustainable Homes Level 5 and a BREEAM Very Good rating) via extensive insulation, south-facing windows and balconies, and other green features.

Hualien Wellness & Residential Development by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)

In a small seating area at the base of a two-story tower, Oslo chairs and sofas by Anderssen& Voll are paired with Around tables by Thomas Bentzen, all from Muuto. The lamp from Svenskt Tenn was designed by Josef Frank in 1938.

Edgeland House, built on a cliff-top lot in Austin by architect Thomas Bercy for lawyer and writer Chris Brown, is topped by a living roof that helps it blend into the landscape. The concrete, steel, and glass house is divided into two distinct public and private halves.

Proudly display your bike with Thomas Walde's Shoes Books and a Bike, a sturdy shelving unit with plenty of space. The stand is made of fir, coconut fibre and steel, ensuring support for even your heavy-set rides. A large clip holds onto the bike's tire to keep it upright and steady. And below the main shelving space, Walde has created three smaller areas for storing your shoes, helmet, books and bags. This could easily be the centerpiece of your living space. Photo by: Thomas Walde