Full-height glazing caps the central living area. A rigid steel frame concealed within its wood envelope allows for uninterrupted sight lines and creates a single, open-plan living space.

Plants thrive on the sheltered terrace.

Rodriguez, a designer and architect who runs the studio Agi Miagi, created the pendant lamp and terrariums in the dining area. The space is open to the living area, where Brown’s son, Hugo, sits on a Living Divani sofa. The countertop-table is by Bercy Chen Studio.

Designer and digital fabricator Shawn Benson shares his 595-square-foot second-floor space with his wife, Jessica, and their daughter, Roux. The 15-foot-high ceilings allow plenty of room for a full-size ocean paddleboard.

A rear deck is nestled behind the central cabin, flanked by the sleeping quarters. Inside, the dining table sits beneath a single hanging lamp.

Architect Tamira Sawatzky used Ikea components—one-inch Lagan butcher block countertops and inexpensive Ekby Lerberg brackets—when designing the bookshelves along the living room wall in the home/studio he designed for himself and his wife in Toronto.

A barrier-free house enables a family to come together amid the vineyards in Northern California. The kitchen is fully accessible and yet not institutional, with room for both extended family and a caregiver, and the ability to move between indoors and out without having to negotiate a single barrier. The island contains a micro kitchen for the family’s daughter, who is in a wheelchair, with a sink, refrigerator, and warming drawers within easy reach. The pendant is from Global Lighting.

The living room is tucked beneath one of the lofts, which are accessible by a steep ladder-like staircase and fronted by pegboard.

La Esquina Floor Plan A 510-Square-Foot Corner Unit B 450-Square-Foot Unit C 525- and 595-Square-Foot Units D Bathroom E Kitchen F Terrace-Courtyard

The Kelleys furnished the cottage with help from Suzanne’s daughter Betsy Burbank of Betsy Burbank Interiors. Classic modernist icons, such as a Saarinen Womb chair for Knoll, a Herman Miller Eames lounge chair, and an Eileen Grey E1027 side table look at home alongside present-day pieces such as an Encore sofa (which handily folds down into a sleeping surface) from Room & Board and a Doka rug designed and produced by Stephanie Odegard. The Wohlert pendant lights from Louis Poulsen were designed by Vilhelm Wohlert in 1959, but grouped as such, they appear distinctly contemporary.

In an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn, a verdant green roof of native grasses, wildflowers, and fruits creates an oasis.

A shed provides storage for the owners’ tools as well as wood for the fireplace. It features the same aged pine finish as the main home.

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Blanc took the term "living room" to a different level with this striking 20-by-23-foot interior wall for the Dimanche family's home in Paris.

From the mezzanine of his 450-square-foot apartment at La Esquina, an eight-unit live/work building in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood, designer, artist, and Woodbury University professor Patrick Shields chats with fellow professor Hector Perez, who spearheaded the project.

A view from above of the iron staircase, which faces one of the textural béton brut cement walls. Its treads slant at opposing angles, creating their own minimal pattern.

Architectural designer Sebastian Mariscal and project manager Jeff Svitak created a house in Venice, California, for Michael and Tamami Sylvester. Known as Dwell Home Venice for its role as an exemplification of modern architecture, the house is an homage to indoor-outdoor living. Photo by Coral von Zumwalt.

The acclaimed Italian designers Ludovica + Roberto Palomba carved a serene retreat out of a 17th-century oil mill in Salento.

“The home is quite small, but designed in such a way that you don’t feel it,” Herrin says. Lift-slide openings by Quantum Windows & Doors, which were fabricated fewer than 50 miles from the house, make the main living space seem larger.

In the living room, spare Scandinavian design takes center stage. Hans Wegner’s Wishbone chairs surround an Essay dining table by Cecilie Manz for Fritz Hansen; a mostly wood palette is enhanced by slate-gray brick around the fireplace. The paper lanterns throughout the home are a mixture of classics by Isamu Noguchi alongside those picked up in Japan and France.

In the living area of actor Vincent Kartheiser’s Hollywood cabin, redesigned by Funn Roberts to maximize every last inch of space, an Eames lounge chair and ottoman mix with a couch and coffee table by Cisco Home from HD Buttercup. The table in the main room is from West Elm.

The central, welded-iron staircase is the house’s most striking contemporary feature. Beyond it, more large sliding doors conceal extra storage and the home entertainment system.

“We didn’t go out and buy a living room collection,” Sofie explains. “In our home, we tried to avoid trends. The furniture we have are things we have collected over many, many years.” Vintage Eames for Herman Miller lounge chair; Isamu Nuguchi table; and Rocking elephant by Rocking Zoo.

Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen designed the Gateway Arch monument, completed in St. Louis in 1965 (it opened to the public in 1967). The world's largest arch, the iconic, 632-foot tall structure was built as a monument to westward expansion in the United States. Here, he's shown alongside models of the arch. Credit: Yale University Library, Manuscripts and Archives; © St. Louis Post-Dispatch

With their matching peaked roofs, every cabin nods to the traditional form of countryside retreats. The cluster’s pine cladding has been treated to speed up the aging process, giving it a warm patina.

The auxiliary cabins contain the sleeping quarters. A ladder leads to a sleeping loft underneath a gabled ceiling. The cabin’s bathroom is situated beneath the loft and features clean white fittings and tile.

The house is oriented to maximize views of the ocean and Edgartown to the west, and Nantucket and Cape Pogue Bay to the east. Natural sea grasses sourced from the surrounding area cover the roof of the building, providing thermal insulation while also dampening the noise of rain, improving air quality, and helping to manage rainwater flow.

The living room is furnished with a Tolomeo Mega floor lamp by Artemide, a Milo Baughman Recliner 74, a Morsø 7648 wood stove, and a Hampton rug by Capel Rugs.

The Bensons’ patio is semi-privatized by horizontal slats.

A contractor with years of industry knowledge will know how to solve common problems that may arise during construction, and will also have well-established connections to subcontractors and suppliers.

The living and dining room look out to the central courtyard, promoting indoor/outdoor living. Here, five doors slide into a pocket in the wall to create a nearly 23-foot-wide opening on one side looking into the garden. Another set on the opposite side enhances cross ventilation.

The family retreat abuts a rocky cliff in Herfell, Norway. The central cabin provides communal living spaces, while the two cabins that flank it are used as private sleeping quarters.

Cubicco, a pre-engineered housing company based in Miami and the Netherlands, creates homes that are designed to meet winds of up to 180 miles per hour, per the hurricane zone code of Miami Dade County.

Halfway through a pregnancy isn’t exactly the ideal time to buy a house. So after spending months scouting San Francisco’s Victorians and turnkey cookie-cutters—and almost defecting to the East Bay—Lorena Siminovich and Esteban Kerner decided to put the hunt on hold until after their baby was born. But then one afternoon Kerner, a design director with Old Navy, logged on to Craigslist on a whim. He saw a below-market listing for a single-family home in Noe Valley, their neighborhood of choice. With crumbly brick cladding, peeling rust-brown paint, and rotting garage doors, the house lacked curb appeal. But the Argentine couple was drawn to the interior. "It was amazing and strange at the same time," says Kerner of the 1,485-square-foot, multilevel, midcentury maze. "Mind-boggling," adds Siminovich. "It was just a knot of doors and a series of insane stairs to nowhere."

Designed and built by Diedricksen himself, the Periscope was intended to be a treehouse, but its tall, elongated form made it impossible to hoist into its canopy. Today, it remains fixed to the ground in Canton, Massachusetts. Copyright Derek Diedricksen.