The kitchen features a concrete island topped with marble. Deja-Vu stools by Naoto Fukasawa surround the island. A print by Guy Gormley, as well as a painting bought during holiday in St. Tropez, hang on the walls.

Purple thistles, California poppies, clover, and dandelions have all taken root in the roughly 10-inch-deep, lightweight humus and grape-husk soil in this 580-square-foot green roof. Designer Peter Liang says that he "wanted to plant a green roof for its thermal mass, but I wanted it to be as natural as possible."

Suzanne and Brooks Kelley at the back of their 1,100-square-foot guest cottage.

The owners toured this home, which surrounds a mature tipu tipu tree, while visiting relatives for the day. The brick is original to the 1947 construction.

Sliding doors by Quantum were made to look like the original panes that couldn't be saved, and they lead to a fire pit outside.

With an angled roof designed to resemble the surrounding cliffs, a house in Maui, Hawaii, is built to meld with the landscape.

A trap-door opening at the top of the house allows for better circulation.

Waechter Architecture reimagined a traditional gabled home in southeast Portland without significantly altering the original building. A simple coat of red paint abstracts the century-old structure, creating a residential work of art.

The clients and design team chose to forego an open floor plan in favor of defined, separated spaces. In this scheme, the vertically oriented spaces act as a cinematic "hard-cut" to their horizontal counterparts. The custom hot rolled steel kitchen, one of these vertical transition spaces, receives light from above through a Velux skylight. A GE Profile Induction cooktop and oven and Miele refrigerator complete the space.

House O, designed by Jun Igarashi, forgoes hallways and interior doors in favor of casually interconnected rooms.

Marcus Lee and Rachel Hart’s wonderful wooden home sits at the end of a quiet London lane and politely turns its back on the workshops next door.

Corporate high-flyers and admitted neat freaks Bruce Thatcher and Kirsty Leighton couldn’t handle the chaos anymore. Read more about this Victorian terrace in London here.

“In this house, the roof is the only facade—the rest is dissolved beneath it.” —Architect Aljoša Dekleva

At the entry looking upward towards a Velux skylight, a vertical "sleeve" is made of stacked end grain plywood. The theme of vertical and horizontal architectural elements providing different environmental perspectives carries through to the rest of the home. Horizontal forms look out to the lake, while the vertical columns look up the sky.

Seen in the architectural context of its London neighborhood, the house is all the more extraordinary: compact, materially innovative, and easy on the eyes.

The view!

At the top of the stairwell, a sitting area is outfitted with a vintage Eames lounge, a large Jack Goldstein painting, and a 1970s light fixture found by Marcovitz in Paris.

The outside deck, made of local celery-top pine, welcomes both humans and the natural landscape further into the house.

A Model 78 side chair by Niels Otto Møller tucks into a custom desk in the master bedroom, a home base from which Friedlander works remotely. The brass pendant light is by Allied Maker.

Volvos with the new adaptive cruise control technology (ACC) lined up in front of the Palm Springs Art Museum to chauffeur guests to dinner.

Nearly 100 thought leaders gathered at the Palm Springs Art Museum to attend a lecture on The Future of Mobility, followed by a cocktail party where the conversation continued. People were eager to debate the pros and cons of autonomous driving which aims to create a safer driving experience for all on the road.

Kristopher Dukes and Matt Jacobsen's Marmol Radziner Desert Prefab home was the perfect backdrop for the dinner and continued discussion of The Future of Mobility.

Dwell President Michela O’Connor Abrams emceed the evening where the conversation about the future of mobility was carried on at the Marmol Radziner Desert Prefab in Desert Hot Springs.

Expo-goers enjoy some shade underneath the "Pure Tension Pavilion" while relaxing in chairs provided by Scandinavian luxury furniture company Carl Hansen & Son.

Hundreds of people flocked to the Pure Tension Solar Pavilion and V60 Plug-in Hybrid. The solar canopy (the only prototype of its kind) fits in the back of the V60 and can recharge the car battering in 10-12 hours. The V60 is a diesel hybrid, which offers a lower CO2 emission rating or a pure electric power option. Flooring provided by SwissTrax.

The “Pure Tension Pavilion” made its U.S. debut this weekend as part of Dwell and Volvo’s activation at the Modern Living Expo and Prefab Showcase. Designed by Alvin Huang, this a free-standing tensioned membrane structure is a rapidly deployable and portable solar charging station designed to power up the Volvo V60 Plug-in Hybrid, the world’s first Diesel Plug-in Hybrid.

NORM designer and architect Kasper Rønn, shft.com founder Peter Glatzer, and Maria Margarita Chon exit a Volvo S60 as they arrive at the Marmol Radziner Desert Prefab for dinner.

Prefab architect Leo Marmol discusses design and mobility at the Palm Springs Art Museum for an upcoming video on dwell.com on #thefutureofmobility.

(From left to right): Architect Alving Huang; Anders Tylman-Mikiewicz, General Manager, Volvo Monitoring & Concept Center Los Angeles; Curator Greg Goldin; auto writer Paul Meyers; and Dwell's Los Angeles editor Erika Heet led a lively and thought-provoking conversation at the Palm Springs Art Museum on the Future of Mobility.

Photo by Patrick Barta

Lightroom 1.0, a photography studio, is a freestanding structure on the property. “Together, they represent an autobiography of my career,” Carpenter says.

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.

At their A. Quincy Jones house in Los Angeles, architects Cory Buckner and Nick Roberts used permeable pavers to help the soil retain moisture.

Home Renovation Tip: Get an Understanding of What’s Already Around

Many tiny home dwellers develop eco-friendly habits when they downsize—like adopting a capsule wardrobe, carpooling more, and harvesting rainwater.