In the Acadian village of Caraquet, YH2 Architecture raised two identical cabins on a site 200 feet from the sandy shores of Chaleur Bay. The home is inhabited by a single family and used as a vacation spot.

The exterior of the house consists of sandblasted masonry and Ferrari shade sails stretched on a steel frame.

A skylight was added to bring in more light, and the existing ceilings painted Benjamin Moore ‘Black Tar’ for contrast. The island pendant is the Schoolhouse Ray 17” Pendant and the stools are the Artek Aalto High Chair K65.

Due to the lot’s small size, Cloud9 placed the garage beneath the house.

Light and shadow play on the textured facade. Greenery frames the simple, geometric form of the house.

With its stucco facade and steel-framed, arched windows, Plaster Fun House is an architectural anomaly amidst the cottages and 1960s brick residences of Torrensville in South Australia.

This compact vacation home by TACO—or, Taller de Arquitectura Contextual—is immersed in southeastern Mexico’s wild landscape. The home is designed for a pair of young adults, and the firm’s objective was to achieve a reflective and contemplative place that links the occupants with the surrounding environment. The result is an intuitive, functional, and simple living experience that offers great spatial warmth.

In accordance with the brief, the firm left the landscape largely in its natural state.

Perched quietly on the dunes of New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula, Hut on Sleds serves as a small, sustainable beach retreat for a family of five.

The home claimed one of the last unoccupied lots in tiny Caraquet.

In the living room, and throughout the home, recessed "book nooks" are used to provide space-saving storage. The only seating in the room is a sleek black faux leather and steel daybed, fabricated by Montreal-based Surface Jalouse. Walls were removed to cohesively unite the living space and kitchen.

Masahiro and Mao Harada of Mount Fuji Architects Studio wanted to break with the traditional definition of a house when they designed this small Tokyo home. They achieved their goal by using the same material for the ceiling, the walls, and the floor, creating a space that flows beautifully. Photo by Ryota Atarashi.

Masi also turned the miniscule guest quarters into a pool house.

Their creative confections may ruin our diets, but we’re happy to be their taste testers anytime.

Toronto designer Julia Knezic built this house for her own family in a narrow lot next to her mom's house. Photo by Sean Galbraith. Check out the interiors here.

The fully glazed north faced overlooks a private garden to the rear. This large area of glazing allows natural light to fill the home.

A 500-square-foot outdoor space with a grill, a table, and a hammock sits just off the entrance level of the townhouse, offering extra room for dining, relaxing, and entertaining. The corner couch is a custom piece inspired by the large cushions of Moroccan sofas. The Fermob table is paired with Hay Hee dining chairs by Hay.

The 275-square-foot LOVT prefab is a feast of crisp millwork, with a modular daybed stacked on drawers and kitchen cabinets with cutouts for pulls.

The Outward Bound cabins, designed by the University of Colorado Denver's design-build program, have steel frames that lift the structures above a three-foot snowpack while supporting corrugated-steel "snow roofs."

To take in views of Victoria’s coastline from all directions, Austin Maynard Architects crafted a bach-inspired beach house using a circular, corridor-free design and full-height glazing. Exposed trusses and a simple material palette keep focus on the outdoors, while rooftop solar panels and a rainwater harvesting system help the dwelling reduce site impact.

The exterior is wrapped in cement fiber boards with a Cembrit patina finish. Due to a lack of onshore infrastructure, a big challenge of the project was the addition of self-contained sewage and clear water tanks.

Brett Zamore calls the house he designed for David Kaplan the Shot-Trot, now the Kit_00 homes, because it fuses two regional housing types, the shotgun and the dogtrot.

Mimicking the cantilever of the house, an outdoor shower just off the master bedroom stretches out gently toward the surrounding woods.

The home’s informal dining space has a slightly rustic feel, sporting bronze and wood in the form of a Lindsey Adams Adelman chandelier for Roll & Hill and a table by Terry Dwan, mixed with folk-art touches like the Eames House Birds and a cuckoo clock from Diamantini & Domeniconi. The PK8 chairs from Republic of Fritz Hansen were designed by Poul Kjærlholm and sourced from Kuhl-Linscomb in Houston, Texas.

Architect Jesse Garlick’s rural Washington vacation home references its rugged surroundings. The steel cladding has developed a patina similar to the ochre-red color of bedrock found in the area.

The apartment occupies the top floor of a converted Georgian house.

A pop of red distinguishes the front door, paired with vertical cedar siding with an ebony stain, and Richlite panels and detailing.

Davor (with his wife, Abbe, and son, August) designed the main living and dining pavilion as a double-height space to increase its perceived volume, and added high cubbies for extra storage.

The glass-enclosed master bedroom floats above the corrugated, oxidized steel exterior.

The petite prefab cabin only took eight days to assemble once arriving to Switzerland.

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.