The New Orleans BioInnovation Center is a nonprofit incubator for biotech startups. While labratory buildings are among the most itense users of energy of all building types, NOBIC measures just 1/3 of the energy use of a typical lab.

The center added 375,000 square feet to The New School campus in the form of classrooms, a 800-seat auditorium, a residence hall, and more.

The reconfigured lobby was conceived as a series of elliptical orbits, including the reception desk (pictured) and a similar desk that will host a Think Coffee cafe. Significant structural work was necessary to remove load-bearing masonry walls and columns.

In the refurbished second-floor hallway, an archival photograph was enlarged and placed on a set of glass doors.

The 1,900-square-foot, multi-purpose Lerner Auditorium has been retrofitted to serve as a performance space, lecture hall, and theater.

In The Kaplan Assembly Hall, a cluster of cast-iron columns and a drop celeing were removed, giving the space a more open feel. In addition, blocked windows were restored and sound insulation was installed. Murals that Leon Golub, Nancy Spero, Barbara Sandler, George Whitman, and others painted for the 1989 Center Show, commemorating the 20th anniversary of the gay-rights movement, were preserved and illuminated with new LED lighting.

The center's library and archive were consolidated in a new light-filled space that includes workspace for volunteer archivists and visiting scholars, a large meeting table, and 1,000 linear feet of library shelving.

Tom Givone's current weekend abode, nicknamed the Floating Farmhouse, is—so far—his capstone project, a synthesis of personal taste, material experimentation, and historically sensitive restoration: a living laboratory for how to bring the vernacular past into the present.

Overhead cabinets now can be easily swung open for ease of access. The kitchens are priced at IKEA’s usual retails. A 10 by 10 foot kitchen fitted with Sektion cabinets will range from around $1,300 to $2,200, excluding appliances.

Black and white kitchen tiles add visual interest to this stunning modern kitchen by IKEA.

A series of meandering stairways is meant to facilitate leisurely travel through the building. When rushing to class, students can use a traditional stair or skip-stop elevators.

The University Center of the New School, which opened in early 2014, includes a variety of energy-saving features. Only 35% of the exterior is glass in order to decrease solar heat gain while still letting in natural light. The building is designed to achieve 31 percent energy savings over a code-compliant school.

A tiny outbuilding offers a cozy living space inside a simple shell.

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.”

Fed up with flashy, environmentally insensitive beach homes, architect Gerald Parsonson and his wife, Kate, designed a humble hideaway nestled behind sand dunes along the New Zealand coastline. Crafted in the image of a modest Kiwi bach, their 1,670-square-foot retreat consists of a group of small buildings clad in black-stained pine weatherboards and fiber-cement sheets.

The family spends summers and school vacations at the bach. New Zealand's relatively mild winters mean they use the house year-round.

Tanya Wexler and Amy Zimmerman linger in the breezeway designed to draw eyes, and footsteps, from the driveway through the house to the gently sloping backyard and swimming pool beyond.

The firm also designed the kitchen, which was fabricated by Thomson Cabinetry.

Kayak in hand, Tom and Will make a break for the beach.

The Brower Center, located in Berkeley, has become a sustainable town square for the city.

A small kitchenette comes complete with a cook top and oven. White oak wood flooring is used throughout, as a standard feature.

Michael Lewis dressed in contruction gear on-set at the World Trade Center contruction site in New York City.

Christine (at left), and Amanda (at right) chat with David’s sister Aroha Yates-Smith (center) in the kitchen.

A view across the display island to a breezeway betweent the house and the garage that Pacek and Roynon created as part of their home addition. They use the space for entertaining and food service when the weather cooperates.

A Lakeside Prefab in New Jersey A New Zealand expat and her son use their prefabricated lakeside New Jersey retreat as an outdoorsy counterpoint to city life. Photo by: Mark Mahaney Curious on what was popular last week? Click here!

IKEA chairs join a table from CB2; a Kawneer triple-sliding door opens to the family’s new ipe deck.

The Irwin pool house designed by Landis Gores in 1957 boasts a central room with high ceilings and an unobstructed view of the landscape. In 2005, the Town of New Canaan purchased the property and added exhibition spaces, as well as rooms for lectures and events. The small pavilion also houses an oversized, monumental brick fireplace design that divides the main space from the kitchen area.

The exterior mixes pale gray wood on the vertical volume, and fiber cement and black brick on the horiztonal volume. The three trees in the front yard were maintained during the renovation process.

The "Tippy Cup Rain Chain" teaches the children about water conservation.

Using natural materials is one way of bringing nature indoors. Oiled white ash floors and ceilings, along with Italian poplar and Lawson cypress joinery, are found throughout architect Andrew Simpson’s 538-square-foot home outside Wellington, New Zealand.

In the kitchen, the cabinetry is walnut veneer with a weathered finish applied by cabinetmaker David Rogers. “The process involved sanding and rubbing in stain as well as adding a clear finish,” project architect Eero Puurunen says.

Induction cooktops, growing steadily in popularity due to their energy efficiency and speed, are part of the offering as well as as a selection of exhaust hoods.

A 17-foot-tall freestanding play structure that designer Sharon Davis designed for her family in upstate New York can only be entered by climbing taut netting and entering through a trap door. Descending requires sliding down two structural-columns-turned-fire-poles.

Much of the cooking and cleaning takes place at the rear counter, which is outfitted with an Evoke faucet by Kohler.

Visitors scale a series of outdoor staircases that wind their way up the structure. Volume and Studio Terpeluk turned the risers into a teaching moment about energy use and the impact of every day activities.