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.

On an island 20 miles off the coast of Maine, a writer, with the help of his daughter, built not only a room, but an entire green getaway of his own.

The Desert House located in Desert Hot Springs is a steel structure designed with large expansive windows, and concrete flooring.

Mechanical engineer Jan Moolsintong and industrial designer Peter Russell-Clarke get epic views of San Francisco from their 1,800-square-foot house overlooking the Mission District. On warm nights, they eat dinner perched on Eiffel side chairs by Charles and Ray Eames around a table from Room & Board. The distinctive facade has operable porthole windows and a slatted garage door custom-built by Raimundo Ferreira.

CROSS SIDE CHAIR From eco-friendly Juniper, the Cross Side chair takes its inspiration from the symmetry of an hourglass. Two interlocking profiles connect in perfect balance reducing the form to its most essential––and making the Cross Side Chair a perfect fit for stacking.

The project’s unique challenges—a tight budget and steep, difficult terrain—led architecture firm _naturehumaine to a creative solution that gave the house its delightfully sculptural appearance. Making the first floor’s envelope slightly narrower than the top one’s saved money while minimizing the amount of excavation required.

Built-in units can solve storage issues while making your office space look like it was there all along.

A black electric guitar, a vintage rosewood desk, and a side chair by Charles and Ray Eames sit at the foot of the stairs just beneath a photo of designer Barbara Hill herself competing in the 1956 Miss America Pageant.

Designer Barbara Hill recollects that Shannon wanted a “young, funky feel” to his home on the Row. He sits in a vintage chair next to a Satsuma lamp by Jonas Damon for Areaware.

The dining chairs are Yolanda side chairs by Ukao.

The dining room features 1970s leather-and-brass dining chairs and a table concocted from a brass-and-silver base and a custom lacquered top. The cheerful blue paint enlivening the doorway is from Emery & Cie.

In Vancouver’s Strathcona district, two side-by-side lots now hold seven residences—thanks to a thoughtful renovation of a pair Edwardian houses and the addition of a laneway, or alley, building by Shape Architecture. The team salvaged as much 120-year-old siding as they could for use on the street-facing facades.

A side view of the house and of Salmela’s signature architectural feature: the “unchimney.” All windows are from Loewen.

A side chair by Norman Cherner with its back overlooking the golf course.

Wiggle Side Chair designed by Frank Gehry, 1972.

This open-concept Amsterdam loft features soaring 15-foot ceilings, an Eames lounge chair and ottoman, and a Jielde light. Throughout the home, Standard Studio architects Wouter Slot and Jurjen van Hulzen favored raw materials, including concrete, oiled oak, and hot-rolled steel, all of which complemented the original space's industrial feel. Tucked smartly underneath the loft, a compact home office features functional built-in shelving and an Eames DSR chair.

Homeowner Susanna prefers a motley set of dining chairs over a coordinated set; that way, guests can pick their favorite when they sit. Photo by: Petra Bindel

A slender, black double-sided fireplace distinguishes the living room from the dining area.

A black side table rests outside the bedroom hallway.

Chair Necessities The couple’s four Chair One dining chairs by Konstantin Grcic for Magis are among their most prized possessions. They had been given their dining table as a wedding gift but couldn’t afford enough chairs to surround it, so they opted for a wooden bench on one side and the Grcic chairs on the other. Davor says he’s pleased they purchased the chairs early in the design process before the budget got really tight. magisdesign.com

Bestor opened up the central spine of the ranch-style home, creating a kind of longhouse with the ceilings insulated and covered with hemlock.

A similar design to the Lounge Arm Chair, the Lounge Side Chair has a welcoming shape that evokes Norman Cherner’s 1958 design.

Los Angeles–based Bend designs and produces furniture, lighting, and accessories for the modern home and contemporary public spaces. Its work is characterized by a brilliant use of lines and color, as exemplified in the Lucy Dining Side Chair. The chair is made of hot-dip galvanized iron with a powder coat finish.

By creating a desk out of roof beams, this home office perfectly integrates into an open-plan renovation of a Northern Italian farmhouse.

Konstantin Grcic’s Venus chairs for ClassiCon surround a table by Poliform in the formal dining room. Hill selected the Flos chandelier designed by Marcel Wanders for its "Old World reverence." The sleek fireplace mantel was designed by Hill and cobbled together onsite from three solid slabs of limestone.

When Oslo-based architect Marianne Borge was approached in 2004 by a client who wanted an actual cabin rather than a second home, she was instantly inspired by the challenge of working on a smaller scale. The home, called Woody35, has a distinct shape that makes it stand out from its surroundings despite the modest size of the building.

The dining table, made from a single piece of teak, is a little over 13 feet long and was custom made for the space. It can seat up to 24.

In the living room, an Eames lounge chair is matched with a Richard Conover–designed fiberglass chair in similar proportions. A custom coffee table by Asher Israelow com-plements the industrial lighting by Workstead, affixed to walls painted in Farrow and Ball’s Manor House Gray. The sliding doors leading into the home office were fabricated by Markus Bartenschlager.

The architect and his team devised an armature on the back of the container that will eventually be covered with vines, concealing the AC and heating unit, the reservoir for graywater and the composting toilet outlet.

The New Project Group renovated a cramped, uninviting space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The company gave the 400-square-foot apartment a gut renovation, with a new kitchen and bathroom designed for efficiency. A parallelogram-shaped window pane, rescued from an architectural salvage yard, was outfitted with steel edges and casters, and repurposed as a coffee table.

The homeowners, who are avid cooks, worked with a design duo and contractor for the home's renovation. To make the kitchen seem larger than it is, the team decided to place the largest cabinets and appliances near the entryway, making less clutter toward the window.

With a few small changes and regular maintenance, existing buildings are some of the most sustainable around.

For more bedroom ideas, check out our ten tips for clutter-free bedrooms.

Abbes and Davison removed drywall to expose the brick on one wall in the living room. "As we began to expose that brick, we found the old metal framing that they used to use," Daivson says. "They used to stick chicken-mesh wire on it and put plaster on top. When we exposed the brick, we found this metal detail and decided to keep it." Photo by Alan Gastelum.

"In the kitchen, we changed the layout," Davison says. "It was a galley kitchen, extending lengthways into the room. We spun it back along the back wall. The tiles are Moroccan concrete tiles that came from a supplier here in Manhattan. The idea was to inject some color and playfulness into the space with the blue cabinetry." Photo by Alan Gastelum.