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Smooth concrete flooring offsets the verticality of the timber boards that cover the interior and exterior walls.

A ribbon-like spiral staircase leads from the open-plan living area to the second level, where the bedrooms are located.

The ground-floor bedrooms branch off the entry hall and the steel-and-concrete spiral stair—a focal point and labor of love.

Botta’s best bit, though, is the circular staircase at the heart of his rounded building around which the museum’s collection of centuries-old Korean artifacts is displayed. The white walls and cutaways give the sense of winding further and further back in time as you progress through the exhibitions.

“The intimate courtyard, with a concrete floor and plants, is an homage to many charming places in Southern California, where my wife and I lived for four years before getting married," says Priatman.

A sculptural white steel spiral staircase with wooden treads connects the two levels.

The trip from garage to first floor is through a wood-clad spiral staircase that resembles a giant slatted barrel.

Arango describes the perks of living in a house that runs on passive principles, including lower energy bills and less noise from heaters.

The two-tone corrugated metal cladding helps the sheds blend into the landscape, along with windows custom-colored by the manufacturer to match.

Barcelona-based Slow Studio builds a bioclimatic home for a couple who work with the United Nations.

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

White-oak stairs connect the first-floor living spaces with the upstairs sleeping areas.

The handrail continues onto the mezzanine as a slanted balustrade that follows the upper level’s triangulated plan. "It looks like a complicated system, but on closer look, most of the surfaces are planar," says Amanda. "We did this to ensure that the project could be constructed as accurately as possible."

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

Anka Lamprecht and Lukas Wezel shared their rustic domicile in a valley in Grotli, Norway. Boasting an enviable view, it’s the first cabin archived in the book’s “Backcountry” category that features homesteads in the wilderness.

Olson Kundig Architects' Delta Shelter, in Mazama, Washington, is a 1,000 square-foot steel box home with a 200 square-foot footprint. Photo by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects/TASCHEN.

The cabin’s concept was simple: To create a cabin that is small and sparse yet spatially rich. The 55-square-meter (592-square-foot) cabin, commissioned by a private client and completed in 2016, comprises a large living room, bedroom, ski room, and small annex with a utility room. It functions off the water and electricity grids.

Cabin Nordmarka, 2006.

The dark cedar-stained lanai is the cozy, attractive center of activity at Kūono .

Upon his first visit to Tasmania, an island south of the Australian mainland, resident David Burns was immediately smitten with its varied, pristine landscape. Working with architecture firm Misho+Associates, he built a self-sustaining, 818-square-foot retreat that would allow him to completely unplug from urban life.

The Nomad Den is designed as a cross between a glamping tent and a cabin, with a timber frame and cladding, and canvas roof and window shade.

Interior stairs in the afternoon

“The original stairs were not lined up vertically, which took up much of the internal space,” Dubbeldam explains. The architect replaced them with black walnut wood risers that seem to float from the basement to the third floor, allowing light to spill into the house’s once-dark interior.

Located on an infill lot, the house is clad with Anthra Zinc panels by VMZinc.

A landscape of native grasses designed by GSLA Studio complements the raw textures of the concrete-and-ipe front facade.

Located in Los Altos, California, Curt Cline's modern house seeks to respect the neighborhood fabric. By keeping the abode low-slung, using a few simple geometries, and the leaving the facade spare, Cline helped the structure blend in with the 1940s and 1950s structures around it. The materials—board-formed concrete and cedar slats—instill a contemporary California aesthetic.

On the opposite side of the abstract front elevation, the home opens up and presents an entirely different viewing experience. “Like a flower leaning [towards the] sunlight, the architectural volumes pull and open up towards the views of the lake,” says Miller. A stacked timber retaining wall serves both structural and aesthetic functions; in addition to holding back the earth the home has been buried into, it visually defines the its perimeter.

This tree house in Sweden with a mirrored exterior by Tham and Videgård Arkitekter is just large enough to host two people.

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.

Architect Robert Swinburne deploys a collaborative building approach and hyperlocal materials to craft a Passive House–certified home that celebrates the land it’s built on.

Two hours north of New York City, an unusual barn emerges from a hill just off a country road. Its black siding and bright-red window frames hint at the imaginative playground inside. This space, with its rope-railed catwalk and indoor tent, is just one element of the multifaceted getaway architecture and design firm BarlisWedlick Architects designed for fund manager Ian Hague.