Taking cues from this home's Japanese-influenced slatted screen, Hufft Projects applied a ring of ipe wood around the perimeter of this outdoor fire pit.

A covered porch on the south side provides comfortably shaded outdoor space, and its roof keeps the high-angle summer sun out of the house.

A maple tree grows through an ipe deck in this garden that Mary Barensfeld designed for a family in Berkeley, California. A reflecting pool separates it from a granite patio, which is furnished with a Petal dining table by Richard Schultz and chairs by Mario Bellini. The 1,150-square-foot garden serves as an elegant transition from the couple’s 1964 Japanese-style town house to a small, elevated terrace with views of San Francisco Bay. Filigreed Cor-Ten steel fence screens—perforated with a water-jet cutter to cast dappled shadows on a bench and the ground below—and zigzagging board-formed concrete retaining walls are examples.

The outdoor fire pit.

Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers add a graphic touch to the garden.

After years of visiting the area as vacationers, one couple builds this striking home for their retirement outside Greenwater, Washington. A fireplace can be used on the rear patio and in the living room, making it feel like one cohesive space. Ipe planks, the same wood that’s used in the front courtyard, cover the floor.

Along with its durability, concrete requires very little maintenance.

The large patio leads to a newly landscaped back garden. An expansive glass wall promotes seamless indoor-outdoor living. Inexpensive brick pavers were chosen for the rear patio; they offer textural contrast with the steel of the door, brick of the rear facade, and pale gray wood of the interior floors.

With the doors flung wide open, the Deams' outdoor space truly functions as an adjunct living room at the core of the home. The feeling of an outdoor room is reinforced by the linearity and evenness of the concrete patio surface, which was constructed with Stepstone's Narrow Modular Pavers. "I actually discovered them at Dwell on Design in 2006," Lara says. The three-inch-wide pavers are available in multiple lengths and in 12 different shades.

For a cost-conscious 2,000-square-foot renovation located 30 minutes outside of Austin, Texas, architect Nick Deaver took a look around for inspiration. He spied galvanized metal cladding on the region’s sheds and co-opted the inexpensive, resilient material for his own design.

Backyard sunken patio

Behind an unassuming 19th-century facade in Singapore's Joo Chiat neighborhood, Ching Ian and Yang Yeo's renovation of a typical shophouse venerates tradition while looking squarely to the future. Photo by Richard Powers

5. "What are the top 10 most important things I must have in a home?" "If there are two people buying the home, write your answers down separately, starting with your absolute must-haves," Hoffman explains. “Putting together a list separately can give both parties and the realtor a clear picture of what the perfect home will have for both of you."

"The most challenging part of the design was fusing the old part of the house with the new addition," says principal architect Alex Terry. The character and architectural integrity of the single-level 1950s ranch house was thoughtfully reconsidered during the addition and remodel. The home’s front porch, typical of the period, was refreshed with Ipe decking and railing.

Miha hangs out with Kea, the dog, on the wooden deck that extends the living space outdoors.

The planks inside the house blend into those on the small porch just outside. It's a nice touch that helps marry the outdoors with the home's interior.

Sedums seem to encroach on white Napa Cast Stone pavers. As one moves from the poolside courtyard to the secluded deck below, the landscape transitions to larger succulents and then to sculptural South African euphorbias and podia.

Raised walkway between house and studio

Designed by Choeff Levy Fischman, this home in Miami Beach emphasizes transparency, views, indoor/outdoor living, and entertaining. A critical component of this is an atrium in the center of the residence, which creates an outdoor seating area while still inside the home.

Yang Yeo and his girlfriend Ching Ian relax on the back stoop of their renovated and radically updated Singapore shophouse—an archetypal building type in this busy port city. “Shophouses brought back memories of our childhood,” says Yeo.

Pavers and succulents in a yard in Malibu, California, help save water.

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.

Mandel designed a six-by-eight-foot extension for additional space on the ground floor.

“We were concerned that by elevating the first floor by six feet, we would be detaching the living space from the neighborhood,” Mitchell says. “Thus, we have an elevated exterior patio off of the rear that overlooks the sidewalk and brings the living space to the outdoors.”

It's traditional among homes in the region to enter through their backdoor, seen here. The door leads directly to the living room.

The engawa deck is a traditional Japanese feature. It's a place where guests are often greeted to sit with a casual cup of tea. The David and Mayuko also uses it as a viewing porch toward the back yard for when the kids play in the grass.

The house is oriented to maximize views of the ocean and Edgartown to the west, and Nantucket and Cape Pogue Bay to the east. Natural sea grasses sourced from the surrounding area cover the roof of the building, providing thermal insulation while also dampening the noise of rain, improving air quality, and helping to manage rainwater flow.

"The brief was to efficiently and cost effectively transform a light-starved weatherboard into an open and modern home with a good connection to the rear garden and a relaxed yet refined feel," says the firm. The owner charred and oiled the shiplapped cypress siding himself.

“Segovia is a very central region, but an underdeveloped one,” de la Quadra-Salcedo says. “Traditionally devoted to agriculture and mainly livestock, it flourished in the sixteenth century but now that the older generations are disappearing, there is a problem of abandoned villages and fields.” The structure highlights the rural surroundings.

A spacious deck was created as part of the addition. A cantilevered concrete bench stretches out to the rear garden and complements the adjacent concrete wall.

Though the front of this 1880s home in Adelaide, Australia, maintains a traditional facade due to strict heritage laws, the rear is modern eye candy at its best. See more of the home.

The screen porch serves as an auxiliary dining area and extends past the house to capture views and cross breezes.

In fall, the color of this backyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, changes daily with the foliage. Elizabeth Birdsall marvels how new outdoor spaces on her property, like a patio furnished with upholstered seating from Gloster, make enjoying the woods an easy experience: “It’s like comfortable camping, all the time.”

Stepstone's narrow concrete pavers add a graphic touch to the garden in the Mill Valley home of Dwell founder Lara Hedberg Deam and architect Chris Deam. Photo by Dustin Aksland.