Light & Energy: Brilliant Ideas for the Modern Home

The legacy of midcentury designer Joe Colombo is underscored with a reissue of his plywood 4801 chair, now appearing for the first time in plastic from Italian furniture company...

This courtyard house on the edge of the Berkshires offers both grand vistas and plenty of privacy, thanks to its custom rain screen.

Solar panels have a reputation as being unsightly, but this U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon show home sheds the stereotype that photovoltaic arrays are eyesores.

A family discovers the joys of DIY design—and muddy feet—in their home made up of distinct pods that blends harmoniously with its surroundings in the rainy mountains of Kauai.

The E+ Green Home, a concept house located an hour outside Seoul, not only points the way to a greener South Korea, it may well be the most sustainable house in the country.

In a former fishermen’s cottage outside Copenhagen, a young family has carved out a cozy, light-filled home.

A couple in northern Italy trade a cramped flat for a renovated farmhouse in the country.

Architect, systems designer, Cradle to Cradle founder, and sustainability guru William McDonough talks entropy, Walker Evans, paper houses, and “buildings like trees” with science...

Taming fire was humankind’s first and most critical step toward its mastery of the material world.

Kiel Moe, assistant professor of architectural technology at Harvard University, specializes in architecture and energy issues.

Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, says that some anthropologists believe that we tamed fire before we were even human.

A one-of-a-kind house on a Japanese island blurs the indoor-outdoor divide.