The glass-enclosed master bedroom floats above the corrugated, oxidized steel exterior.

Architect Tamira Sawatzky and artist Elle Flanders get an awfully good view of their busy Toronto street from their office and dining room.

The table is by Made, the sneaker-inspired Shoe Toss pendants are by Jeremy Hatch of Ricochet Studio, and the laser-cut photo on the wall is by the couple’s collective art and design practice, Public Studio.

In the living quarters of Lightroom 2.0, Carpenter’s daughter Esme chats with her boyfriend, who is seated on a Milo Baughman Case Sofa.

Lightroom 2.0 was inspired by artists’ lofts and Decatur’s industrial past. The gallery floors are polished concrete and the exposed joists are Georgia-Pacific engineered lumber.

Located beneath a netting, Wolberg's multifunctional LIVE IN project packs a range of personal configurations into a 131-square-foot unit, including work, play, and sleep.

The holistic LIVE IN also incorporates space for practical necessities, like sleep.

Intimate nooks, set amid curvaceous shapes, diffused lighting, and colorful accents, provide a place for rest and recreation. The various levels, including the netting above, playfully engage the space.

After a 40-year-old pine tree fell over on a Brentwood estate in Los Angeles, the owner let it lie, and the continued to grow from its newfound horizontal position. He decided to incorporate it into a 172-square-foot office and guest house with the structure floating above the tree. Around the perimeter of the butterfly roof is a clerestory that gives the illusion that the roof is floating.

On the lower roof, cedar decking and flower beds define one of several outdoor gardening spaces. Part of her ongoing research into the livability of cities, Fitzgerald aimed to create landscaped areas that were “aesthetic, aromatic, educational, and productive.” The deck is bordered by an expanded aluminum mesh railing and black metal corrugated panels.

Challenged by the dimensions of the narrow lot, the team worked through significant programmatic and logistical constraints during the design and construction process. The final concept for the layout was a modern take on the side hall plan. The living spaces are stretched back deep into the lot, and strategically raised above grade to allow sunlight to penetrate into multiple living spaces. The multifunctional courtyard serves as outdoor workspace, gardening area, children's play area, and covered parking during winter months.

Carpenter kicks back on an IKEA outdoor sectional on the sealed-pine roof deck of Lightroom 2.0. A collection of vintage Tulip armchairs by Eero Saarinen surround a “Jetsons-inspired” fireplace from the 1970s found online.

Put on the Bing Crosby and enjoy the holiday festivities! LIVE WIRELESS SPEAKERMinimal and stylish, the Live speaker is designed by Kristian Krøyer for Scandinavian-based Libratone. This chic speaker uses a high-resolution wireless sound system with AirPlay and DLNA support to stream your favorite music from your iPod touch, iPhone, iPad, Mac/PC or Android device.

With consumers moving away from traditional hi-fi systems toward a more mobile approach to music, Libratone worked with Designit on a line of eye-catching portable speakers. The Libratone Live speaker, pictured here, featuers a chrome handle and a removable wool cover (available in several colors). It has a built-in battery an audio jack, and can also sync up with playlists via AirPlay and DNLA, or directly from an iPhone, iPad, Android device, or a laptop computer. Image courtesy of Designit.

Positioned on the ground floor, the office enjoys spacial privacy, while still having intimate interaction with the living area above and common courtyard.

The 52-foot-high roof deck overlooks Decatur Square. “The building may appear as an object, but someday, it’ll become the backdrop as all of it develops,” Carpenter says. The structure shares the lot with a 1920s bungalow containing a therapist’s office that abuts the first-floor gallery, as well as Lightroom 1.0.

This New York City home is studded with pieces by such famous names as Knoll, Saarinen, and Risom. Deployed throughout the loft, these modern icons at once unify and separate work and life. Like the architecture, they can be read two ways: as recognizably typical office furniture or as prized home-design collectibles.

Designer and digital fabricator Shawn Benson shares his 595-square-foot second-floor space with his wife, Jessica, and their daughter, Roux. The 15-foot-high ceilings allow plenty of room for a full-size ocean paddleboard.

A continuous concrete slab runs from inside the house out to the open deck, which is exposed to the wind that sweeps the surrounding fields.

With a sizable portfolio packed with innovative home, restaurant, retail, and office design, Cara Cummins and Jose Tavel of TaC Studios took their strategies for their clients to their own home. When choosing a site, the dynamic duo felt passionate about staying in the neighborhood they were so dedicated to help transform—a central, historic Atlanta community once tainted by its industrial past and years of street crime.

A freestanding tub from the Water Monopoly.

The home’s front façade features an anodized aluminum and glass curtain wall by Kawneer that's framed by Vic West black corrugated metal panels. The board-formed concrete on the exterior enables passive solar absorption, allowing optimal heat retention on cold winter days. The metal and concrete exterior cladding offers cohesive dialogue with the neighboring industrial sheds and commercial buildings.

Taking cues from the warmth of the setting sun, Brooklyn-based Workstead’s renovated a 1,800-square-foot Tribeca loft in an 1864 factory building. A timber palette and custom woodwork achieve a cozy feel throughout, and the architects tore out awkward interior partitions and dated finishes and exposed the building’s original fir joists to restore the loft’s open and airy feel. Oversized windows, a light color palette, and a minimalist design approach help pull natural light deep into the home while simultaneously directing views out toward the Hudson River.

Purple thistles, California poppies, clover, and dandelions have all taken root in the roughly 10-inch-deep, lightweight humus and grape-husk soil in this 580-square-foot green roof. Designer Peter Liang says that he "wanted to plant a green roof for its thermal mass, but I wanted it to be as natural as possible."

Suzanne and Brooks Kelley at the back of their 1,100-square-foot guest cottage.

The owners toured this home, which surrounds a mature tipu tipu tree, while visiting relatives for the day. The brick is original to the 1947 construction.

Sliding doors by Quantum were made to look like the original panes that couldn't be saved, and they lead to a fire pit outside.

Jane and Dan Wright furnished the living space of their new studio building with a rug from West Elm and a wood stove from Morsø.

When he became the dean of Syracuse University's School of Architecture in 2004, Mark Robbins made a plan to help the city and, potentially, the entire country. “I wanted to see if we could build houses that simultaneously made propositions about sustainability and about the possibility of constructing houses in a city like Syracuse,” Robbins said. The result was three green homes for $200,000 each and the promise of more to come. Read more about the central New York project here.

Jane Wright, a painter and printmaker, uses one end of the building as a studio. The space served as a lanuching pad for her new interior design business, Roost Modern.

In the bathroom, the sink is mounted on salvaged live-edge wood.

The siding is locally milled native white pine, with plywood soffits and Andersen windows.

Oversize, double-hung windows draw natural light into the space.

The floors are polished concrete, a money-saving move that allowed for splurges like the floor-to-ceiling windows from Chicago Tempered Glass set in Tubelite frames.

A stack of the artist's work sits in his live/work space's front window.

Kii recently scored these flat files. Too bad his poster collection won't all fit.