With its dark timber skin and three pitched roofs, this Indiana guest house by SEEK Design looks more like a cluster of agricultural outbuildings than a place to retreat to on weekends.

McLean Quinlan designs Virginia Water, a countryside home in Surrey featuring a floating floor, a brick courtyard, and a ground source heat pump.

In the Santa Lucia Range near Cayucos, California, stands Cayucos Ridge Barn, a 4,315-square-foot working barn that runs entirely off the grid. Designed by studio Clayton Korte, it sits on the eastern edge of a 150-acre property, between the forest and 30 acres of Syrah vines.

blank design studio + architecture takes charge of the Klose Residence's renovation in Phoenix, Arizona featuring an oxidized steel canopy, white oak panels, and concrete floors.

In Vancouver, Canada, the Canopy House by Lamoureux Architects brings an appealing tree-house-like quality, blending with the dense woodland so that its surroundings feel almost part of the architecture.

Casa Malonica by HW Studio is informed by its location, its low-profile form poised on a plateau from which the sea stretches out beyond the site to one side and dense jungle surrounds it to the other.

In Portland's St Johns neighbourhood, a former postwar house became the Gradient House and Studio, designed by Observation Studio to make working from home feel less like a compromise and more like the perfect life balance.

Williamson Williamson designs DogTrot Magnetawan, a prefab cottage in Ontario featuring a breezeway, cedar cladding, and Passive House walls.

In the woods of Springs, a small village in Long Island, New York, this modest A-frame by architect BE Design offers a place to escape the distractions of everyday life.