Casa Del Acantilado—Spanish for, you guessed it, Cliff House—was a sensation when it was completed five years ago. Without doubt the most bizarre house of the bunch, its wavy form and scale-like cladding (all roof) is perched above the Mediterranean in Salobreña, Spain.

Not all of the 60 case studies are secluded mountainside retreats, though there are quite a number of those, from a boxy summer spot in the Swiss Alps to a sculptural ski getaway in Whistler, British Columbia.

Urban projects are fewer, but several hillside homes in Los Angeles made the cut. Among them, Stack House, by 2017 Record Design Vanguard firm FreelandBuck is a composition of white cubes, well, stacked on top of each other. Eric Rosen Architects carved the Barrington Residence out of its challenging topography so that the grassy surface of the roof becomes part of the site. Taking inspiration from artist Gordon Matta-Clark’s 1970s work Splitting, the architect sliced the slope beneath it, where a dramatic cantilevered stair has views to the city’s famous Getty Center atop an adjacent hill.

You won’t find detailed explanations of how these seemingly impossible structures were built, and some houses are frankly more edgy than others. But the photos are great, and this is, after all, a picture book.