Cow no. 1026 approaches a yellow-bristled electric back scratcher at Cornell University's Teaching Dairy Barn in Ithaca, New York.

Architecture need not always be serious. And nowhere is lightheartedness more fitting than in a vacation house.

The clients, for their sprawling, 365-acre working farm in Dutchess County, New York, requested a quiet weekend house patterned after Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Farnsworth House (1951).

Based in New York City, Chan-li Lin has worked for Rafael Viñoly Architects for 22 years, focusing on large projects.

In an exhibition he organized at the New Museum in New York City last year, Rem Koolhaas took the preservation movement to task, arguing that it had become an “empire” all too successful at tying the hands of architects and suffocating daring thinking.

A two-story, 15,232-square-foot town hall with a conference room for the Town Board, public meeting space, and offices for the town supervisor, board members, and support staff.

Located near the eastern end of Long Island’s north fork, on a waterside bluff of the largest glacial moraine in the world, this house is a refuge for an artist/writer who escapes here from Manhattan, making plans for the house to become a permanent home.