Defying the typical angsty design process, the first conceptual sketch of the Dune House was the one that stuck.

On a steep 25-acre site near Sonoma, California, two scientists harvest some of the bounty from their vegetable gardens, olive trees, and beehives to deliver to a Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco.

On May 12, 2008, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake rocked the Sichuan Province in Western China, killing 68,000 people.

According to English Heritage (which oversees historic buildings for the British government), Woodchester House, a Georgian mansion built in 1746 and located on 30 acres of Gloucestershire countryside, is architecturally untouchable and unchangeable.

Designing a house on a narrow lot in the bustling city of Taichung, Taiwan, called for a certain imagination—especially when it was intended for a family of three with an extensive art collection.

Like an introverted person, the House of Trough, designed by architect Jun Igarashi in the Kato-gun district of the Hokkaido prefecture in northern Japan, focuses inward.

Some minimalist architects boast that given enough money, they can make their architecture almost disappear.

Architect Robert Gurney and his client, a young entrepreneur with a large family, shocked the residents of the Edgemoor section of Bethesda, Maryland, with the house they created. It was not because of the design's Modernist roots, although the house is decidedly unlike the Colonial- and Craftsman-style ones nearby. The surprise comes from its size.

According to architect Jacopo Mascheroni, people from the village of Brusino Arsizio, Switzerland (population 475), have been trying to get a glimpse of the house he designed for Nicoletta Messina, a financial consultant, and her family.