Toby Orton

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. At just 600 square feet, the building is less a conventional house, more a dedicated space wellness space where residents can retreat for yoga, meditation and slower pursuits. Its classic A-frame silhouette has been given a contemporary twist, with two small projections pushing out from the main volume to create cozy nooks inside.

In Mexico, Casa Malonica 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. Rather than competing with the location, the architects HW Studio

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. Set on a sloping plot, the house climbs gradually through the site, allowing its main rooms to sit among the tops of the trees, rather than above them, affording residents privacy and lush green views. Decks extend from the living spaces, providing outdoor suntraps, while the raised rear garden offers further space for entertainment.

With its dark timber skin and three pitched roofs, this guest house by SEEK Design looks more like a cluster of agricultural outbuildings than a place to retreat to on weekends. On a five-acre Indiana farm, tucked between trees and wildflower meadows, the 2,700-square-foot retreat offers visiting family and friends a little independence from a main house that sits nearby, while doubling as a private escape for the owners themselves. Arranged as a group of adjacent buildings, each of the pitched-roof volumes stands on its own, deliberately echoing the forms of the simple sheds found throughout the surrounding countryside

At just six metres wide and 30 metres deep, this urban house in Brazil makes a convincing case for thinking upwards rather than outwards. Hemmed in by neighbouring buildings, with no windows along its side walls, the Casa Votupoca finds its breathing room in a dramatic triple-height living space at the centre of the ground floor. Rather than dividing the kitchen, dining and living areas into separate rooms, designers Arkitito Arquitetura

Simplicity is beauty for the Shed/House by architects Side Angle Side, whose vast scope fits the landscape well, its deceptive grandeur creating a structure that tries not to look like a house at all, but rather a huge shed. The deliberately plain facade resembles simple agricultural architecture, helping the building blend into the rural landscape. It is only once the front of the building comes into view that the real house reveals itself. Designed as a family retreat, the building stretches out towards a sweeping southern view.

Finding space on the end of a terraced row, this five-storey modern home was transformed by architects Hayhurst and Co. Originally built in the 1970s, the

Split volumes give the Timber Lane Retreat by Wheeler Kearns Architects its distinctive character, the sprawling home appearing between trees on a bluff above Lake Michigan

At just 42 square metres, Plana House explores how much can be achieved with a little less. Designed by architect Kristijan Markoc of Plana Architecture

On the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, a low-slung holiday home makes a virtue of keeping out of sight. Set among the shifting dunes of Sisal, an old fishing port on the Gulf of Mexico, visitors approach the house along a straight narrow path flanked by dense vegetation that rises high on both sides. Beyond the house, there is no garden; the beach, the ocean, and the untamed surrounding jungle providing the alternative.