A dark cedar screen wraps the exterior of Forest Studio, a compact, gable-roof building by Canadian architecture studio Little Giant that can serve as a workspace or a domestic dwelling. More about Little Giant draws on "spirit of a treehouse" for Forest Studio on Vancouver Island
New York studio WaCa Design and local studio Julia Kosciuk Arquiteta have used local materials and low-carbon methods for an expansive waterfront compound in Santa Catarina, Brazil, which bridges the beach and mountainous landscape. More about WaCa Design aims for low embodied carbon in Brazilian seaside compound
Prefabricated wooden elements were used to create the "orderly" square-shaped Casa SI by Chilean studio Iragüen Viñuela Arquitecto, which is perched on a hilly site near the Pacific Ocean. More about Iragüen Viñuela experiments with "expressive potential" of prefab timber in Chile
Architecture studio Brooks + Scarpa has created a three-storey Manhattan Beach house that capitalises on views and indoor-outdoor living while avoiding standard tactics used in the area's housing stock. More about Brooks + Scarpa breaks with local convention at Alma Switch House in California
American architecture studio AMMA fabricated mass-timber structures in Spain before installing them for the Oceana Innovation Hub school in Barbados in a modular arrangement that reflects vernacular architecture. More about AMMA completes mass-timber modular school "that breathes" in Barbados
Local practice Estúdio Rossi Arquitetos has completed a house with a glued-laminated timber structure on the coast of São Paolo that opens to the surrounding landscape through multiple screens and brise soleil. More about Estúdio Rossi Arquitetos "transforms memory into architecture" at Brazilian beach house
A narrow alleyway winds between the monolithic, blocky volumes and patios of this coastal home in Sicily, designed by Italian architecture practice Solum. More about Solum carves "labyrinthine" alleyway through coastal home in Italy
California architect Nick Polansky used redwood decking to clad a barge and topped it with recycled shipping containers to create the Fjord floating sauna in San Francisco Bay, USA. More about Floating sauna made from shipping containers installed in California
Chiselled stone walls and vast stretches of glass define a coastal California home by US studio Field Architecture, which was designed to "bring the residents closer to nature with every turn". More about Field Architecture perches Big Sur House on bluff overlooking the ocean
Chinese studio 3andwich Design has completed the Blue Insight Cave Space, a coastal viewing platform and events space in Fujian Province, China, that features cave-like interiors concealed beneath a large green roof. More about 3andwich Design tops cave-like coastal viewpoint with green roof
Local studio Bates Masi + Architects has settled a hillside house on a brick base overlooking the seashore in Montauk, New York, USA. More about Bates Masi creates two-toned Navy Beach house in Montauk
Mexican architecture firm Estudio Cristina Grappin has opened a large stone house to coastal breezes between the courtyard and the Pacific Ocean in Punta Mita, Mexico. More about Estudio Cristina Grappin uses local stone for Mexican beach house
A lighthouse-style tower protrudes above the thick white walls enclosing this beachfront house, designed by architecture studio TAEP/APP for a coastal resort in southern Kuwait. More about TAEP/AAP raises lighthouse-like tower above White Fortress house in Kuwait
Architecture studio Brown & Brown and interior designer Sam Buckley have completed a house in southern Scotland, comprising stacked geometric volumes with large openings that look out onto tidal flats. More about Tidal House on Scottish coast opens up to reveal views of estuary
Mexican studios Productora and The Book of Wa have unveiled the boutique Kymaia Hotel with suites of coloured concrete in a pyramidal form near Puerto Escondido, along Mexico's southwestern coast. More about Productora models Oaxacan hotel suites after pre-Hispanic pyramids
New York-based studio BarlisWedlick has renovated and expanded a Southampton house to create multigenerational living spaces that open up to the seaside. More about BarlisWedlick opens renovated Hamptons house to the shoreline
Local studio Reyes Ríos + Larraín Arquitectos stretched out a beach house along a narrow plot and coated it with rose-coloured stucco on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. More about Reyes Ríos + Larraín Arquitectos extends pink beach house along narrow Yucatán property
Spanish architecture studios DataAE and Xavier Vendrell have balanced two rows of social housing on a hillside in Barcelona overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. More about DataAE and Xavier Vendrell balance Barcelona housing block on steep site
California architecture studio Electric Bowery and graphic design firm Land have completed the renovation of a 1980s hotel in Laguna Beach informed by European seaside inns. More about Electric Bowery and Land infuse Laguna Beach hotel with "Mallorcan vibes"
Vancouver-based design firm Campos Studio has created a sculptural white house with a large cantilever on the rocky coastline of Los Zacatitos to celebrate both the sea and the sky in Baja California, Mexico. More about Campos Studio creates descending off-the-grid house in Baja California