A house is much more than what lies within its walls. A new book out this week from Phaidon shows that a house’s setting can be as important as what’s inside it.

The book, Living in Nature: Contemporary Houses in the Natural World, highlights 50 homes from around the world that were designed to bring in and celebrate their natural surroundings. Built from materials that relate to the environment and with boundaries that blur indoors and outdoors, they sit in harmony with their surroundings.

Divided into four sections—air, earth, fire, and water—the book offers tantalizing looks inside homes that were designed to connect with the outdoors and also to minimize their impact on the natural world.

Here are a few that show how homes can reflect and embody the elements of nature.

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