The Modules want you to know how they were built. A privately owned student apartment building a few blocks from Temple University’s campus in North Philadelphia, the project touts its prefabricated construction in its branding.

When architect-developer Jonathan Segal named one of his recent buildings “The Q,” he says he was looking for “the cool factor, the debonair suaveness” of James Bond.

Program: A 44,330-square-foot 32-unit townhouse and apartment complex in downtown San Francisco designed for middle-income and first-time homebuyers. The below-market-rate condos, priced between $150,000 and $375,000, are part of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency's Limited Equity Program. Amenities include parking, patios, and a landscaped garden. Design concept and solution: The complex is located in San Francisco's cultural district with neighboring public transportation and numerous restaurants. In a nod to the nearby cultural offerings, the complex's interior courtyard, designed by landscape architect Fletcher Studio, prominently features a curved concrete planter shaped like one of Kurt Cobain's famous guitars. The frame of

Instead of the boxlike apartment and commercial towers in cities everywhere, architect Yansong Ma, principal of Beijing-based MAD, prefers structures that are “organic and soft.”

A seven-story, 63,000-square-foot apartment building in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Frank Gehry drapes his first skyscraper in rippling stainless steel, bringing luxury living to lower Manhattan.

A 12-story, 80,000-square-foot residential tower in Chelsea, with 47 units, a communal garden on the ground level, and a communal roof terrace.

A 14-story, 39,200-square-foot condominium tower that extends above the High Line, an elevated public park built on a derelict railroad track that runs along Manhattan's West Side.