Set along a plot of land facing the beach in Sydney, Australia, the home is a modern beach house for a retired couple and their children and grandchildren. Clad in simple stone and timber, the extendable screens along the beachfront façade enable the family to adjust both privacy and natural shade as the sun moves across the sky each day. The Pittwater House’s floor pla...
Generating more energy than it uses, this gorgeous home has a positive impact on the surrounding environment. Despite its huge 5,600-square-foot physical footprint, the home uses an energy monitoring system that controls LED lighting, motorized shades, and heat recovery ventilators to offset its actual environmental footprint. These features are just the tip of the icebe...
In response to these challenges, he planted 3 glass boxes connected by a highly glazed, transparent corridor on a cantilevered roof, and surrounded them with a courtyard, a mini-meadow, and trees! The three new boxes on the roof house a master bedroom, dressing room and bath room, as well as a personal living room and home office. There’s a meadow and apple tree in on...
To get around the strict building size regulations, Enproyecto Arquitectura designed the Refugio en La Vall de Laguar as an agriculture building with small living spaces both above and below ground . Walls become storage, the benches on the patio are light shafts for the downstairs bedrooms and along with the subterranean rooms an extensive dry stacked stone wall keeps t...
Höweler + Yoon Architecture’s recently completed multi-generational Bridge House is one such example. Located on a wooded and sloped site in McLean, V.A., the aluminum-clad family home is optimized to passive solar principles and comfortably houses three generations under one roof. Although the Bridge House looks like a single-family home from the front, the building ...
While many such farmhouses and barns have been bulldozed and replaced with generic housing, OFIS Architects takes a more sustainable approach with their Alpine Barn Apartment, a loft apartment transformed from an old barn. This beautiful example of adaptive reuse was created to ensure the survival of the Slovene vernacular architecture and pay homage to traditional rural...
Located in Suoni, Finland, House L is surrounded by other renovated farm buildings, including an old granary that now houses a sauna. House L began as a simple renovation project for a bathroom in the former 1970s farmhouse; however, the architects later decided to overhaul the entire building, only keeping the foundations and a small section of the outer wall layer. ...
The Sleeping Pod, which measures just 55 square feet (5 square meters), was designed for a student housing project at the University of Utah’s Lassonde Studios. Hit the jump to learn more about its many space-saving features delivered in unmistakable style. The prefab pod is constructed out of CNC-cut plywood with a nested wood sub structure and its protective shell i...
The design provides a clever barrier against the sun and wind, acting as a sort of second skin to the underlying wood frame, augmenting the Villa's passive house construction. The entire structure sits on a podium made out of stone-filled gabion walls. The structure, called Villa in the Beskydy Mountains, was crafted using traditional local construction techniques ble...
With its clean lines and minimalist palette, the Mountain-View House is unmistakably contemporary in design; however it also references traditional rural architecture with its gabled roofs. The single-family home is built into a slope and split into three levels, with the middle floor cantilevered out to make the most of the stunning landscape views. Located over 880 ...
Located in the mountain areas close to Åkrafjorden in Norway, the shelter goes almost unnoticed thanks to its curvy moss roof. Dubbed Bjellandsbu - Åkrafjorden, it was crafted from local stones and wood offering the perfect retreat to get away from it all. The stunning tiny cabin stands along a lake between high Norwegian peaks. Its humble, curvaceous design integrate...
Whimsical and minimalist, this modern mobile home is just 140 square feet—but the tiny home’s clever design makes its small footprint look and feel much larger. Even better, the Toybox is equipped with an impressive array of eco-friendly elements, from radiant floor heating to gray water recycling. Designed by Frank Henderson and Paul Schultz, the Toybox Home is currentl...
They decided they needed some extra space, which they got with the help of Swedish prefab cabin builder Kenjo, who designed and built a small floating room out on the lake. The modern cabin is a simple design and is built from locally-sourced spruce and provides the perfect spot for lounging, playing on the lake and even an extra guest room. Solar panels on the roof prov...
Inserted behind a 19th-century stable wall, the four-bedroom house is meticulously designed and clad in prefab weathering steel panels. The elegant home complements the historic architectural styles in southwest London’s Kew Green Conservation Area. Kew House’s successful design is due in part to the collaborative architect-client relationship. The client, who is a st...
Inspired by chameleons, the house sits in the middle of a meadow with each of its minimalist rooms oriented towards different areas of the garden. The skin of the house was covered in a semi-glossy coat that reflects the colors of its surroundings like an amphibian. The living room faces the apple tree, the master bedroom looks onto a cherry tree, the bathroom is orie...
The stone-walled mountain home in Mexico has large glass doors that pivot from the walls and open up towards the surrounding landscape, blending in and out, new and old. The house sits at the foot of Tepozteco mountain in Mexico, considered sacred by the villagers and visitors of the El Tepozteco national park. The architects chose volcanic stone for the walls of the ...
The Jewel Box Villa uses both passive and active energy sources, with a particular focus on solar and geothermal. It meets all local energy and eco-certification standards and acts as a sort of constructed landscape, reflecting its urban and natural surroundings and the client's experiences while living in Asia. Read more: Jewel Box Villa takes energy-efficient green...
The sprawling home was designed to give the family members different views of the neighborhood, downtown and adjacent garden, along with a range of play areas. The residence is topped with a green roof, a thermal chimney and solar panels. With a changing scale from the front of the home to the back, the sustainable home creates a daily sense of adventure as the family mo...
Spanish designers Alberto Monreal and Elisa Durán of Arquitecturas Naturales S.C. created this beautiful home by focusing on sustainable construction methods and locally-sourced building materials. Their efforts resulted in a nearly zero-energy building that captures sunlight, features natural ventilation and has a rainwater collection system. The sustainable mechanis...
This colorful residence, dubbed Mancave, is a sophisticated retreat in Sydney that perfectly unites privacy and open living. The 1060-square-meter warehouse, which once functioned as a food manufacturing factory, was altered to house a large living room, four bedrooms, kitchen, music room, and a large terrace and swimming pool. The most exciting addition is the sleepi...
Located in the dense city of Zabrze, D House—Urban Sandwich, is a single family brick home capped with a lush green oasis. The roof contains a terrace hidden from the surrounding streets by a thick veil of foliage. For blocks surrounding the single family home, two storey tenements rise, all built in the early 1900s. The D House-Urban Sandwich is a local landmark, ser...
The accomplish this, the team created a sculptural rooftop extension that climbs out of the original structure and seeks it’s way towards the trees of the surrounding forest. A new new off-grid solar system provides energy, and a wood stove provides warmth in the winter. Wastewater now ends up in a septic tank filtered by a halophyte filter. The rooftop extension was con...
Set in the footprint of the property’s former home, the modern rectilinear house is made up of six prefabricated modules. Spanning 2,788 square feet, the open-plan home gives its residents panoramic views of the beautiful Jackson Hole landscape. The original bungalow on the property was decaying and outdated, so the family decided to tear it down and make way for a mo...
Built in a flood-prone area in Byron Bay, Australia, the handsome home is raised off the ground to avoid flooding. The airy home makes use of passive solar design principles, natural ventilation, and open-plan layouts for a comfortable subtropical lifestyle that embraces the outdoors and temperate climate. The sculptural Northern Rivers Beach House reinterprets tradit...
The terraced energy-efficient residence in the Village of Mamaroneck in Westchester County is both a retrofit and extension of an existing house built in 1963. Benzing Architects designed the project for a private client, using the existing footprint and first floor framing as the renovation's foundation. The design has won the 2015 EBie Awards, Urban Green Council`s "Os...
Located on a plot previously occupied by a derelict garage, the semi-detached properties were designed to blend in with the area's visual style. Clad in vertical cedar planks that will turn silver and age over time, the 'floating' paired homes are a testament to contemporary design that also integrates with the local architecture. The twin wooden cedar homes have narr...
The architects designed "residential hangars", activities buildings, small towers, pedestrian areas, gardens and hybrid buildings, spanning different typologies and reflecting the industrial design of the existing structures. The buildings were arranged to run perpendicular to the port zone and provide equal views for residents. In order to further integrate the new c...
If so, this tiny cottage might just be a dream come true. The designers at Vécsey Schmidt Architekten have built the quaint Garden House with picturesque details on landscape that brings to life the bucolic fantasy. The space, which once housed a barn, maintains its historical charm while accommodating modern living. The Garden House utilizes an existing boundary wall...
Students and faculty at UCLA's CityLAB created the semi-permanent housing solution to offer additional living quarters "for an elderly parent, a returning college graduate, or a rental unit." The BI(h)OME consists of a bedroom, kitchen, living room, bathroom and dining room wrapped in a translucent envelope. The prototype was designed as a response to the LA mayor’s c...
Luckily, YUUA Architects and Associates have set a great example of livable yet compact living in their skinny 1.8m-Width House. Using height to make up for the lot’s narrow footprint, the architects brings natural light deep into the building through a large street-facing glazed facade. YUUA Architects and Associates designed the super narrow home for a couple and th...
Casa Trasanquelos comprizes two slightly shifted tubular volumes stacked on the other in order to maximize views of the surrounding landscape. This private residence was awarded the 2015 Bronze Award of Merit by the New York Council of The Society of American Registered Architects (SARA).The house almost disappears into the hill and creates several distinct spaces that f...
Mansard architecture and modern gable roofs create a new composition that is invisible from the street. The extension doubles the living space of the old house but still remains inconspicuous as it is hidden behind the existing structure. Although the extension contrasts the existing building with its anthracite, flat facade and detailing, its overall volume fits perf...
Designed by stekke + fraas, the complex embraces diversity, and seeks to bring together residents of varying ages, social standing and occupation. Through shared spaces and amenities, Brutopia seeks to encourage enriched social experiences and connections in the thick of an urban landscape. Brutopia’s footprint is made up of two buildings, set around a large community...
Taking inspiration from the traditional children’s doll’s house, the gabled home features a beautiful fully glazed rear facade framed by oversized timber beams. Built as part of a suburban Melbourne home, the Doll’s House nearly doubles the size of the existing single-story Northcote structure and includes gray water recycling, VOC-free materials, and high-performance in...
Inspired by the beauty of the site, Los Angeles-based Walker Workshop gave Oak Pass House exquisite detailing, including large glazed surfaces combined with rough walls that look like they grew out of the supporting ridge. The client is a concert violinist who wanted a home suitable for hosting private classical-music performances. Well, he got that, and so much more. ...
The house, built using locally sourced materials and rock carved from a nearby quarry, boasts fantastic views of the ocean and combines different materials, creating a warm atmosphere perfect for honeymooners. The building includes only three rooms: a lobby, living room, small kitchen and a bathroom. It is self-sustainable since it harvests and filters on-site water, ...
