Something about being one with the great outdoors appeals to the masses. The peace granted by the Mini MOD with thermo-acoustic insulation is immeasurable. Framed with fully transparent glass on the smaller sides and opaque pine plywood on the larger sides, the energy efficient walls provide incredible views and sufficient privacy. MAPA architects, a Brazilian treasure, ...
Polish architect Macin Tomaszewski of Warsaw-based firm Reform Architekt has created mirror magic in the forest just outside of the city. The Izabelin House is a two-storey family retreat that exists in symbiosis with its environment. The lower level is entirely clad in mirrors that reflect the surrounding verdure and mask the ground floor in a cloak of invisibility. ...
Tucked in the breathtaking South Tyrolean Dolomites, the Mirror Houses were designed by Peter Pichler Architecture as a pair of luxury guest houses. The adjacent units are located just outside of the town of Bolzano, Italy, on the same property as the owner’s personal lodging, a 1960s farmhouse. An important element of the project’s success was creating visual coheren...
Singapore-based Park + Associates does fantastic things with contrast. Just take a peek at Mimosa Road, a residence located in the northern part of Singapore. By using highly contrasted wood, stone and glass, the architects created impressive volume in the four-bedroom house. They also created a strong link between the interior and exterior of the structure with expansiv...
When an artist wants to settle in the woods and build a house there, you can be sure his or her intention isn’t to adapt the surroundings to his needs but more to blend in and observe. Be part of the eco-system living around and pull energy out of it. That’s probably what Feldman Architecture‘s client wished and asked of the architecture firm. The answer were these two b...
Cabins can be an awesome thing. Especially nowadays. It has become the architectural materialization of our desire to escape the city and return to the wild – and maybe also to our childhood. If more and more cabin projects have started being built everywhere, the Micro Cluster Cabins by Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter have something in more to them: they are designed for a fa...
With the design of the Marcus Beach House, BARK Design Architects accomplished something rather curious. Throughout the numerous houses we’ve studied and talked about here, we have seen houses that were built according to the topography of the site they were built on or in accordance with the surrounding environment. The Marcus Beach House has been built around a tree! ...
Lightbox is a single-family residence located just south of British Columbia in Point Roberts, Washington. American architecture firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson used humble materials in an innovative layout to create a simple-yet-satisfying home for a photographer and his family. Exposed two-bys make up the home’s structure as well as provide the framework for a prefabri...
Some like their architecture completely open, and some like it closed. Japanese firm mA-style Architects seems to prefer the latter. First, it was the windowless Green Edge House that caught our attention. Now, it’s the cubic Light Walls House in Toyokawa, Japan. Since the initial plot of land was not blessed with ample sunshine, the architects concentrated on ways to...
Designed and constructed by First Lamp Architecture & Construction, Lever Homes is a 5-Star Built-Green project located in Seattle, Washington, USA. The principle challenge of building the two-unit townhome was keeping the units affordable, while simultaneously respecting very high standards of sustainability. A narrow lot with a width of only 7.6 meters prompted the ...
Architect Steven Harris refurbished Adam Gordon’s Jane Street townhouse in 2007, turning it into a clean, open home. The project found itself smack-dab in the middle of New York Magazine’s real estate section. Harris not only added a fifth floor on the roof but covered the rear wall in glass layers. The large glass walls, individual to each floor, allow a view of the wal...
Lately, it seems traditional Mediterranean architecture is getting a bit of a face lift. We have said several times: making new from old is becoming more than a simple trend. The JA House by Filipe Pina and Maria Ines Costa is just more proof of that. The Portuguese home mixes rural and urban lifestyles so efficiently that it almost makes starting from scratch seem point...
A quick look at the House in Estoril, Portugal, might have you thinking that Ricardo Moreno Arquitectos did a wonderful job designing a modern yet welcoming family house. However, that would be overlooking the fact the house actually dates back to 1923. Unlike a conventional renovation in which the point is to highlight the features of the existing house and add hints...
Monday can be rough, and sometimes a bit of architectural eye candy provides the perfect pick me up, and a crystal clear swimming pool never hurts. The House in Costa Brava definitely qualifies as a visual feast and that swimming pool is practically calling our name! Designed by the Barcelona-based architecture firm Garcés – De Seta – Bonet, the house is located in (d...
Studio Velocity’s House in Chiharada is essentially a playhouse for grown-ups. Shaped like the turret from an imaginary castle, the architects chose a circular shape to preserve privacy and to provide a contrast to the irregular shape of the garden. The interior space is divided by four rectangular volumes of varying height. Each of the individual boxes contains a sta...
In the woods of the outer Stockholm archipelago hides a beautiful black house that might not seem like much. However, the House Husarö by local architects Tham & Videgård has been cleverly designed and hides a few tricks worth the trip. At first glance, the woods and surrounding nature strongly contrast with the purity of the home’s geometric shape and black facade. W...
Weathered steel, glass and concrete come together in a striking residence from the British architectural firm Hyde + Hyde. The House for a Photographer is located in an abandoned quarry that borders Brecon Beacons National Park in South Wales. After winning planning in 2010, the architects have recently begun work on the home. Rather than struggle with surrounding te...
Mankind has always been obsessed with its future, trying to figure out what the coming days will bring. Hence all the sci-fi movies and books, but not only: art, design and of course architecture have always tried to look further and be one step ahead of everyone else. And they sometimes succeed! German architects Kinckh Architekten did so with House F. Indeed, House ...
House and Studio YC is located in a village outside of Barcelona. Spanish architecture firm RTA-Office created one structure with five varied volumes that radiate from the center. Within each volume is an isolated function: bedrooms, living room, kitchen, office, entryway. The main entrance is located at basement level and leads to the entryway via a stark white staircas...
House 1014 is located on a long, narrow plot in the historic village of Granollars, near Barcelona. Flush with the surrounding buildings, only the front facade of the existing structure was salvageable. The architects at Catalonian firm H Arquitectes were also faced with an inherent scarcity of daylight due to the narrowness of the space and the east-west orientation. An...
The box structure on top acts as a passive solar eave cutting out summer sun, while letting winter sun flood in. A white roof is used throughout to increase solar reflectance, sustainably reducing heat gain within the house. Windows are double glazed and LowE coated. Low VOC plywood and locally sourced spotted gum line the internal walls of the building. Even the synthe...
Haus S is the renovation of a 1960s bungalow in Wiesbaden, Germany. A young family purchased the home and quickly realized that they needed more space. But space is scarce in urban areas, and sometimes a creative solution is needed. The design by German architecture firm Christ.Christ. associated architects converts traditionally unused roof space into a useful place for...
If you’re living in the northern hemisphere, you might currently be enjoying the ski season (or suffering through a very cold metropolitan winter – big up to our American readers!). If you’re of the fortunate who are skiing, you know that a snowy mountain is always a breathtaking landscape, whichever mountain you pick. So, add a warm and cozy design chalet, and you get t...
Originally built in 1961, Haus Hohlen is the renovation of a residential home in Dornbirn, Austria. Local firm Jochen Specht took on the task of expanding the building in order to accommodate the needs of a four-person family. Set in the forest with fantastic views of Lake Constance, the sloping site is absolutely idyllic. When renovating the building, the architects ...
Originally built for Sir Basil Goulding in the 1970s and restored in 2002, the residence will never cease to exhilarate and inspire. The gravity-defying three-bay cantilever was designed based on the owner’s wish to preserve as much of the gardens as possible. Beautifully executed, it blends perfectly into its environment, a continuation of the sole available rock outcro...
By completing the Donderen Barnhouse renovation, Holland architects Aatvos wonderfully embodiedthe dream of every person buying an old barn in the countryside. They’ve transformed the ancient property into a contemporary house that reflects modern life, while preserving the historic vibe. Their idea was quite simple: conserve the classic barn shape and restore it with...
Tucked in a dense urban environment, the aptly named 3X10 House has a teeny tiny footprint of only 3 by 10 square meters. Vietnamese architecture firm DD concept worked around the spatial constraints by vertically stacking multiple volumes. The different levels create a dynamic relationship between interior and exterior as they transition from entirely closed on the grou...
Sustainability can be comfortable, beautiful and functional. No, really! Just check out the Container Project by the Brazilian firm H²O Arquitetura. Located in the Vila district of São Paulo, Brazil, the Container Project is an artistic addition to the urban landscape. It takes cheap, available resources that would otherwise be wasted and transforms them into an agre...
The Conan House by Moon Hoon is a residence for a one-child family, built overlooking Bang Dong Lake in South Korea. It looks more like a modern art museum than a home but is deep down a big, ol’ fun house. This is playful architecture at its best, friends. A starch-white spiral staircase encompasses the structure’s central core, which rises through the voluminous space ...
Slovenia’s Karst region is a beautiful contrast of thick forest and naked limestone. Stone could even be called a defining element of their country with the porous rock forming incredible underground rivers and legendary caves. The Compact Karst House by Lubljana-based firm Dekleva Gregorič Arhitekti is a modern interpretation of the countryside’s windowless stone struct...
Casa MR by Luciano Kruk Arquitectos is a 2014 project located in Costa Esmeralda, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The 150-square-meter house, which lies against a backdrop of rugged dunes typical of the Buenos Aires coastline, is a weekend house that the architect was commissioned to design on a limited budget and with the qualities of the location in mind. The 20 meter wide...
Antoine is an itty bitty cabin hidden inside of a fake boulder that is tucked in the Swiss Alps. Designed by Swiss architecture firm Bureau A, the cabin gets its name from Charles Ferdinand Ramuz’s novel Derberance where the main character, Antoine, gets trapped in an Alpine landslide. He survives, living under the rocks for seven weeks. “Switzerland has a strong traditi...
Florida has a rich architectural history, and Miami-based Brillhart Architecture decided to draw upon the best of Florida’s architecture for the 1500-square-footBrillhart House in downtown Miami. Seeking to break from the local trend of concrete-only construction, the architects explored the principles of Tropical Modernism and glass pavilion typology before settling ...
Prefabricated, portable, micro, sustainable and, above all, simple. A dwelling for two people, the ÁPH80 Portable Home by Spanish architects ÁBATON can be assembled in one day. Three living spaces, including a living room/kitchen, bathroom and double bedroom, make this structure one of 2013’s front runners for most spatially aware home. Measuring in at 27 meters squared,...
This town house in Antwerp, Belgium, by Sculp[IT] is truly built for the next century. With a facade that maintains its historicity and an interior emphasizing space and light, the contemporary glass rear of the house features the world’s largest (3 meters wide and 6 meters high) pivoting window. Breaking down the back section of the building allowed views of the garden ...
These ultra-contemporary lines sit perched atop the Ibizan-Mediterranean coastal crag at 159 m high. A peppering of windows and terraces of every geometrical persuasion affords a bird’s eye view of jaw-dropping landscapes. Clean and copious use of glass throughout the project bathes the interior in sunlight and reaffirms the AIBS House’s soul: stunning blue sea and earth...
