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...
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 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...
Designed with a minimalist aesthetic, the secluded cabin offers off-the-grid luxury living in England’s forested Teign Valley on the norther edge of Dartmoor. Designed and built by Rupert McKelvie, the charred timber-clad cabin is the first prototype for Out of the Valley, a Devon-based workshop dedicated to off-grid and sustainable cabin design and construction. The ...
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...
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...
This jaw-dropping renovation project is a little of both, as an expansive London church was converted into a glorious home with a wide open floor plan on the ground level. The enormous single family home is a combination of the best of both worlds - a celebration of the church’s history and architectural elements intermingled with the trappings of a modern luxury residen...
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...
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 vegetated semicylindrical shell acts as thermal insulation and glides gently to shelter the space while the rim surrounding the wooden shelf transforms into a big bench. The Wave Home has two floors. On the ground level the living room, kitchen and multimedia space open up towards the exterior by sliding walls. The upper level houses two bedrooms and a bathroom th...
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, ...
Designed by Christopher Simmonds Architect, the timber-clad cottage embraces the outdoors with large floor-to-ceiling glazing and a cantilevered living room that overlooks lakeside views. The home is partially buried into the stony Canadian Shield and is located in the Val-des-Monts district north of Ottawa. The top-heavy retreat is split into two main volumes: the sm...
Made up of six 3D-printed modules, the house was assembled like LEGO bricks before a live audience who were then invited to explore the interior. The modular fireproof home can withstand a magnitude-9 earthquake and is made from a special construction material the company is keeping secret. The company completed approximately 90 percent of the construction in an off-s...
Dubbed the Solcer House, the residence can produce more electricity than its occupants can use. Designed by Cardiff University’s Phil Jones and his team, the incredible three bedroom home hones enough energy from the sun to meet electrical needs of its residents and then some. Ready for the bad news? The house was revealed just in time for the British government to scrap...
Despite its compact and portable size, the energy-efficient tiny home feels spacious, comes with a whole range of full-sized appliances, and can even sleep up to six. If the Escape Traveler looks familiar, it’s because the tiny mobile home came from the same minds—Kelly Davis and Dan George Dobrowolski—that created the Escape Cabin. Like its eco-friendly predecessor, ...
Designed by Seoul firm Design Band YOAP, the timber-framed structure serves as the new home for the clients as well as a guesthouse for travelers and their dogs. The clients’ site is located on a hillside above the town of Sowon-myeon Padori in Chungcheongnam Province. The architects mitigated the slope by dividing the building onto two different levels built atop sto...
Spahaus and Trihaus provide the rustic atmosphere of a traditional log cabin, yet appeal to homeowners sensitive to design Both projects draw on the design principles of Loukas Yiacouvakis and Marie-Claude Hamelin, who started their business in the area nearly 20 years ago and promoted the idea of democratic design that everyone can enjoy. This notion of affordable de...
This LEED platinum-certified development, designed by William McDonough + Partners, is a small organic farm and residence dedicated to restoring native ecology of meadow grasses and coastal live oaks. Celebrating California’s natural hues and textures, different parts of the house echo the site’s local landscapes. Its rolling zinc roofs echo waves and wind patterns co...
Meandering balconies flow around the main building volume, creating a wide variety of individual residential units, each with a uniquely-shaped outdoor space. The architects fought against the typical apartment complex layout with rows of identical spaces by creating a U-shape, with a central community "living room" in the center. With a floor area ratio of only 5.0 t...
Stationed in rural New Hampshire, the 160-square-foot mobile house can be rented for as little as $99 a night and is equipped with a composting toilet, solar electricity, and propane heat. Created to help grow the Tiny House movement, Getaway is the first project launched by the Millennial Housing Lab, a Harvard Innovation Lab project founded by Harvard MBA student Jo...
Responding to this, Doug Sharp of BSB Design conceived the tiny Abod Shelter - a sustainable, lightweight home for slum dwellers that can be built by their owners in just one day. Originally from Des Moines, Iowa, Doug amassed a team of designers to help him with his latest philanthropy project – lightweight shelters that can be easily shipped and erected anywhere in ...
When the owners of an aged Victorian-era home decided it was time to renovate, the innovative Australian architects saw the potential of moving the home's boundaries to create an ultra-luminous open floor plan. With just a little creativity and much strategic building technique, the Turnaround House now has a beautiful sunny, north-facing courtyard that extends from the ...
South Africa-based architect Clara da Cruz Almeida collaborated with local design firm Dokter+Misses to create the modular nano-home, which is powered by solar energy and can be customized off-site to the client’s specifications. The minimal and charming mobile pod ships flat-pack and assembles onsite in a snap. If the POD-Idlala looks familiar, it’s likely you’ve see...
Designed and built by French architecture firm Atelier Koe, this home is so green that it emerges from the earth as an extension of it, rather than something imposed upon it. Constructed from clay harvested from the building site and powered entirely by solar and wind energy, the Khamsa house is a marvelous example of what happens when ancient building techniques are pai...
While the city of Venice, Italy celebrates its history by preserving and utilizing its canals, citizens have been forced to address some of the consequences of these famous water features: flooding caused by rising tides and sea levels. Act_Romegialli have taken on this challenge, titled the San Giobbe +160 project, by remodeling a workshop-turned-residence on Fondament...
Danish architecture firm EFFEKT rose to that challenge with their design of the Villa ONE, an affordable prefab house that can easily add bedrooms as the family grows bigger. Built on the outskirts of Copenhagen, the minimalist timber-clad structure was created to both match the cost and surpass the quality of Denmark’s cheapest kit homes. The architects designed the ...
Named after the whaling ship in the 1851 novel ‘Moby-Dick,’ the timber-clad Pequod evokes a ship at sea with its porthole windows, wavy metal roof, and blue-painted base. Built for a family of four that sought “the best of the best,” this tiny house was commissioned without the typically constraining low budget. The result is a beautiful and meticulous design that pulls ...
The new building, which features a low-cost Eucalyptus screen that shields the interior from the scorching sun, is designed to accommodate and provide community spaces for doctors and nurses working nearby in the Rwinkwavu Hospital. The new building is expected to make work easier for the hospital staff by providing accommodation in the vicinity of the hospital. The c...
The transforming has a master bedroom that can be lowered down over a sunken living room area, while counters and dining tables fold up and to the side in the kitchen. The great thing about YO!Home is that the rooms can be reconfigured using sliding partitions which provide all the amenities of an average house squeezed into one space without generating clutter. This ...
While that might seem claustrophobic to some, Hanczar has managed to squeeze the bare essentials into his Wroclaw home, and still keep it light and airy. Hit the jump to see what Hanczar decided was indispensable (string hammock: check!), and what he felt he could do without in order to make this small space work. First the obvious: this tiny space is for single living ...
The designers updated the structure of Villa Le Trident by removing several interior walls to create a fluid transition between different areas. They also refurbished the swimming pool and main stairwell and introduced a variety of materials that compliment the architectural configuration of the house. The villa was originally built for a the architect, Barry Dierks, ...
Located in a suburb at the edge of Aarau, the capital of Aargau canton, the area's green vistas took centre stage in the design process. Subsequently, the team focussed on creating a generous top floor, from which the owners and their guests can take in the area's picturesque scenery. The house's location – at the foot of the Jura mountains – and local planning regul...
Created by local architect Susan Fitzgerald and her builder partner Brainard Fitzgerald, the project was conceived and built by the family team and neatly encompasses more than one uses under one roof. It comprises the Fitzgeralds' own home, a workspace for their architecture and contractor studios (with equipment storage on site), as well as a separate two-storey rental...
152 Elizabeth Street, a beautifully formed, seven-storey, seven-residence building situated in the heart of Nolita that is scheduled to complete at the end of 2016, is Ando’s first residential building in Manhattan. Developed by Sumaida + Khurana, a local firm that is making it a point to work with renowned architects that have yet to build in New York City, 152 Elizabet...
