Arhitektura Krušec | Celjska Mountain Lodge | Slovenia

The architectural design received the first prize at the architectural competition, which was organised in 2004 by City Council Celje in tandem with the Chamber of Architecture and Spatial planning of Slovenia.

The building of Alpine hotel "Celjska koča" is situated on an exposed natural plateau at the foot of the ski run bearing the same name and replaces the mountain cabin which became obsolete and required demolishing. The former cabin was situated in the direct vicinity of the new hotel.

The panoramic view toward the valley and the rocky hilltop of Grmada represents the main attraction of the given location, thus making this feature key to the design of the new building. The described panorama serves as the guiding element both for the interior design as well as the exterior of the architectural volume. On its reverse side, the building carries through the geometry of the existing slope, while the valley side sees the building "cut inside" in the direction of the Grmada hilltop. The views towards the surrounding natural landscape combined with the architectural features of the building thus equally contribute to creating the ambience of all of the interiors.

Ryan Seacrest House | Casa Di Pace | Hollywood Hills

There are hosts, there are consummate hosts, and then there is Ryan Seacrest. The cherubic emcee of American Idol, the most popular show on television, also anchors E! News and the globally syndicated radio program American Top 40. He cohosts the Walt Disney Christmas Day Parade and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. He presided over the 2007 Emmy broadcast and will do the honors in early February for the Super Bowl’s new, expanded pregame show. “I’m trying not to appear in too many more places in the near future,” says Seacrest, sounding almost apologetic, during an early-morning phone call from Omaha, Nebraska, where he is auditioning talent for Idol’s next season. “Right now I’m very much looking forward to coming home.”

Home is a rambling Mediterranean villa in the Hollywood Hills known as Casa di Pace, or the House of Peace. It is not an old house (circa 1970s), but it has a stately, Old Hollywood feeling, with city-lights views, lots of palm trees, a pool and a tennis court, a screening room, a wine cellar and a sterling celebrity pedigree (previous residents include Kevin Costner and Richard Dreyfuss). It is the entertainer’s hard-won sanctuary. “I looked for the right property for years,” he relates. “It was really tricky to find something that had the convenience factor—I wanted to be at work in 10 minutes—and at the same time the escape factor. In my head I was seeing the sort of villa you might see in Spain or Italy. The day I saw the house was the day I made an offer.”

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John Pawson | Barn Conversion | Essex, England

One of the most celebrated Modern residences completed in recent times, Tilty Hill is the exquisite conversion of an 18th century Dutch barn by the architect John Pawson. The 4 / 5 bedroom house is located in tranquil surroundings in countryside close to the historic market town of Thaxted.

The house is widely considered to be one of the most important works by Pawson and of the finest examples of Minimalism in architecture anywhere in the world. Pawson is an architect renowned for his refined, rigorous aesthetic and producing uplifting, functional spaces. As one would expect from a Pawson project, the fittings and finishes throughout the house are of a very high quality.

The house wraps around a large courtyard area (used as a horse enclosure) and is all on a single storey. The use of ample glazing throughout the house enables occupants to enjoy the views and large skies for which this area is renowned.
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Cloud9 | Villa Bio-Sustainable House | Barcelona, Spain

For the architectural tourist, the very mention of Barcelona brings to mind the fantastical world of Antonio Gaudí. Despite the 21st-century gloss of a sleek, high-tech, economic hub, Catalonia’s capital city’s greatest design export remains the eccentric turn-of-the-(last)-century designer. From high above the city in Gaudí’s Park Güell, a hallucinatory vertical landscape of tiled grottos and organically unfolding gardens, the view is bullied by the Sagrada Familia, the architect’s über-basilica, which has been under construction since the 1880s. In the Eixample—a neighborhood of broad avenues and octagonal intersections developed to connect the city’s ancient center with once-outlying towns—the sidewalks in front of Gaudí’s Casa Batlló and Casa Milà are clogged with throngs of ice cream–eating tourists.

A few blocks away from these celebrated structures, in an alien cube set within a garden courtyard, Gaudí’s heir apparent, Enric Ruiz-Geli, is quietly plotting the next Catalan design revolution. Ruiz-Geli’s firm, Cloud9, works at the outer reaches of designand technology’s intersection—turning complex, data-powered projects into effortless and eminently livable buildings. At 38, Ruiz-Geli is transforming Le Corbusier’s dream of machines for living into living machines.

Ruiz-Geli’s most recently completed project, the Villa Bio, is situated a little over an hour outside of Barcelona in Llers, a green, hilly, sun-bathed sprawl near Figueres (hometown of everyone’s favorite mustachioed surrealist, Salvador Dali). The area reads like a textbook Mediterranean suburb and feels oddly similar to California’s faux-Mediterranean enclaves—from the gleaming new terra-cotta tiles and white stucco walls down to the perfectly manicured lawns, swimming pools, nosy neighbors, and stringent normativa (or community building rules).

The Villa Bio is trapped in a contextual oxymoron—given the neighbors, it’s utterly out of place, but one look at the natural surroundings tells you which house fits right in. Two years in the making, it was no easy task to make the most of client Carles Fontecha’s small piece of land. The sloping coiled snake of a plan, with underground garage and a 50-foot cantilevered section, is no small feat of engineering. The result is economical, beautiful, and environmental. The Villa Bio is a firework of astute solutions that exemplify what the sustainable suburban home of tomorrow can be today.

Read more: DWELL

Kanner Architects | House in Southern California

511 House is a private residence, designed on 3,500 sq ft by Kanner Architects. It is located in Southern California, and is designed to take full advantage of the bright light and cool Southern California breezes of Pacific Palisades. The primary design objective was blurring the line between inside and outside. The modern aesthetic of this house draws inspiration from the nearby houses created by Richard Neutra and Charles and Ray Earnes.

The 511 House is a riot of form, color, texture and materials in an almost post-modern mix of California Modern and Googie road-side architecture. The house was designed with two main volumes. From the front a blue tiled two story structure sits to the south (left) and houses the vertical circulation. And to the north lies the white textured stucco garage with its luminous corrugated fiberglass door. The entry sits at the joint between the two pieces, though its interior space belongs to the stair volume. The glass-clad main body was pushed to the north side of a lot the size of a tennis court (60 feet by 120 feet). A wide patio used extensively for dining and play extends to the south off of lower level. This generous setback allows natural light to penetrate the house from the south. Large sliding glass doors can disappear and provide a conduit for soothing sea breezes.

The lower level features an open plan living room dining room separated by a floating plywood bookshelf unit, and an open kitchen. A convertible space with large sliding door can function as a family room or guest bedroom with an adjoining bath. The hallway space connecting the stairwell and living areas functions as a library with built-in bookshelves and desk space. In addition, a large storage room is tucked into the site sitting beneath the garage.

Stepping inside the blue terrazzo floored entry hall, the bulk of the house reveals itself through west facing windows as an extension of the white stucco garage volume stretching along the north edge of the property. The topography of the site allows for the entry at street level to actually be the second level of the house. Three bedrooms occupy the upper level of the main structure beneath the boomerang roof form. The stairway is a sort of tower with a lookout space up a ladder from the entry and stairs descending to the lower living level.
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VMX Architects | Modern Island Home in Amsterdam Nature Reserve

Netherlands architecture firm VMX Architects has coupled contemporary aesthetics and creature comforts in their design dubbed Sodae House. This modern island home boasts an unusual blend of angles and glass, making it an unlikely find among its natural surroundings on the island of Kostverlorenkade 1 in Amsterdam. “The starting point for the concept was the perception of the landscape, the distant high buildings of the Zuid As and the Rembrandt Tower as well as the view of the aeroplanes travelling to and from Schiphol,” according to the architects. The ground floor becomes a den of sorts, occupied by the home’s most intimate areas like the bedrooms and baths. A walkout to the garden makes you feel at one with the landscape. The upper floor is where all the living and socializing is done, complete with an open-concept loft-style kitchen and living room abutting cool glass walls. Below grade for work and play, the basement conceals a work-out room and a home theater. The whole home has an eclectic style to it, from the outside in. But even in their odd mix, every element encapsulates luxury. VMX Architects.
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Modern Tropical House | Jakarta, Indonesia | Djuhara + Djuhara Architects

In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, Ahmad Djuhara is on a one-man crusade to blow away the conservative cobwebs of the city’s dowdy suburban architecture.
Combine the eight and a half million people living in Jakarta, Indonesia’s humid capital, with those dwelling in its nearby satellite conurbations of Bogor, Tangerang, and Bekasi (together known by the portmanteau “Jabotabek”) and you’ve got a combined population that approaches 20 million. Amidst the largely planless urban sprawl, you’ll find gleaming modern skyscrapers jostling with mounting ruins of the city’s crumbling colonial heritage.
Bekasi, just down a highly accessible toll road, isn’t as densely packed as Jakarta proper, but with a population of more than two million, it’s hardly a garden suburb. Nonetheless, the prospect of a little more space, cheaper housing, and the work of architect Ahmad Djuhara got Nugroho Wisnu and his family thinking about a new home outside of town.
Wisnu and his wife, Tri Sundari, both come from Indonesia’s rather conservative Javanese culture; however, the couple, who both trained in the petroleum industry—Wisnu now works for BP and travels around the country—clearly have a sense of architectural adventure. And considering that the first house they bought in Bekasi proved better for insects than humans—it was uncomfortable, badly designed, and infested with termites—they thought it was time to shop around.
“We thought that an all-steel house like the one that Mr. Djuhara had built just down the road would be termite resistant,” Wisnu explains. “However, he proved difficult to pin down as he is a very busy man. We also feared that an in-demand architect would be prohibitively expensive.”
Djuhara + Djuhara, the firm Ahmad runs with his wife, Wendy, designed several high-profile bars and restaurants in central Jakarta, and as chair of the Jakarta chapter of the Indonesian Institute of Architects, Djuhara helped to modernize the city’s rather draconian planning regulations. His first attempt at a suburban house—the one that caught Wisnu’s eye—was startlingly original and cocked a snook at critics who claim that young Indonesian architects only work on luxury hotels.

Read more: http://www.dwell.com

Modern Retreat | Bjorn Bruun's House | Ibiza | Spain

The Danish fashion designer Bjorn Bruun decamps each summer with his wife, son and daughter to their holiday home in Ibiza. "Ibizan houses need to be social spaces," Bruun says. "We do a lot of barbecues, and we have a great outdoor sound system." The 12-metre pool was the main selling point when he bought the house three years ago, but the island has stringent ecological laws. "I wanted to heat it, but there is a limit on how much electricity you can use. There are also constant water shortages, so cacti feature heavily in the garden, as they’re the only things that grow here."
The house, in the quiet northern part of the island, provides an ideal retreat from Bruun’s hectic life in Copenhagen. His fashion label, Bruun’s Bazaar, is renowned for its urban-chic-with-a-twist aesthetic. Helena Christensen is among its fans. "Everything has a different pace in Ibiza," he says. "It’s just not a city way of life. The sun makes you very inactive."
The coffee table is made from 100-year-old teak. "I love beautiful wood and stone, and I wanted something with character," Bruun says. The sofa is from Minotti (minotti.com).
Bruun, who originally trained as an architect, designed the bathroom. "I like the way clothes change more quickly than buildings, constantly reflecting the times," he says. Bruuns Bazaar, from Harvey Nichols; bruunsbazaar.com. Words by Pip McCormac
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Norman Foster | Modernist House on the Mediterranean

 So when Foster imported his kit of high-tech parts to the commission, he was updating a distinguished tradition with the next evolutionary step. But there was an even more demanding and immediate context: In this part of the Mediterranean, every square inch is spoken for, and the property was not only occupied by a towerlike house but also restricted by regulations against its removal. “I couldn’t build here, but I couldn’t demolish either,” says the architect. “In the end, what I did was transform.”

Arguably, Norman Foster saved the residents of a white villa overlooking the Mediterranean the cost of a large yacht. When the 30-foot-tall, 18-ton glass façade glides to the side and opens the five-story living area to the oceanside terrace, you have the distinct feeling you’re at the prow of a vessel heading out to sea. With the sun warming your skin, you ride the waves, but in the comfort of a living space splashed with a four-story Richard Long installation on the back wall. Foster may be famous for building the biggest airport in the world (in Beijing) and designing the tallest skyscrapers, but very occasionally he designs a single-family house that shows how his big, industrial, intricately engineered architecture treats the individual in kinder, gentler, greener ways.

There is a tradition of white modernist villas in the Mediterranean world, and Foster’s design is the latest entry in this important but underdocumented sidebar of modernism. For starters, Le Corbusier drew inspiration from the cubic structures of its villages. Starting in the 1920s, a whole generation of white villas, from the south of France to the shores of Italy, Greece and the Levant, merged the sybaritic rites of seaside vacations with the modernist agenda of healthy lifestyles nurtured among simple, abstract forms.

Given a site with the constraints of an existing building and a very steep slope, Foster played the design to the site’s one great feature, the commanding south-facing sea view. Wanting to create a promenade linking the street entrance to the shore seven stories down, he conceived the house as a stepladder between bodies of water, leading from a pool on the roof to the waves lapping the rocks below. Within the side walls of the existing structure, he backed the house up against the hillside so that each room faces seaward: The house seems all prow and no stern. The walls blinker the house to adjacent properties.
Unlike so many of his buildings, which cut strong figures, this house doesn’t stand free but almost coats the hillside. Its only façade is visible from the water, where the stories terrace back beneath two springing steel arches, with brightwork in between that will eventually host shading vines. The architect has not created a handsome object so much as an environment that uses technology to cultivate nature.
Foster announces his nautical and environmental themes at the street, where he rigs canvas sails across the roof and pool bordered by pines: The plane of water doubles as a heat sink, establishing a microclimate that moderates temperatures in the house below. The stretched fabrics serve as sunshades that frame the view, and the rigging supports the canvas, connoting lightness and movement and suggesting a sailing metaphor.
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Ab Rogers | The Rainbow House | Portobello Road, London

The Rainbow House is a truly unique proposition: part adult playground, part three-dimensional artwork. Designed by Ab Rogers (son of Richard Rogers), it features flooring by the artist Richard Woods, a multi-coloured spiral staircase, and a slide that whisks you down through a trap door from the master bedroom into the reception room.

The majority of the house has excellent natural light. The open-plan kitchen/ reception/ dining room is located on the first floor, where a bespoke padded seating area is upholstered in yellow leather. This area also transforms into a cinema room thanks to an electrically operated screen that drops down from the ceiling.

Accommodation is flexible, and includes a large master bedroom with central bath, rotating bed and en-suite steam/ shower room, second double bedroom with en-suite bathroom, studio/ reception with its own kitchen and shower room, third reception, utility room and fantastic roof terrace.

The house is equipped with an integrated media system throughout, as well as an intruder alarm. There is a washing machine, dryer, dishwasher and range cooker.

Ab Rogers has completed a number of high-profile interior-design projects, ranging from the flagship Comme des Garçons store in Paris to the recently revamped Little Chef restaurants in the UK. He has also designed a number of exhibitions, including a retrospective of his father, Richard Rogers, at the Pompidou Centre.

The Rainbow House is located in the very heart of Notting Hill, amongst the hustle and bustle of the boutiques, bars and restaurants along Portobello Road. Notting Hill Gate Underground (District, Circle and Central Lines) is a short ten-minute walk away, and Ladbroke Grove (Hammersmith & City Line) is even closer.
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Villa St. Valentin, Meran | Italy | Stephen Unger

The site of Villa St. Valentin is on an increase in the near Meran, directly on those downhill curves, where the Adige valley opens into the Vinschgau.

This explains the first sight, the particular shape of the double house that reproduces the bend. Only at second glance you see the double curvature of the building. The south facade leans slightly backwards. The slope of the middle part is explained by the idea of the architect's house ideally guided by the sun.

The house is designed for two families and is divided into a western and an eastern wing. is a large window front on the east side is oriented towards the Adige valley, while the family look on the west side in the Vinschgau.

Text: Beate Bartlmä Villa St. Valentin, Meran Architects: Stephen Unger, Vienna,
Location: Sankt Valentin Strasse 7, 39012 Merano BZ, Italy, show location
Completion: 11/2008
Photos: Günther Stock Klauser, Brigit Ann-Höller, annbirgithoeller.at , Franz Derntl
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Earth House | Seoul, Korea | Byoung Soo Cho

Architect Byoung Soo Cho’s Earth House is quite possibly one of the classiest dugouts ever built. Set amid peaceful woods and rice fields an hour east of Seoul, Korea, the subterranean structure consists of six tiny unadorned rooms (kitchen, library, two bedrooms, and a bathroom) and a 23-by-23-foot courtyard. Cho describes the house, dedicated to Korean poet Dong-joo Yoon, as a place for self-reflection. He says the concept goes back to his 1991 graduate thesis at Harvard, where he began exploring Taoist ideas about negative and positive space, and the question of just how much (or little) space we need in order to live comfortably. Sixteen years and several unsuccessful attempts at selling an underground house later, Cho finally decided to build one for himself. Earth House was completed in February 2009 on a lot down the road from Cho’s more conventional vacation home, the square-shaped Concrete Box House. He currently uses the Earth House for weekend gatherings and stargazing.

Read more: http://www.dwell.com/

Contemporary Spanish home design | House in Pozuelo de Alarcón | A-Cero Architects

The Architecture Studio A-cero, managed by Joaquín Torres and his associate architect Rafael Llamazares, presents this housing in the outskirts of Madrid, in “Pozuelo de Alarcón”.

It has been designed from a clear sculptural inspiration; the blocks appear dressed in marble travertino and create curved shapes and edges. These elements emphasize the project’s wings and contribute to give weightlessness to the building.

In the main entrance there is a vertical fail made of stone dark granite that contrasts with the facade.

The large windows facilitate the access of the light to the house’s interior. In the first floor you can find the hall, kitchen and service area. In a lower floor there are the most intimate areas constituted by the bedrooms and spaces for free time.

The house, with a 1.000 m2 area, dialogues with the natural environment and, from the point of view of the design, shows the A-cero Studio signs and its architecture philosophy.
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