Linked Houses | The Cyclops | Hilversum | The Netherlands | NIO

‘The twelve houses form an integral part of a soundproof embankment along a secondary road from Diependaal, an exclusive residential district in the woods of Hilversum. Despite its inhospitable setting and the clients’ initial scepticism, the futuristic, not to say fantastic, design of the houses attracted users who bought their houses of the drawing board, several years before delivery.
Without what is in effect a screen of houses, allowing the level of ambient noise to be brought down to acceptable limits, the rest of the urban design plan for Diependaal would never have seen the light of day. The project’s congenital, altruistic handicap justified the atypical solutions eventually proposed by Nio and his associates in the face of the client’s reservations. So for example the answer to the darkness at the back of the plot was to cantilever out the living room at the first floor level. Moreover, not everyone considers the lack of a garden to be a drawback, and a terrace can be a sales argument, even in suburbia........more

Modern American House | Connecticut Home | Studio Daniel Libeskind

This 2,000-square-foot Connecticut home is situated on a scenic 54 acre site populated with large oak trees and historic low stacked stone walls. The living space of this single-family residence is formed by a spiraling ribbon of 18 planes, defined by 36 points connected by 54 lines. The architectural form generates distinctive interior spaces while framing both near and distant landscape scenes. Large glass planes virtually disappear within the ribbon, allowing unimpeded picturesque views of 18th century hay meadows and 250 year-old oaks...........more

Modern English House | House 780 | Manchester | England | Roger Stephenson Architects

The dwelling is located within the conservation area of Halebarns, Manchester. The form of the building is formed by two blocks, set at different levels, one of which incorporates a double height living space that takes advantage of the sites topography and provides views across the surrounding landscape via full height 5m glazing to the South elevation.

The building is accessed via two bridges, one concrete vehicle bridge, and a steel and glass pedestrian bridge onto the mezzanine floor that provides views down through the double height living space towards a single silver birch tree within the garden, and external landscaping beyond........more

Modern Korean House | Pixel House | Heyri | South Korea | Slade Architecture

This house is for a young family with two children. They are very interested in the larger community and plan on sharing their exterior spaces with the community. They intend to create a day care for neighborhood children. The site is perfectly matched with the client’s intentions; it is the last house in a row of houses. It is the point of rupture between the clearly defined front and back yard spaces; the point at which the continuous facade of the row ends. The public and private territories are not as clear as on other sites within the row.

While the public and private territories are ambiguous, the end condition is where the relationship between the building and the landscape is clearest. The entire row of houses can be read as an object/ field relationship between building and landscape. This opposition between formal clarity and territorial ambiguity requires a very different strategy than with the infill condition, particularly because the client is interested in further breaking down the public private opposition........more

Sri Lankan Modern House | Villa Vista | Weligama | Sri Lanka | Shigeru Ban Architects

After designing and building post-tsunami reconstruction houses in Sri Lanka, Shigeru Ban was commissioned to design a residence for an owner of a local tire company. Located on a hilltop site facing the ocean, the floor, walls and ceiling of this building frame three different views. The first is the view of the ocean seen from the jungle in the valley, framed perpendicularly by the external corridor from the existing house to this house and the roof. The next is the horizontal scenery of the ocean from the hilltop framed by the large roof supported by poles of 22 m span and the floor. The last is the view of the cliff which glows red during sunset; this is viewed through a square frame composed of 4 m solid wood in the main bedroom.
The large roof is first covered by light cement boards for water proofing and secondly covered by woven coconut leave material, which is often used for property fences not only to block the strong daylight but also to blend the building into the local ambience. The ceiling is composed of teak, 80mm wide and 3mm thick woven in a large wickerwork pattern........more

House Extension | Brian Seidler House | Harry Seidler And Associates

This house was originally designed by Harry Seidler for his uncle Marcus in 1949-51 and was one of three houses on the family estate, the others being the Rose Seidler House (1948) and the Julian Rose House (1949).
This relatively modest two bedroom home of timber construction takes the form of a hollow box suspended above the terrain on slender steel columns and intersecting masonry walls.
In 1958 Harry Seidler designed an addition consisting of two additional bedrooms and a bathroom that was added to the east end of the structure while still retaining the original design of the building. A steel spiral stair case connecting the ground plane to the recessed balcony protecting the extensive northern glazing was moved to the new eastern end......more

Summer Retreat | Fuglvik | Norway | Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter

The house is designed around the concept of a mono-view, meaning that the house opens up to the landscape in one direction only. This gives the entire indoor experience a sense of unambiguous orientation and intensifies the sense of bringing the landscape into the house..........more

The House in the Springs | East Hampton | New York | WXY Studio

The House in the Springs is located in an area that is well known to artists for its unique quality of light. The project was developed from a geometry that allowed a simple box to be stretched along its diagonal axis, resulting in a parallelogram. As a result, the house seems to pull the landscape into its interior space, making the occupants feel as though they were part of the landscape.

The structure of the house is held up by three plywood bents, allowing the owners to have great flexibility in the placement of interior walls. Different ceiling heights create the opportunity for a ramp between the guest spaces and the master bedroom. ........more

Truss Wall House | Tokyo | Japan | Uchida Findlay

Cited in many architectural publications of 20th Century architecture, the Truss Wall House was designed and built 15 -20 years in advance of the current fashion of curved form buildings. This project began as a technical commission from the owner of the Truss Wall system; a method of compound curve concrete construction. It had been in use for many years in a figurative form, made to look like dragons, curtains and the like. The architects reinvented the system by creating an abstract free and flowing form and to make the most out of its confined site....more

Eco House | Bolton Eco House | England | MAKE Architects

Already billed as ‘a house of the future’, the unique scheme truly tests the boundaries of current sustainable thinking in terms of design and construction. The four-bedroom, single-storey family home is deliberately embedded into the contours of the Pennine hillside to minimise the impact on the surrounding moorland and has a roof of flora and meadow grasses which flows seamlessly over the property and into the landscape. It has been designed to consume less energy than it uses; a ground source heat pump, photovoltaic panels and a wind turbine will generate on-site renewable energy. The positioning and orientation of the property were carefully considered and it will be built using locally sourced building materials and traditional construction methods.........more

Swedish Wooden House On Stilt | Woodlands Country Club | Örkelljunga | Sweden | Henning Larsen Architects

The vision of the Woodlands Country Club have been to combine Scandinavian simplicity with the North American wooden house architecture hence integrating the houses in the surrounding landscape – the ideal conditions for a stay in the great scenery viewing the golf course.
In order to use the existing values of the landscape the houses are built on pillars, so you get the feeling of floating on the slopes between the treetops. Furthermore the houses have been arranged in order to create the most peaceful and private surroundings for each house.

All the houses are placed so they have the best possible view and ideal conditions for sunlight be leading the natural sunlight through the large windows. The selection of natural materials and the construction of the building ensure a perfect indoor climate with optimal air circulation and moisture insulation. .....more

Modern Mexican House | Casa Diaz | Valle de Bravo | Mexico | Productora

This property adjoins a large lake in a small town situated a few hours from Mexico City. To take full advantage of the relationship with the surroundings, a system of elongated rectangular volumes was used, with one side of each completely open toward the lake. The sloping plot and the amount of surface to be realized led to the creation of three volume stacked in a zigzag pattern, generating spacious open terraces and irregular, sheltered patios between them. From the street, the residence looks like a traditional construction; the use of roof tiles, wood, natural stone, and the plastered facade with small openings, grants it the regional character that is required by urban planning requirements. From the lake, the home becomes a composition of rectangular elements with large glass surfaces; like a series of typical modernist volumes, stacked in a dynamic configuration.........more

Modern Japanese House | Hansha Reflection House | Studio SKLIM

Hansha Reflection House is a specific residence for a specific site, set to address the ephemeral moments of the surroundings with structural ingenuity and material sublimity.
Situated at the entrance of Misakimizube Koen, one of the picturesque parks fronting a lake and flanked by Sakura trees, the house was conceived to be an object with the environment.
The programmatic zones of Public, Service and Private spatially organised the house into 3 distinct zones with further punctuation of the main massing with the Landscape element; providing spaces for the courtyard and roof deck. This base form was further chiseled with structure, daylight/ventilation and viewpoint concerns .......more

Modern Californian Home | Palo Alto Pool House | MinDay

One in a series of projects on a suburban property, the pool house is a transparent structure within a comprehensive reworking of the rear yard. Anchoring a strategy to exploit undiscovered opportunities of the existing landscape, the pool house allows for a progression of increasingly specific and intimate moments. Exterior gathering areas lead to a screened dining porch, glassed-in kitchen, and living area cut into the hillside. A cedar-clad box containing a sauna separates the living area from the outdoor shower and detached bathroom, framing the most private view of the valley beyond............more

Modern Tropical Asian House | Zig Zag House | Singapore | Ministry Of Design

Returning to the romance of the single storey bungalow house, this house acquires its unique form via a series of formal maneuvers around a mature tree located on its long and triangulated sliver of land.

Tropically acclimated to the region, the building's twisting form creates "in-between" spaces which provide shelter from nature's harsh elements and simultaneously allow for cross ventilation and filtered light. Courtyards, captured by the turning of the twisted building form, bring light into the basement service areas. Internal corridors serve as breezeways between air-conditioned and naturally cooled areas. Slightly lofted over the ground, each of the building's three Miesian inspired wings house an entertainment zone, a family zone and a private master zone. Seen as a seamless singular form, the building reads as both sheltering building as well as abstracted sculpture. .........more

Modern Australian Home | DPR House | MCK

The conceptual framework for DPR House was one of house as landscape, a house that would have a topography where activities were acted out on a terrain that flowed and folded and hinged, a circuit of movement was flowing internally, externally vertically and horizontally, providing a dynamic and fluidity to the plan.......more

Modern Los Angeles House | Naka House | Hollywood Hills | California | XTEN Architecture

The exterior walls are smooth black plaster, designed to render the building as a singular sculptural object set within the lush natural setting. A series of abstract indoor-outdoor spaces with framed views to nature are rendered in white surfaces of various materials and finishes; lacquered cabinetry, matte white quartz, epoxy resin floors and decks............more

Modern Dutch House | S House | IJburg | Amsterdam | VMX Architects

Horizontally the house has been divided in three parts. The ground floor is designed as a basement, with the entrance to the house, the storage space, and a large play and hobby room adjoining the garden. On the first floor, the double-high space adjacent to the upturned patio forms the heart of the house: the kitchen. The sitting room, or lounge with a view of the garden and the street, is situated above the kitchen. The top floor of the house is reserved for the bedrooms and bathroom.The facades of the S-house are clad in bright yellow tiles that clearly sets the house apart from all other houses in the same row............more