Modern Concrete House | Pool House | Bornem | Belgium | META Architectuurbureau

In the vicinity of Buitenland, a hamlet of Bornem, META Architectuurbureau realizes a pool house in the garden of an existing house. The green domain of the house is bordered on both the front and rear by the Kwaedhuyskensloop stream.

Within these limits, the pool house, terrace and swimming pond form a succession of elongated surfaces that divide the plot into garden rooms over its entire width.

The concrete walls of the pool house are only interrupted by storey-high steel window doors, which blur the boundary with the covered part of the terrace. Sauna and shower room overlook the flowers and plants in the natural purification basin of the swimming pond. In the large multipurpose room, the open-plan copper kitchen and the concrete fireplace, the chimney of which extends far above the roof, are the only permanent elements.......more

Horizontal House | Santiago de Chile | Chile | Studio Cáceres Lazo

.........more

Concrete Block House | House Mipibu | Sao Paulo | Brazil | Terra e Tuma Arquitetos Associados

Connecting the social area to the leisure space was the great desire of this family. The task seemed easy if it were not for the large program requested in the small size and shape of the terrain.

Considering the inevitable verticalization of its neighbors, all of them glued to the currencies, the first step was to reverse the facades, to think the project "inside out", as if we were removing a glove.

So when we brought the frames in, we were able to use them to exhaustion, making the interior extremely open, as opposed to the completely enclosed outer perimeter.....more

Modern Concrete House Design | Cracked House | Gyeonggido | Korea | Mass Studies

The modestly-sized building (287㎡) contains six bedrooms, three kitchens, five bathrooms, one powder room, one common room (living room / dining room / library), and two connective spaces of minimum but suitable proportions. Each space is uniquely characterized by size, lighting conditions, etc. and joins together like an intricate puzzle. The exterior is finished in green exposed concrete to blend in with the surrounding nature, and the wall on the southern end of the garden is covered in a stainless steel mesh to encourage the greenery to spread vertically and envelope the building.........more

A Modern Concrete House | Yokohama | Japan | Torafu

This site is located in a quiet residential region reclaimed on a hill of Yokohama. With neighboring houses lined very close together, this flag-shaped site meets a road at a verge of no more than 3 meters in width. Since the site is tilted to the north, and the neighboring house to the south is two-storied and built on a tiered, higher ground, at first it seemed almost impossible to let in light from the south, although the client, a married couple who has lived in this place for a long time, wanted a small but sunshiny house of one-story just as their child became independent from them........more

U-HOUSE | Yamaguchi,Japan | Kubota Architect Atelier

Kubota Architect Atelier
Site area:334.72m2
Built area:107.86m2
Total floor area:153.42m2
Structure　　:Reinforced concrete construction

Y-House | Chita-shi, Aichi,Japan | Power Unit Studio

location:Chita-shi, Aichi
main use:private residence
site area:324.73m2
building area:124.47m2
total floor area:132.29m2
structure:reinforced concrete
complete:Jan.2003

A suburban private residence on nestled in the wooded hillside slope.Inside the residence, a inclined floor reflecting the hillside slope leads you to the main space (living dining room) downstairs. This space is lifted with the cantilever on the slope. A thick frame is situated for a window view that cuts out an impressive scenery. The foundation of the building is the bed room on the basement floor. The long main bed room on the road level floor will be divided as a child room in the future.....more

CS House | Sentmenat,Barcelona,Spain | AHAsociados

This house is located in an area dotted with residential buildings.
Building a house that creates an isolated world for its inhabitants requires a simple but determined execution. It has been necessary to make the most of the views by making use of the elevated position of the plot to protect it from the impact of adjacent buildings. The “S” section allows the opening up of the bedrooms and living-room to the garden that is protected by vegetation. The first floor has the opposite orientation so that the light enters directly into its rooms. In this floor the opaque level that turns into a far image of the house protects the terrace, a floor opened to the sky in the folded level, which is the private and intimate place of the house. The folded “S” section floats above a cut in the ground with a "C" form that in its opening empties the site and leaves a hole above which the house is constructed.The access floor is located in the basement floor and discovers the dynamic section of the house. The sides are opened and glazed so that the folding of the section is shown...more

Embedded House | Seoul, Korea | Byoungsoo Cho Architects

Nestled into a lush and beautiful natural area north of Seoul, this house was designed for a naturalist that is renowned writer/philosopher among many people in Korea. The Embedded House is surrounded by rock retaining walls that create gaps between the house and the earth to let in natural light, this irregular shaped house allows the natural flow of the landscape flow down the mountain into the valley to remain virtually uninterrupted. The write and zen painter,wishing a split house that would allow for living quarters as well as studio/working quarters, wish to live in an environment that was serene and meditative. His love for the moon as well as regard to the nature prompted us to place his home in the earth while creating gardens and interesting void spaces within the house to view the sky and bring in natural light. A main void separates the living room from the working quarter.
A small water garden is born of a natural spring on the site. Exterior walls of the house within the stones retaining walls are concrete whereas the interior walls are rammed earth designed to make the inside natural with warmer colour tones.....more Credit:
Byoungsoo Cho Architects
Jeon Am Kim/ Project Architect
Yong Kwan Kim/Photographer

Slit Court | Kyoto, Japan | Eastern Design Office

The site is at Sumizome, Fushimi, Kyoto. It is a small town with a long and distinguished history, situated south of Tofukuji temple. Facing to south, the building is built on a gentle slope.
It is a collective housing of five stories. Two tenants occupy the front and back side of the first floor. There are four units on the second to fourth floor and two units on the fifth floor.
The site of a Japanese house is generally small and a narrow lot faces a narrow street. Even in a historic town, it happens that such a narrow street is turned to a main street to be the transportation route for cars, then it is no longer a place where town people once shared the joy of living together.
Therefore in our architecture, we make the inner living space a place to protect what matters in life. We try to protect sky, land and light　inside the building.
In this occasion, we are asked how the way should be that will lead us to an important place.
One's beautiful life shares the destiny with a town. And the first place where people encounter the outside world is a path. We, therefore, try to adjust the form of the path to the history of the town, the clients’ way of living, and the way of existence of the town people living there. The resident of the architecture built on the basis of such notions declares that this is the way his beautiful life should be.,
We made architecture with an inner court. This inner court redefines how the form of “people, town and path” should be in Kyoto.
More pictures of the house here

Mathias Klotz: Arquitecto | Old House - Thomas Figueroa, Santiago

It is a quiet architecture, which solves the problem with subtle functional constructive and combining different textures in the material and the different proportions in relation to space.
The exposed concrete is recreated itself and magically mutates as if it were something malleable.
The Old House is a detached house located in a residential neighborhood in the '50s, in Santiago. Originally there was a house that was demolished, and instead was shown a new development, that takes the best trees in the garden.
It is a rectangle of 12 x 40 meters located at the bottom of the ground, releasing a large park in front. Just one level, built entirely of reinforced concrete in sight and around the perimeter, working with different textures and contrasts between the surfaces causing...via
Mathias Klotz: Arquitecto website

A-Cero Architects | Concrete House | Madrid

The first sensation that this house produces when people go into the plot is that the building seems to be hidden between concrete walls and vegetable ramps that extend up to the roof. They are dyed in dark gray and contain, between them, vegetation areas that seem to climb towards the sky. The house´s façade show a spectacular organic view of the whole house and so even the hard concrete shows its most kind face.

The back front of the house is totally opened towards the garden where the lounge, dining room, library, study and bedrooms are. In this façade the wide windows, the volumes set and the projections (made of concrete too enhance. These elements cover the several house´s porches. The large window of the main lounge hides itself automatically in order to make this stay completely opened to the exterior areas.

The plot includes also an elegant garden, a small lake and a pádel track.

The ecological aspect is very in this A-cero´s work: the façade and the roof have the main ecological roles because they are covered with low consume vegetation. Furthermore on the house´s roof has been implemented a renewable energy system made of wide surfaces with solar tubular collectors who allow that the energy autonomy of the house.
More at earchitect

House in Comano | Ticino ,Switzerland | Davide Macullo

HOUSE in COMANO – Ticino – Switzerland
Buyer: Family TOZZINI - PAGLIA
Realization: 2005-07
Architects: DAVIDE MACULLO - Lugano - Switzerland
MARCO STROZZI - Lugano - Switzerland
Collaborators: LAURA PEROLINI - Como - Italy
MARGHERITA PUSTERLA - Varese – Italy
MICHELE ALBERIO - Como - Italy
Engineer: IDEAL INGEGNO SA - Vezia - Switzerland
Physical engineer: FRANCO SEMINI - Lugano - Switzerland
Project manager: ENNIO MAGETTI - Minusio - Switzerland
Photographer: ENRICO CANO - Como - Italy; PINO MUSI - Milano - Italy