This is a contemporary house, created by the Architecture bureau called Bembé Dellinger Architects, and is a perfect example of a open-space, modern architecture and living space.

Description made by architects:

A house, south of Munich, in a traditionally grown, 100-year-old garden suburb. The plot was large and it was possible to spread out. A totally transparent ground floor with a clearly protruding upper level. The view is focussed on the garden, not the neighbours. The upper storey is a simple white tube with a saddle roof built without disturbing flashings and a flush roof covering made of white fibrous concrete.

The official website of  Bembé Dellinger Architects – here.

Located in Brisbane, Australia, the house called Stonehawke House, is the creation of the Base Architecture team, and is a happy mix of texture, color, texture and shape. The surroundings of the house find their corespondents in the materials used on the facades.

Architects: Base Architecture / Shawn Godwin
Location: Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Interior Designer: Base Architecture / Natalie Godwin
Project Area: 290 sqm
Project Year: 2008
Photographs: Christopher Frederick Jones

With such organic and raw materials in the natural surrounds of sandstone rockwork and various species of native tall trees it was important to reflect this in the form and materiality of the houses’ looks.

With this language the cladding and structure has been represented accordingly with rough sawn stained plywood, galvanised steel and combinations of horizontal and vertical sections mimicking the tree forms.

As an occupant of the house a central entry off the car space leads to the first level entry point (where visitors would be greeted), and voided space that leads either off to the parents retreat or further ascending to the centre of the main body of the house. Although from the street it appears to be a 3 storey house, 90 percent of the program happens on the top level that also happens to be level with natural ground due to the slope of the site.

Vandeventer + Carlander Architects team have designed this neat cabin on Vashon Island in Washington State. As some say, pictures speak louder than words, or something. So here it is:

Vashon Island Cabin by Vandeventer + Carlander Architects

This project consists of the remodel of an existing one story cabin with a daylight basement.  Given tight site development restrictions resulting from an existing drain field, it was not possible to increase the existing cabin’s lot coverage.  This constraint, coupled with the clients’ desire for a complete reorganization and enhancement of the main floor spaces, resulted in the decision to demolish the existing structure down to the main floor.  Given a program calling for additional floor area, the design concept evolved into making a small addition, replacing a previous exterior deck.  The addition is a wood box “insertion” which extends into the main structure; it slides in over the existing floor structure and cantilevers out over existing basement walls, thus not affecting the existing drain field.

This wood box contains the master bedroom, bath and kitchen.  The exterior form and finish of the box continues into the interior; clerestory windows separate the box from the main structure’s shed roof above.  Aluminum clad wood window walls provide for extensive glazing on the main floor.  Large sliding doors open onto a rebuilt wood deck to the west and expanding the interior outside for entertaining.

The daylight basement was remodeled to include a family room, two bedrooms, and a new bath and laundry.

Vandeventer + Carlander Architects – official website here.

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If you’re anything like me, and you love both the sea and the mountain, you will definitely like the following piece of work. The following images made my brain dance around with ideas all day. I love what the Sagan Piechota Studio created, and I’d love to live in this house… oh, the shape, the color, the texture, the site … pure art and magic.

Sagan Piechota Architecture have crafted the Otter Cove residence in Carmel, California. Here’s a glimpse on what the house offers.

From the Authors:

Perched atop a rocky outcrop overlooking the ocean, this Carmel residence strives to appear as a natural extension of the landscape while resolving competing private and public concerns.

The large area of the house was disguised by splitting the house into two wings, recessing the house into the site and locating nearly half of the space partially underground. The plan-split created a courtyard, the eastern wing providing privacy from Highway One and the western wing buffering the ocean wind.  Secondary spaces are located on the lower floor and borrow light from above through three staircases. These spaces provide respite from the panoramic drama on the upper floor.

Walls are located only where absolutely necessary for privacy or structure and treated as monolithic elements.  Stone cladding predominates, rooting the house in the site and visually connecting with the rocky cove.

Official website– here.

Photography by Joe Fletcher

This house fits like a glow in the archtopia. This awesome concept comes from Spain, and is the design and work of  Subarquitectura. The 360 House is in Galapagar, Spain. And as the pictures will definitely show you, it’s all about movement.

Casa 360

Casa 360

CASA 360 described by Subarquitectura

A unique opportunity for us is in reality a problem that’s been posed thousands of times: to construct a house with a public programme of social relation, associated with the private life of a numerous family on a sloping plot of land with privileged views of the mountains outside Madrid. It has no one solution, there are many, they’re even catalogued in books about houses of a slope.

We try not to think of domestic spaces. On the contrary, we take as a point of reference works of engineering, motorway intersections, changes of direction. We proceed from generic solutions to the problem of descending, solutions that conceal great plasticity. We seek the poetic in all that seems to have been considered from the merely pragmatic point of view.

The result is the literal construction of a use diagram. In this instance, form does not follow function, but is instead function itself. Cyclical movement, routine and surprise turn into a way of living.

Its formal complexity offers the possibility of reaching all points of the house through two different routes, which multiply the possibilities of use and enjoyment. It has the form of a loop, 360º, like the shapes skaters make, like of gymnasts, as artistic as they are precise.

An extreme shape, the house is curved, generating the greatest quantity of linear meters towards the good views. It is shored up in the landscape and turns back on itself, completing the revolution. The degree of intimacy increases as the distance to the ends increases. At the midpoint, a mediatheque, isolated and completely dark, 100 % technology, 0 % landscape.

With a single gesture two ways of moving are generated: going down and looking outwards. The long house, a sinuous movement, a descent by ramp and ample turning radii tangential to the setbacks of the plot of land generate a panoramic vision. The short house, the quick way in a straight line, stairs of direct descent and a deep view towards the landscape.

A building that is black outside, absorbent, of slate, a material specific to the location, imposed as an aesthetic specification of the area. White inside, reflective, generic, neutral, and luminous. Life incorporates colour, outside with the vegetation and inside with the people.

Images by David Frutos Ruiz

Fincube | Studio Aisslinger

German Architecture Studio Aisslinger, comes with a new modular housing prototype, sustainable and transportable.  The low energy house, named ‘Fincube’,  is comprised of thin horizontal “ledges” of locally grown wood that wrap the slightly bulging form.

Fincube | Studio Aisslinger

You can only find this concept cool and interesting, although made out with simple lines and shapes.

What is actually an interesting touch is the  second facade layer, because it provides privacy for the inhabitants and fuses the man-made structure with its natural surroundings.   The home provides 47 sqm of living space with a minimal CO2 footprint,  and can also be easily dismantled and rebuilt on a different site.

The supporting structure is made of local larch and the interior is a combination of larch and stone-pine.  Organized in a helical structure, the entrance area blends into a generous open kitchen with an adjacent living space, and around the corner rests the bedroom.

So tell us your opinion about this house, do you find this sustainable?

You like courtyards, huh? Bet you do, they’re intimate, and have lots of light and atmosphere.

The design we’re talking about has the access to the house through a series of excavated exterior terraces and stairways, across water features and bridges, then down another stairway, finally arriving at a small exterior glass-enclosed courtyard in the center of the residence.

This entry sequence informed the shape of the wood volume as well as the placement and configuration of the concrete retaining walls. Horizontal wood siding assembled with members of alternating depth enhance the notions of texture, shadow and perspective; contrast with the smooth concrete site walls; and ultimately heighten the journey from driveway to center of house.

This might seem weird at first, but you’ll get used to it, I know you’re strong. A floating office is not something you see every day actually, so this prefabricated concept might suit your needs.

floating prefab house

The H2Office was originally conceived as a floating office unit. Although its design is quite versatile so it could be remodeled and used in many other ways. It could become a living place, a meeting/working area, a play room, a dining area and so on.

As the office the unit provides enough space for one or two people to work in comfort. It also features plenty of storage space, an external sun desk to relax after a meal on a kitchenette, and a pull-out bed for ocassional overnight stays. Extras includes a microwave oven, fridge, wind turbine, solar panels, flat-panel tv, air conditioning and so on. The price starts from £59,950 ($135,000).

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A terrain like this calls for a innovative solution like the one you’re seeing. The results are outstanding. The Edge House by Jarmund / Vigsnæs AS Architects is located in Kolbotn, a suburb south of  Oslo out in the cold Norway. Its unusual architecture caught our eye as it is not very common for a house to have such un-smooth edges and seem as it it is about to fall off a small cliff. The residence belongs to a young couple that wanted a cool design with a limited budget, a place that  “looked like you could shoot a James Bond movie in it”. We think the architects caught the essence of their wish. It is up to you to judge and tell us what you think.

The Edge House

via Arch Tracker

Charred Cedar House © Noriyuki Yano

Architects: Tetsuya Nakazono / naf architect & design
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
Engineer: Kenji Nawa / NAWAKENJI-M
Site area: 172.55 sqm
Building area: 61.38 sqm
Total floor area: 114.50 sqm
Project Year: 2009
Photographs: Noriyuki Yano / Nacasa & Partners

Charred Cedar House Front © Noriyuki Yano / Nacasa & Partners

CONCEPT

The construction site is located in a district where many traditional sake breweries preserve good old Japanese street with plaster and charred cedar walls. In winter, during sake brewing season, a cloud of steam comes out from red brick chimneys of the breweries and the scent of sake wafts in the air. “Charred Cedar House” stands in such neighborhood.

Charred Cedar House inside © Noriyuki Yano / Nacasa & Partners

STRUCTURE

Steel-frame structure was employed for first and second layers as application of slim materials is available by concentrating the stress. Third layer, on the other hand, employed wooden framework construction method which was developed from traditional Japanese method. Structure of the first and second layers is distinctive with employment of φ100㎜・φ140㎜ steel pipes for first layer andφ60㎜ steel pipes for second layer, all of which are oblique in different angles. In Japan, a seismic country, diameters of pillars tend to be large to resist the force of earthquake and installation of bearing walls with braces tends to be frequent practice.

Charred Cedar House detail © Noriyuki Yano / Nacasa & Partners

The framework is calculated on the assumption of resistance to enormous force of earthquake which does not exist in everyday life. However, pillars of extremely small diameter can resist vertical and horizontal load simultaneously when correctly tilted and positioned. When this formula is found, the space free from enormous force or conventional structure method floats in the air as natural as up above brunches of trees, making it almost earthquake proof. Pretty neat, huh?

Charred Cedar House first floor © Noriyuki Yano / Nacasa & Partners

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