Queen’s Lane Pavilion created by Carney Logan Burke Architects blend traditional and modern styles in a five-building complex

By Courtney • Jul 2, 2019

On an expansive 180-acre plot of greenery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, innovative designers at Carney Logan Burke Architects have collaborated with the land’s owning family over a total period of 20 years to make the Queen’s Lane Pavilion; a stunning five-building project designed for avid hosts who love to blend traditional and modern aesthetics in one beautiful place.

The land on which the buildings sit is part of a riverine ecosystem that is more than a little bit rich in its own wildlife. The compound of buildings is anchored around the first building you’ll encounter, which is a timber lodge made from stone and Parkitecture-influenced log.

From there, visitors can move towards the second building, which is both a combination office-shop and also a wine silo. This building is building on the more traditional side as far as local style is concerned. Between its interior spiral staircase and its sunny rooftop viewing platform, affording visitors a breathtaking view of the surrounding land, the silo features a wonderfully rustic influenced modernism heavy in oxidized steel details and a sense of sculptural expression.

Moving on from the office and silo, you’ll find yourself wandering through a charming covered bridge that has become iconic in the area. This bridge ends in a thoroughly modernist glass pavilion with a flat roof, sitting clearly on the more contemporary end of the whole area’s style spectrum.

This glass pavilion was built specifically for the owners, giving them a retreat of their own within their hosting space. It is a streamlined building that somehow still manages to look nature-oriented, paying homage to its location with big, lovely windows. This building sits nestled between two spring creeks, perhaps the most pleasant spot on the whole plot.

The final building in the compound is a two-bedroom guesthouse. This was built on the precise spot where an older structure used to sit, long before the current owners took over. To stay within preservation limitations placed on the land, designers built the new guesthouse on the precise footprint of the older structure.

The new guesthouse has an L-shape, the short end of which houses a garage. The longer section is where the bedrooms lie, next to a lovely, open concept kitchen, living room, and dining space combination. Glass walls along the north and south walls give the guesthouse a sense of airiness while visitors gather around the central fireplace, which anchors the rooms. White oak floors and ceilings work in partnership with the window walls to create wonderfully private experience of nature.

Of course, it only makes sense to provide an outdoor space to enjoy on such a lovely plot as well! Outside the guesthouse, a minimalist style patio appears to merge right into the surrounding landscape. This is provided a bit of privacy by a pierced steel curtain that looks almost like an art piece.

Designers and owners alike took care in the details and materiality of each building to make sure they all relate back to one another, as though they’re communicating. At the same time, each is unique, as though it functions in its own micro-ecosystem. Surrounding the five-building pavilion, a small but thriving wildlife refuge and a fishery have grown throughout the two decades it took for Queen’s Lane to be finished. This refuge is home to eagles, moose, elk, deer, and even coyotes.

Because the guesthouse boasts all of its own amenities right down the a laundry, some people choose to enjoy it as an isolated, meditative experience. Others wander down through the cottonwood trees to the serene glass pavilion and enjoy a view of the local wildlife with the owners. This space is always welcoming people; a comfortable retreat during the day and a glowing glass lantern peeking through the trees around it after dark.

Photos by Matthew Millman

Pereira Miguel Arquitectos finishes Monte House, or the Dune House, as an architectural tribute to sand dunes

By Courtney • Jul 2, 2019

Nestled into the sandy beaches of Comporta, Portugal sits the impressive and uniquely shaped Monte House. This modern but natural looking structure, built by innovative designers at Pereira Miguel Arquitectos, has been nicknamed “The Dune House” for the way is harnesses the beauty of the sand dunes surrounding as an inspiration for its shape.

The original aim of this project was to try and establish a clear visual and functional relationship between a new building and the landscape on which designers chose to build it. The goal was to create a home that looks like a fixed point where the natural world and the human one meet and intersect as seamlessly as possible.

One of the ways in which designers tried to enable this seamless meeting of worlds was by building artificial sand dunes, one on either side of the actual dwelling space. These help establish a physical relationship between the structure itself and its surrounding landscape as well as a visual one.

Nestled in between the concrete and sand hills lies the main living space of the house, encased in four natural concrete walls, one of shining floor to ceiling glass, and accessed by beautifully smooth stained wooden doors. These materials at once blend into the landscape but also provide solid shelter in a location where beach weather can become quite harsh quickly when the sun isn’t out.

As if bearing its own faux sand dunes didn’t make the house interesting enough, an extra element of visual appeal is added by the undulating shape of the roof. Like the sand dunes surrounding it, the monolithic and monochromatic concrete roof of the main house ebbs and flows, rising and dipping in the same rounded off shapes as the sand hills piled around the beach.

Inside the house, the ceiling actually undulates right along with the roof! This creates interesting but entirely different visual an spatial experiences inside and out based around the same element of the house. The waves of the ceiling and roof almost become and experience in and of themselves as you cross the house on the interior or outside.

In fact, one can even walk from one end of the house to the other on top of the roof, climbing up and down the slopes of the faux sand dunes on either side. Standing on the different hills and dips will actually give you a different view of the surrounding beach area from a different level, depending on where you’re situated.

There is actually one more thing that the shape of the roof and house is intended to pay homage to besides just the sand dunes. Once upon a time, an old winding road was paved through this area. Though long gone, it was a point of access for many people to enjoy the beach, so now the home’s roof winds like its own little concrete road, allowing visitors to see the beach like the road used to.

Extending from the central volume of the house, the actual living spaces protrude in three remaining volumes, built on four arms that raise them from the uneven ground a little and make them feel slightly detached from the front of the house for more private relaxation. Thought the sleeping areas lie in a different wing from the public ones, natural wooden platforms leading from space to space and to the stunning pool out back make everything feel cohesive and far from closed off or hard to access.

Photos by Fernando Guerra

The geometric Drift House on Little Much Farm created by Shonan Purie Trehan + Language.Architecture.Body(LAB) as a lakeside escape

By Courtney • Jul 1, 2019

In the heart of Nandivali, India, a plot of land that has been dubbed the Little Much Farm provides view to a new housing retreat by Shonan Purie Trehan + Language.Architecture.Body(LAB) that are nothing short of breathtaking. The house itself, named Drift House for the way its angles resemble the edges of driftwood washed onto a beach, overlooks a lovely lake.

The prime purpose of this stunning family villa, right from the very outset, was always relaxation. The building sits atop a small, remote hillside plot that overlooks Mulshi and its rolling Sahyadri Hills, as well as the lake that sits at the base of them. When the owners approached the creative team, they stated that they were looking for a place where their family might retreat to reconnect with friends and benefit from engaging with the countryside surrounding Bombay, where they’re from.

The house, interesting right from the first time you one lays eyes on it, was built specifically to be laid out like a series of spaces where things will happen. Each room is created with purpose, layered over and connected with rooms that are different but related, and designed to give family and friends to find a good, comfortable space to do whatever it is they please on their holiday.

The different floors and angles of the rooms also give each one a different view of the stunning natural area surrounding the house. No two windows will give you precisely the same perspective of the beautiful, nearly panoramic views afforded by the hilltop location.

The way the sections of the house are situated is also a method of protection against the kind of harsh weather found only in hills closely situated to water. The design strategy of the roof provides shelter from harsh suns in the summer and monsoon rains in the wet seasons. The way the rooms and sections overlap forms strong enclosures in all the right places to end off winds.

One of these enclosures has been purposely allotted as something practical and interesting, rather than just being a waste of space between volumes of the house. This is where designers chose to build a covered monsoon bridge, giving visitors a way to get from volumes of the house that aren’t connected anywhere else within the house without getting wet.

The materiality of the house is important as well. The roof, which appears from a distance to float above the various interior and exterior spaces, is made from mild steel dia-grid. It was shaped and installed by a ship building fabrication team right there on site. The various planes of the roof are held up by exposed concrete columns, which is part of what gives the sections that particular drifting effect. They are positioned intentionally to provide shade to certain indoor and outdoor spaces as part of passive heating and cooling systems throughout the well ventilated house. These materials also look natural enough to interrupt the natural feeling of the surrounding plot as little as possible!

At its based, the house is built starting with three distinct blocks in a way that minimizes the number of retaining walls. These are connected and have free flowing space but still feel quite individual. In the middle block, you’ll find a double height volume that connects to the upper floor of the block to its west and the lower floor of the block to its east. Angles are a great thing!

This middle space where the three blocks all connect and overlap on one level is where the social and bonding spaces of the house are located. A bit of blending between inner and outer spaces even happens here where part of the middle space turns into a deck that connects to the outside ground on the hillside of one block. Here, there is a garden, a pool, and a ramp leading straight to these leisure spaces from the entryway for visitors who want to meet you right there at the poolside rather than traipsing through the whole house.

Continuing the quite natural materiality, the outside spaces of the house and the building’s facade walls are made in things that all bear a calming silver grey. These are primarily a mixture of different slabs of slate finished in different ways; raw, rough cut, and polished. Keeping the outer (and also much of the inner) colour schemes neutral like this lets the shapes and angles included in the house stand out without the eye getting distracted from their unique properties.

Like the outside, the interior spaces are practical in layout but still with a sense of playfulness. After all, how could a house that has a polished timber slide connecting the first floor and the social space on the ground floor not be a lot of fun to stay in? Even just moving from room to room in his dwelling is a good time.

There are plenty of other elements dotted around the house that are intended to bring joy to those who stay there. For example, there are cheerful quotes engraved in the concrete slabs that hang above the beds in the guest rooms, designed to start everyone’s day off just right. Laser etched art throughout the home’s furnishings, ceramic lil pads built into the deck’s floor, and a sunset set in the swimming pool are just a few more ways that designers aimed to give the owners the best possible experience of modern relaxation by the lake.

Photos by Sebastian Zacharia

Sabará Residence created by Padovani Arquitetos Associados to blend indoor-outdoor spaces with family experiences

By Courtney • Jul 1, 2019

In a beautifully sunny and calm residential neighbourhood in Campinas, Brazil, innovative designers at Padovani Arquitetos Associados recently completed a house for a couple and their two small daughters, named Sabará Residence.

The structure of this house is intentionally compact. The primary goal, before adding personality with decor and furnishings, was to make it functional so that it’s conducive to the busy life of a modern family. Additionally, designers and owners alike decided to prioritize the integration of interior and exterior spaces, creating a house that, while secure and private, still blends the two aspects of the home experience in a way that feels seamless and comfortable.

Luckily for all involved, the landscape of the plot on which the house was billed lends itself well to that sort of indoor-outdoor setup. Brazil’s climate also provides enough sunlight year round that natural sunlight pouring in through the large windows and glass doors that the house features also help the place stay energy efficient by providing both warmth and light to every room.

The unique shape of the home’s structure is most noticeable on the right side, where two panels with cement flooring lead upwards towards the entryway, de facto supporting the upper block of the house as well as the edges extend past where the ramp stops. Those supported rooms, built like dorms for each member of the family, open out in two different spots to outdoor areas thanks to huge sliding panels of wood, like patio doors.

The upper outdoor area opens upward to form a lovely rooftop seating area. Because designers chose to border it in glass siding all along the edges, the space is child safe but still looks limitless, since the railing doesn’t cut off the otherwise panoramic view. This lets the nature surrounding the house feel like a true part of the experience of sitting up there, on the sofa in the sun.

Underneath the upper supported block we’ve mentioned, the living and dining rooms reside, each one open concept to meld with a kitchen and another outdoor patio space. The rooms open right out into an outdoor seating area that is so lush with local plants in its garden that this space is actually what got the house its name!

Just past the patio, designers built a series of natural stone bench seats around a relaxing in-ground fire pit. This mimics the shape of the atrium found in the centre of the house, where a double height space features a staircase leading to the upper floor. Throughout this vertical space, an indoor tropical garden grows lush and green right in the heart of the home.

The bedrooms of the house keep up this theme of greenery and neutral colours, resembling a sort of relaxing spa while still providing all the amenities of contemporary living. The only space that varies greatly is the children’s room, which is adorned in pretty pastel colours and cheerful, childlike decor.

Photos by Evelyn Muller

Taller Estilo Arquitectura transforms abandoned building into Diaphanous House

By Courtney • Jun 28, 2019

In historic centre of the city of Mérida in Mexico, innovative designers at Taller Estilo Arquitectura have recently completed an impressive revitalization project, transforming an old, abandoned dwelling into a lovely new home called the Diaphanous House.

From the outset, the main goal of designers was to create a new building that pays proper, authentic homage to the historical surroundings of the plot the home sits on. In creating a fully equipped modern living space that pays respect to local heritage, the architects help play a role in revitalizing the actual city as a contemporary choice for new residents, rather than solely transforming what sits on the specific plot itself.

This goal of blending the new dwelling into the historical context of its street was partially met by keeping as much of the original Casa Diáfana’s exterior facade as possible, since this is what passers by see from the street. Rather than building new houses that interrupt the local context and wear down the history of the residential streets, local housing officials have been encouraging projects like this instead to work with what is already there, revitalize historical areas, and renew the city’s housing.

Once the facade was restored, teams moved onto the interiors. The lobby and guest bedroom area you encounter almost immediately upon entering were actually in such good shape that they have been largely preserved as they were, with only the most minor necessary updates. The blend of old spaces and new amenities creates an atmosphere as though the house speaks two languages; underneath the char, designers hoped their modern renovation of this space will make it more sustainable.

Towards the public spaces of the house, you’ll encounter a double height living area, kitchen, and dining room. Between this and the stunning floor to ceiling windows that were built into a wall that already needed reconstruction anyways, light is allowed to flow abundantly into the social spaces of the house, helping preserve power and keep things cheerful.

The house bears a certain fluidity in its renovation in terms of its materiality as well as its blend of contemporary and historical elements. This is in the contrast between the stone of the yard walls and the outer front facade (which has been repainted its original stunning shade of blue) and the lighter, more organize woods and materials used to transform the interior decor, as well as the modern and more streamline feel of the furnishings and appliances.

Besides being an absolutely lovely little place for relaxation, the patio pool actually plays a passive role in heating and cooling thhe home’s main living spaces. When the glass patio doors are slid open, the water, cool from the chilly night, helps reduce the temperate in the living and dining area. It then absorbs the heat during the day and gives it back off in those spaces when the temperature drops at night, until dwellers slide the doors closed again to sleep. The wind helps this whole process along too!

Besides being just updated visually and functionally, designers hoped that a new family moving into the house will help update the space and the neighbourhood a little bit socially as well. They wanted the revitalization of the space to be full and thorough, making the home open concept so there’s free flow of movement and energy, as well as space for activities and comfort for bonding.

Diaphanous House is truly a practice in blending modern living with urban culture that is thoroughly and authentically centred on the preservation of historical culture and context. Hopefully its success leads to more projects that value and revitalize existing neighbourhoods in the area rather than reducing them to ruins and making new ones that might result in loss of culture.

Photos by Verónica Gloria Hernández

Chiasmus Partners finishes three storey Urban Hamlet for a modern family of six

By Courtney • Jun 28, 2019

on the Southwestern outskirts of Daejeon City in Seo-gu, South Korea, a new residential complex area has recently become home to the Urban Hamlet. This is a stunningly modern three storey home finished by Chiasmus Partners with the express purpose of putting a unique spin on all the needs and wants of a modern family with members of different ages and spatial requirements.

The house might have been commissioned by and designed with the parents, but it was absolutely conceptualized with the children’s needs and lives in mind. This is why all functional and private rooms are located on the ground and top floors, while the entire second floor exists as a unique and very diverse multi-purpose space to be used by the entire family however they need in the moment.

Beginning at the bottom, visitors approaching the patio will find it surrounded by a large garage and, through the front door, a living room, dining room, and guest room. When the family has guests who are not staying the night, this spare bedroom doubles as a quiet and pleasant tea room. This floor is where most of the functional spaces are located.

Moving up to the third floor (we’ll come back to that exciting second floor in a moment), you’ll encounter six bedrooms. Each of these is duplex in style, meaning that they adjoin in pairs like dorms. Surrounding the bedrooms is a lovely shared family room that extends through the rest of the floor, eventually opening onto a beautiful open terrace that features a jacuzzi and a long “floating” swimming pool.

The swimming pool is of particular note for the way it faces the mountains to the south, as well as for the way the glass plates in its bottom act as small windows, letting swimmers see the street below as they paddle. This isn’t the only cool rooftop space; each bedroom actually has its own accompanying little rooftop space. There’s also a larger rooftop space with a hammock that is often used for family gatherings.

The second floor of the house is intended to be an open-space, multi-purpose area where family members can do whichever activities they need space for. The ceiling of this floor is supported in its full weight by a central core, inside which is a staircase and and elevator, each of which will take you to and from each floor of the house.

This core is also put to good use on its outer surface too, rather than just inside. It is covered from floor to ceiling in media shelves, book shelves, and a television stand. It also features a fireplace for chillier nights, a projector screen, and even a desk! It truly is designed to be a space for all kinds of different people and purposes.

Beyond just giving the family member space to do their own thing, the multi-purpose floor is also designed to reinvigorate bonding and social time. It draws activities that have become isolated in modern families out of individual bedrooms occasionally and into a shared common space where people might spend time together, even if they are doing different things.

As the home’s name, Urban Hamlet, might suggest to you, the house is actually organized like a little village of its own. Each bedroom is designed to be like an individual’s house (complete with an adjoining neighbour). The multi-purpose floor, on the other hand, becomes like a town square where friend gather and people meet. This idea is literally reflected in the actual architecture of the house; from an aerial view, you might noticed that each bedroom has its own little roof, making the outside of the house resemble a walled village.

At the same time as it is clearly a priority to facilitate social spaces and family bonding, designers and owners alike wanted to give each family member a respectable amount of privacy as well. This is why the rooms are left like their own little worlds, individualized and closed without losing natural light. These elements make the house more of a community than a single faceted dwelling.

Besides giving the family amazingly modern social spaces to enjoy, it should also be noted that the outdoor rooftop areas and the open-air multi-purpose floor provide dwellers and guests stunning panoramic views of the surrounding neighbourhood and nature. It is classic Korean architecture to build a home that blurs the lines between indoor and outdoor spaces and rooms of different functions, without sacrificing the privacy that families find ever so important.

Photos by Namsun Lee

Studio 30 Architects transforms Victorian dwelling into stunning modern home called Coach House

By Courtney • Jun 27, 2019

In a lovely little suburban village in the united Kingdom, creative designers at Studio 30 Architects have renovated and revitalized and old Victorian building and is accompanying coach house into a stunning contemporary home that’s perfect for a growing modern family.

In addition to refurbishing the existing home and the buildings surrounding it, designers also decided to extend the space a little to give the family even more room. One of the main goals within the renovations was to open the space up to let more natural light into each room, since original Victorian era architecture was much darker and more enclosed than most people prefer now.

Despite the need to update certain parts of the house, other aspects were kept in their original state and simply improved upon. This helped keep an air of history and authenticity about the place, improving the home in an additional but different way. In the entryway, for example, guests now enter through the freshly refurbished coach house doorway, providing an experience that hearkens back to the original makeup and running of the house.

This change of entry is an aesthetic choice but also serves a functional purpose; moving the new entryway away from the original door creates a bit of an additional barrier away from the public street. The original front doorway has now been transformed into a wood storage for the fireplace and wood burning stove inside!

Inside the house, things have been opened up in terms of layout much the way new windows have been added to open the house up in terms of light and cross breezes. The kitchen and dining space, for example, is open concept leading in from the hallway, and this space also opens out onto a freshly landscape garden and pleasant little patio.

Perhaps the biggest point of structural renovation was the removal of the dividing wall between the main house and the coach house, amalgamating the two spaces as one to provide the family with a more extensive living space. This move acted as a sort of de facto expansion without having to build an entire new extension onto the side of the house.

Moving towards the back of the house, skylights have been added in addition to new windows in an attempt to flood the part of the home that was previously the darkest with nice, natural sunlight. This process was helped along by a set of sliding and folding glass doors, each of which further breaks down barriers between the interior living spaces and the garden greenery outside.

In order to create a modern family home without interrupting the visual fabric of the street and taking away the history that the house offers, designers chose to keep certain elements as close to their original state as possible, so long as doing so was practical. For example, rather than simply replacing the floor boards outright, teams chose to lift them, install modern floor heating, re-oil them, and settle them back in place more solidly than they sat before. Elements like this created a certain dialogue between the modern adaptation and the building’s unique history.

Photos by Salt Productions

Taiwanese Light and Lines House, by PENY HSIEH INTERIORS, named for its unique design elements

By Courtney • Jun 27, 2019

On the charming outskirts of New Taipei City, in the heart of Taiwan, innovative designers at PENY HSIEH INTERIORS have created a uniquely shaped and decorated contemporary house that they’ve dubbed Lights and Lines House, naming it for the shapes created in its architecture and interior decor scheme.

Immediately upon entering the house, visitors begin to see the lines and patterns of light in question. The home’s aesthetic is based around staunch vertical and horizontal lines, swooping curves, and unique angular shapes that appear artistic and conceptual all throughout the house.

The square footage of the home might not be large, but its impressive height makes up for its conservative base. After all, many of the values of contemporary living spaces have been separated from an emphasis on expansiveness. Designers used this increased height to their advantage well, creating a vertical visual vector in their work.

A primary element in this vertical element is the stunning rose gold winding staircase. This piece serves as the demarcation and access point between the public and private zones. Helping denote the difference in functional space is an impressive wine cabinet that sits horizontally, creating a new line and appearing perpendicular to the vertically rising stairs.

In the living room itself, these plays on contrasting lines continue. For example, an attention grabbing iron bookcase built into the main wall presents a stark horizontal plane in the heart of the home, while double height windows contrast by rising vertically up past even the open-concept halls and stunning glass walkway of the floor above.

In addition to adding a lovely contrast of lines, the impressive windows we’ve mentioned help keep the space looking bright and welcoming despite its very contemporary appearance. At the same time, the provide dwellers and visitors with stunning views of the city, which can be seen stretching below, adding to the sense of verticality prevailing in the home’s atmosphere.

In the kitchen, an independent set of lines is established like its own network thanks to the way the furnishings are built and arranged. In this space, the island, counters, and table are all built to precisely the same height, extending horizontally outwards consistently with each other along the same plane.

Lines and light aren’t the only contrasts and mimics within the house; there are actually several notes of decor, materiality, and colour used to create a cohesive theme throughout the space as a whole. In the kitchen, for example, a stunning golden lined chandelier hearkens back to the living room where the rose gold winding staircase begins, as well as the upper floor where it ends.

Because the hallways and rooms of the second floor are quite open, feeling blended with the social living spaces but not so much as to lose privacy, a sense of dialogue between the rooms is created. Light flows freely from one to the other, something that prompted designers to comment that the two areas of the home resemble “lighting cases stacked together”.

In contrast (something so integral to the home’s aesthetic), the spliced wooden floors on the upper floor feel as though they ground the space. Rather than looking quite so bright and linear as many other elements in the home, these floors add a sense of warmth and a variance in materiality and colour palette.

The upper floor is where the most light and shadow play happens. Besides the shadows cast by the windows and clean LED lighting in the bedrooms themselves, the hallway also gets much of the residual light and shadow from the lower floor thanks to the open-air balcony style of the passages and the glass floor of the bridge-style walkway to the stairs.

Photos by Kyleyu Photo Studio

Aperture House, created by Studio P, named for the way its unique structure plays with light

By Courtney • Jun 26, 2019

On the edges of Willoughy, Australia, a suburb of the city of Sydney, the stunning geometric looking Aperture House was recently completed by the talented design teams at Studio P for a clients who wanted their home to mirror the concepts present in their work as industrial designers.

Built with the needs of a growing family in mind, the Aperture House provides open concept comfort and privacy while looking, from the street, like an impressively stacked set of unique and interesting volumes. From the topmost points of the house, dwellers are afforded breathtaking and uninterrupted views of the city skyline towards Sydney while still enjoying the more quiet setting of a slightly removed residential neighbourhood.

From the outset, designers aimed to build the house in such a way that shapes, geometry, and patterns played a roll in the structure and aesthetic. This is why the repetition of shapes from volume to volume on the home’s exterior is so visually pleasing when you look at the facade from the street or the yard.

On the inside of the house, the unique stacked geometry of the structure cause a unique and interesting light shift as the sun moves across the sky throughout the day. This gives the different rooms, which are laid out according to the different functions typical of a busy family, varying sweet spots of light and shadow, like each one has its own prime time to be used.

In fact, light is one of the things that many guests notice first upon entering the house. This is largely thanks to the prevalence of skylights, floating ceilings, and huge, uniquely shaped windows in the entryway and shared living spaces. Near the patio, where a lovely seating area has been built to become almost part of the inner space if you roll the patio doors back, a circular window lets in a perfectly round point of light; this is really where the home’s name came from, and that spot of bright light is the heart of the home that many of the designers’ other ideas were conceptualized around.

Besides emphasizing the role of light in the house, the prevalence of windows was prioritized by designers and owners alike for another reason; creating more places where sky and greenery can be seen easily from the house on any day, no matter the weather, helps to visually break down barriers between indoor and outdoor spaces in a comfortable way.

The concept of “aperture” plays out in the home in one additional way besides the playfulness of light. Because of the way the home is structures and stacked, there are actually several intentional lines of vision that pass straight through the home, from room to room, mimicking the way one might look through the view finder of a camera to see something in the distance.

The two most notable spaces like this are near the front of the house, where one can look straight through from the entryway into the backyard where children play, and from the mezzanine level to the ground floor social areas. Designers cited a scene where children might peek down after bedtime to catch a glimpse of their parents’ dinner party as the inspiration for this particular vantage point. These lines of sight establish a sense of connectivity throughout the home and link physical spaces in the house to certain memories, experiences, or emotions within the family.

In order to counteract the very linear shapes of the home’s volumes, more curved points than just the one aperture inspired rounded window have been included within the house’s interior, for balance and contrast. Paying close attention to small details, designers chose to sink clean LED lights into curved ceiling tiles, lending a soft glow that contrasts with an otherwise slightly industrial chic inspired atmosphere. They also chose several softly curving, colourful pieces of lounge furniture to counteract exposed concrete and steel detailing; the comfy bean bags you see dotted around the rooms do the trick!

Photos by Brett Boardman

Pentagonal House on the Hill created by MoDusArchitects on a hillside in Italy

By Courtney • Jun 26, 2019

On a stunning countryside slope in Bressanone, Italy, the aptly named House on the Hill, recently completed by MoDusArchitects, is a stunning modern house in which the same hexagonal shapes that make up its structure are mirrored in its furnishings and decor too.

At the core of the house sits a convenient stairwell that provides access to all of the different levels and rooms, which expand from that central point almost like spokes. This structure leaves the outer walls of each floor entirely uninhibited by functional structures, meaning they afforded veritably panoramic views all the way around.

Because of its unique shape, the house has no official front or back. This makes the interior living spaces feel like a free flowing continuum, where things are easy to access and diverse, making using each room, no matter its function, feel comfortable. No matter which room you’re in, you’re also afforded easy access to different stunning views of the South Tyrolean landscape, the rest of the little hillside town the house is a part of, and the woods and meadows that stretch beyond that into the Isarco Valley.

Knowing that the view would become such a pivotal part of the experience in living in such a house, designers made the choice to include more than a few floor to ceiling windows all the way around the outside of each floor, letting dwellers and guests see the surrounding view from almost any angle in a 360 degree manner.

Without making something too expansive, the owners stated right from the outset that they wished for a spacious home with a layout open enough that they could feel like they “have room to breathe”. Because they have young children who will grow up there, they also didn’t want to sacrifice too much privacy within that concept, so designers had their work cut out for them.

They opted to try and create a house that fosters a sense of freedom. They included open concept layouts in all of the social spaces, establishing a sense of airy comfort and easy bonding. They kept colour schemes warm, pleasant, and neutral, creating a continuous scheme of homey grey floors and locally sourced cedar planked ceilings and furnishings.

In order to incorporate the unique shape of the home’s structure right into the rest of the house itself, several furnishings and art pieces have a somewhat geometric quality to them, mimicking the octagon within which they’ve been placed. This contributes to the overall established sense of continuity and communication.

In order to take these integral concepts of continuity of spaces and limitlessness into nature into account, designers also wanted to make sure they provided the family with decent outdoor space that can be used as part of the home as well. Besides several decks and patios, the house also features an overhang at street level, designs specifically for hosting guests and greeting neighbours like an outdoor room.

The rooms that have the most delineation from other spaces within the house are the bedrooms. The first three bedrooms (for each of the children) and a guest bedroom sit on the ground floor, slightly removed into a quieter wing from the social spaces, while the master bedroom resides upstairs, off the central spoke. These rooms are closed off just enough to feel private and personal, but they still feature large, stunning windows that make them feel open to the outside world rather than too isolated.

Photos by Filippo Molena

Portuguese Villa AH created by CORE Architects according to owner’s ultimate dream design

By Courtney • Jun 25, 2019

Nestled in some greenery in Almancil, Portugal sits the stunning Villa AH. This beautiful new dwelling was created by CORE Architects according to its owners very own designs, with the goal of bringing a true housing dream that was years in the making to life.

Right off the bad, designers prioritized attention to detail in order to make the finished product as authentic to the owner’s vision as possible. In partnership with that, they paid great heed to the surrounding area and weather, noting that the finished house must withstand harsh beach winds and climates.

At the same time, designers wanted to avoid building a dark fortress; they expressly maintained the goal of letting as much stunningly bright natural Algarvian light flood into every single room. This goal helped bolster the stunning view provided by the chosen plot’s vantage point, giving dwellers constant sight of the ocean.

Perched atop a subtle slope and erected amidst the lush pine trees of an Iberian forest, the house has a very distinct and beautiful location. Designers chose to pay this setting the utmost respect by orienting the house in a way that creates a lovely flow of light, air, and energy, enacting a sort of architectural Feng Shui and then following that suit with decor and interior furnishings.

In combination, these elements give the house an atmosphere of natural living and directly local authenticity. Designs also made sure to extend the values that the house was built on out into its exterior spaces. For example, they built the stunning entrance patio with the specific intention of making it feel like an ethereal connection between heaven and Earth.

Visual connections and spaciousness were central tenets in letting air, light, and energy flow. An open concept layout was chosen, allowing, for example, free flowing movement between the patio, the kitchen, and the smallest bedroom, as though these are all one shared space. At the same time, visual markers delineating space based on function avoids a loss of privacy from room to room.

This kitchen, patio, and sleeping area isn’t the only place where open-spaced living was prioritized. In fact, plans were shifted and re-jigged more than once to ensure that this layout extends outward and upwards, encompassing both floors of the house. At the same time, owners and designers alike aimed to use finishes and materials that, though gorgeous, are hardy enough to withstand a large, very social family of adults who share many pets between them and love to host friends.

The effect of this authentic, spacious, and practical desire, all rolled into one, was an aesthetic that is slightly rustic in its prevailing glamour. Natural stone counters and wood flooring play off rough linen fabrics and un-manicured concrete staircases to create a sense of locally respectful and naturally worn sophistication. Although all amenities within the house are cutting edge, the appliances chosen all have a slightly vintage sense about them to create cohesiveness, right down to the old fashioned toilets with their high tanks and pull chains.

Because of its physicality and the open layout designed for good energy and air flow, the house is actually largely self-cooling. This is helped along by the presence of concrete and stone. Similarly, the very specific position of the windows plays a large role in temperature regulation as well. The heat here in combination with the fresh air gives the primary living spaces a fantastic cross ventilation, keeping things extremely comfortable and reducing the home’s energy usage.

The only place where energy efficiency was taken a little less seriously is in the upstairs bedrooms, where the windows sit. Here, the windows should have been made much smaller, but this would counteract the owner’s adoration of sunsets, which would make their “dream home” less close to their vision. This area is now the only place with powered heating and cooling systems to regulate the atmosphere, which designers decided was well worth a good view of the breathtaking Algarvian sunsets, particularly since the rest of the house is so incredibly energy efficient.

Besides being a dream house, Villa AH is also actually an extremely safe dwelling. Designers chose to built the home’s frame using a concrete skeleton structure in order to account for the high risk of earthquakes in Southern Portugal. The strength of this frame is bolstered by the outer facade made of clay blocks, which also contribute to energy regulation thanks to their high thermal properties. This is beneficial in the rainy season, which, contrary to popular belief, can actually get quite cool in Portugal.

Perhaps one of the best features of the house is the way that the primary materials used in the structure, as well as most of the decor and furnishings, were all locally sourced. In order to build this owner’s dream, designers were able to support the local economy and pour their money back into the area. This, in combination with a decor aesthetic that suits the home’s immediate location and respects local traditions, makes the whole space feel authentic and, indeed, dreamlike.

Photos by Alexander Bogorodskiy

Roeck Architekten finishes Austrian Cubic Wohnhaus DRV to give owners unparalleled panoramic views

By Courtney • Jun 25, 2019

In the forests of Austria, innovative designers at Roeck Architekten have recently completed a stunningly quiet and genuinely panoramic home called Wohnhaus DRV! Its primary goal was to provide beautiful views to the owners unlike anything they’d find elsewhere.

The house, which is cubic in shape and stands two storeys tall, sits on a plot of land surrounded by Tyrolean forest, in a small Austrian town known as Mils. The property on which the house stands is marked by two lovely little streams, one sitting on each side of the house like a border.

From the outside, the house appears entirely, evenly cubic from most angles. If you walk around the front, however, the only area that protrudes is the dark, calming entrance enclave. Here, visitors find a greeting vestibule with its own dressing room and a guest bathroom. The protrusion also provides a sort of protective wall to the garden, making it feel more like a haven.

On the ground floor, the public living spaces are mostly open concept, with the living room leading straight into the kitchen with good spatial flow. Following suit, the dining room opens itself entirely into a beautiful garden at the back of the house. On the upper floor, the private rooms of the house are where dwellers and guests like find those breathtaking panoramic views.

The sight of the home’s natural surroundings bathed in sunlight is practically irresistible, so the private rooms are designed with comfort and relaxation in mind, assuming that people will want to spend comfortable, long periods of time there. The bedrooms aren’t the only place where comfort and views are provided, however; they’re simply home to the most wide reaching angles!

The house also features a centrally located foyer that is purposely intended to offer much the same views and comfort as the bedrooms, but as a more social hub than one’s sleeping area. This atrium features a spacious seating area with views out to the trees all around. Sunlight spills in both here and into the bedrooms, but moveable wooden elements featured on the north side of the house give dwellers the option to slide them into place for a little more shade and privacy when necessary.

In terms of materiality and overall decor scheme, the inside of the house presents a stunning contrast to visitors. Here, purposely exposed concrete walls and ceiling play off of oak wood native to the area, as well as untreated steal details throughout the home. The facade of the house, which is also made of local oak and extends to both storeys, also bears contrast with the abstractly shaped concrete terrace outside. Overall, the effect makes the house feel somewhat like a sculpture.

As with most of the details built into this home, the use of oriental inspire patterning on the surface of the building was careful and intentional. These shapes allow a breathtaking play of light and shadow to drift into the building in different ornate patterns right before dawn and right before sunset.

Overall, the materiality in the house is self-regulating, making the space quite energy efficient. In the kitchen, a central white tiled stove not only visually delineates between the living and dining areas, but also gives the space heat during colder seasons and on chilly summer nights.

The stove isn’t the only source of heat! After all, Austrian winters can be quite chilly indeed. That’s why designers included an efficiently distributed floor heating system which works in partnership with the concrete surfaces on the inside and the thermal facade on the outside to provide an even, comfortable living environment all year round.

Photos by Dominik Rossner

Sarah Waller Design’s self-realized Doonan Glasshouse built as architect’s own private haven

By Courtney • Jun 24, 2019

Named for the city in which it was built, the Doonan Glasshouse of Doonan, Australia was created by Sara Waller Design as the lead architect’s very own dream getaway and private residence.

Within her personal design, Waller adopted an explicit “less is more” approach to the structure and details alike. The home features a floating terrazzo slab, a healthy helping of floor to ceiling glass walling, and a nearly flat roof. These features, along with an almost minimalist decor scheme, give the entire space a feeling that is modern, linear, and simple while still feeling elegant and welcoming.

The basic concept of the design was originally inspired by mid-century houses and their typical decor, structure, and furnishing styles. The aim here was to create a timeless piece of architecture that at once hearkens back to those homes of auld while also harnessing a few local elements of the local area and living up to the “glass house” component of its name.

The house sits close to the Sunshine Coast, giving it stunning views all around. To take full advantage of this, designers chose to eliminate distinctions between indoor and outdoor areas as much as humanly possible without sacrificing too much privacy and safety. They wanted spaces to feel open and transparent while letting natural light flood any part of the house that is closed off.

Even those spaces that are physically separated from the outdoor areas are primarily done so by a glass wall. This at least makes those areas feel like they are open to the outside world thanks to good views and free flowing light. This also keeps the home passively heated when the sun goes down and things cool off at night and in the winter season (which is, of course, still quite warm).

The surroundings of the Doonan Glasshouse are nothing short of lush. This is evident from every corner of the house in the wa greenery either physically pours into the room, is purposely featured as a design element, or can at least be seen in abundance through the numerous windows and glass walls. The effect is relaxing and refreshing.

These walls and the flat roof that sits on top of them helps the home appear as if it blends right into its surroundings, making sure it doesn’t interrupt the beautiful natural scenery in which it sits. The only extremely noticeable element is the roof itself which, thanks to the walls again, appears to sort of hover interestingly in the distance, like a natural formation amidst the trees.

On the ground floor, visitors encounter all of the functional and social areas, which have an open layout that is conducive to hosting, socializing, and bonding thanks to free flows of energy and easy movement. Moving upwards, the second story of the house features bedrooms, which appear in an L-shaped volume also made of glass, as thought the private spaces are housed in an ethereal glass box.

Thanks to the lush greenery around the home, however, these bedrooms feel far from lacking in privacy, despite their lack of solid walling. Instead, the tropical climate is welcomed most of the time, while large shades can be pulled down occasionally to provide privacy and block out light if necessary.

In terms of colour scheme throughout the house, most rooms follow suit in that same minimalist line of visuals we mentioned before. Neutral, natural tones adorn most rooms, giving a relaxing and pleasant sense, while black and white features, like benches and chairs, are dotted here and there as contrasting pieces and to ground the palette.

The overall scheme inside the house is quite monochrome, and that’s bolstered by the black facade of the outer structure, which follows suit. creating a sense of cohesiveness. This facade is what provides shade on hot days and gives just the right amount of privacy in any space where the walls aren’t otherwise floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

In tune with the goal of creating a home where one might feel like they’re on holiday all the time, the outer spaces that the home spills into feel somewhat like an impressive 1950s inspired resort. Here, you’ll encounter a Modernist inspired Palm Springs style pool and a relaxing, friendly cabana. The lush, tropical greenery envelops this area like all others, increasing that sense of being on a relaxing holiday, away from the strains of the outside world.

Photos by Mister Mistress

Hillside View house created by ARRCC in Cape Town to make a modern statement

By Courtney • Jun 24, 2019

In a stunningly green suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, renowned designers at ARRCC recently completed a stunningly modern home called Hillside View, adding an impressively contemporary but appealing element to the community’s street scape.

The house sits on a lovely, leafy plot, intended explicitly to grab attention and make a statement in the way it contrasts with its surroundings. This is primarily achieved through a combination of awe inspiring and modern looking glass-fronted facades and interiors, visible to the street through said glass, that appear vibrant and full of colour and personality.

From the start, the house was intended to harness the owner’s well known affinity for colour, which designers wanted to blend with interesting materiality for maximum creative atmosphere. Because the owner already possessed a stunningly varied personal art collection, designers had something to base their interiors off of and centre them around, creating a sense of cohesion even where purposeful contrast exists.

In order to really drive the incorporation of that art home, designers chose to include alternative, geometric, and uniquely interesting furnishings for the spaces, using colour to create a dialogue between those and the art, which is hung all throughout the house. This is all perfectly exemplified in the marble entry way, where art pieces are complemented by a bright geometric cabinet, an interestingly shaped side table, and a two-toned sofa.

Once the designers had made the decision to centre the atmosphere of the house around colour, art, and shapes, they settled on the idea of extending those themes right into the home’s architecture as well. That’s why you can see such unique and pleasing shape in features like the staircase leading down to the basement wine cellar or the bright slatted wood ceiling above the family room.

Because the front facade of the house is entirely made of glass, the uniquely shaped features of the home’s interior appears to be framed within those windowed walls as thought the living spaces themselves are art. This is pleasant as visitors walk up the drive, but doesn’t sacrifice privacy thanks to the way the house is set back from the street itself.

Moving from room to room, you’ll gather a sense that each space has a little bit of a cohesive theme with itself, even if it’s not explicit and despite the fact that each still fits well within the overall colourful fabric of the home at large. The informal lounge is the perfect example of what we man. Here, everything bears shades of marine blue, teal, and ceramic green that establishes an overall aquamarine heavy feel. Pattern plays a role here too, as the room is heavy in bold Missoni fabrics in contrasting sorbet shades. Each room bears a friendly personality and helps create a sense that moving through the house is a journey.

Moving from room to room, you’ll gather a sense that each space has a little bit of a cohesive theme with itself, even if it’s not explicit and despite the fact that each still fits well within the overall colourful fabric of the home at large. The informal lounge is the perfect example of what we man. Here, everything bears shades of marine blue, teal, and ceramic green that establishes an overall aquamarine heavy feel. Pattern plays a role here too, as the room is heavy in bold Missoni fabrics in contrasting sorbet shades. Each room bears a friendly personality and helps create a sense that moving through the house is a journey.

To really help the house create a story, some rooms, like the dining room, have been intentionally pared back in their decorum and furnishings. This is to allow the most eye catching paintings in the owner’s collection to really stand out in a space without creating a clash that detracts from their beauty. In this particular room, a French oak table and black leather dining chairs, as well as wood panelled walls, set the scene for bright art, creating a familiar but still unique feeling.

These darker colours schemes with light art are common in the more functional and social rooms of the house like the kitchen, which is heavy in granite but still bright, while colourful combinations and attention grabbing schemes like we talked about before are reserved for the areas of the home that are intended to provide comfort and relaxation space.

Among the other notable features of the house are the kids’ bedroom and the home theatre. While the theatre is designed as a private space for bonding with friends and family, the children’s area is sports themed and made with built-in features like ball baskets and climbing nets to encourage activity and fun. If you think about it, the idea of enabling fun with the simple atmosphere of a room really is on theme with the rest of the house and its uses of art and colour!

Photos by Greg Cox

The contemporary Apartment in New York, created by Crosby Studios, gives us a stunning case of the blues

By Courtney • Jun 21, 2019

In the heart of Brooklyn, New York, innovative and artistic designers at Crosby Studios have renovated a small pre-war one bedroom space to make the impressive new Apartment in New York, notable for its contemporary style and pops of colour!

Of course, when one hears “pops of colour”, the mind might wander to a decor scheme featuring many bright colours at once. Instead, designers chose to make this home stand out for the way it communicates colour blocking through the use of a singular monochrome shade of royal blue in several eye catching stand out furnishings.

Blue might be the standout colour, but contrast is never a bad thing, even when you’re attempting to heavily establish a particular theme. That’s why, amidst all the blue, several shades of lovely pink can be found subtly peeking out. A pink glass window between the living and dining rooms counteracts the blue section sofa, while a pink bouquet centrepiece on the dining table balances the blue of the chairs.

Shape and materiality are important within this decor scheme as well. Some pieces are quite linear and modular, like the stacked rectangular spinning chrome book shelf in that same light pink, while others are rounded and make of something unconventional, like the circular chandelier over the dining table made from ballpoint pens with blue caps on them that match the blue everywhere else.

Now, to blend the senses of pink and blue even further, the pink plexiglass window actually does more than just look unique within an otherwise stark white wall. It actually also balances the colours in the room by bathing it in a very subtle pink wash when the light hits the wall and passes through the glass. This gives everything inside a lovely rosy tone while still letting the blue pieces pop as they should.

According to the designer, his colour choices were born out of a sense of loyalty to colours that he loves and that have served him well in past projects. He wanted to give each shade its chance to shine but also blend the ones he loves best in one place for even more visual appeal and cheerful atmosphere. The finishes and colours of accompanying details are chosen based on what suits the primary colours he has decided to work with best; that’s why you see more than one rose gold piece here.

Where most houses might tone things down in the kitchen and use it as a slightly more neutral place to ground the house a little, designers chose to do precisely the opposite here. Blue cabinets have been built around and under the appliances and the same with the sink, livening up the whole space more than just about any kitchen we’ve ever seen.

The blue spills over from the kitchen and dining room into the front room, of course, encompassing an impressive sofa that plays once more with materiality and finishes. While the sofa itself is an attention grabbing, easy to clean vinyl, the throw pillows that accompany it are a softer cotton material to make them differ slightly even though they’re exactly the same shade.

Overall, the use of duo-chromatic colour blocking in partnership with the creative pieces by several local artists on the walls gives the entire apartment an atmosphere of cheerful artistic appreciaton and high brow playfulness.

Photos by Mikhail Loskutov

Modular, wooden REPII House created in Uruguay by VivoTripodi as a natural refuge

By Courtney • Jun 21, 2019

In the remote countryside of Canelones, Uruguay, design teams from VivoTripodi recently completed the impressively cubic and wonderfully, naturally contemporary escape called REPII House.

This lovely, calming house was actually the second half of a project that the office took on and began some years ago. originally, the structure was more square and conservative in space, designed only to host the owner and their particular efficient countryside lifestyle. Recently, however, that owner decided that an expansion allowing them to host friends and family was a necessary next step.

Normally, when someone mentions undertaking an “expansion”, they’re literally talking about expanding a space they’ve already created to increase the coverage reached by its limits. In this case, however, teams wanted to keep the lines of privacy where they are and simply provide additional space in which guests might have their own experiences when they’re not sharing space with the owner.

This is how it was decided that building another small guesthouse, which has been dubbed the REPII House or module, was the best way to “expand” the home. Creating the two separate spaces also helped designers interrupt the natural land a little less, breaking up the different parts of the occupied spots and letting grasses grow between and nature move around them.

Partially access to such a remote site is limited and partially to make the building cohesive with the land, designers used only natural, locally sourced materials in construction the REPII guest module. Much of the construction of the home’s actual structure was actually done offsite, like a pre-fabricated module, then placed onto the right plot of land.

This choice was intentional; doing the bulk of the construction work elsewhere actually reduced the invasive impact the building teams might have otherwise had on the environment. Far from disconnecting the building from the land, however, the use of materials, like timbers found local to the immediate land, blends the house right in quite authentically.

Because of the detached nature of the module from the main house, it’s a diverse space that can house just about anyone. It keeps private boundaries well, giving guests their very own intimate space, which is particularly useful if the visitor is someone the owner doesn’t know as well. At the same time, it’s close by and easily accessible for social interactions, in case the visitor is the owner’s very good friend or family member and the would like to spend bonding time.

Inside the guest module, space is quite conservative. This is not because space was unavailable, but rather because the owner and design teams value minimalist country lifestyles and wished to take up as little of the surrounding nature as possible. The spaces within the module do have their own privacy, with doors between each differently functioning room, but they’re also built for good spatial flow and contemporary living concepts centred around delimiting space.

Part of these efforts to delimit space lies in the entirely glass wall you see in these photos. This lets guests feel like the land surrounding them is being welcomed right into their home without actually living outside in the elements. The window helps create a relationship between nature and people, even while guests stay in a house that is fully equipped with all modern living amenities.

The module is well organized, with two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom, and a kitchenette with its own transitionary dining space. The dimensions of these rooms and the house itself were largely determined by the size of the natural plans available; designers chose to work around what the land had to offer, rather than arbitrarily choosing room sizes and cutting materials accordingly. This is just one more way in which the house is symbiotic with its nature.

Of course, sometimes one needs a break from the outside world and wishes to seclude themselves comfortably away, even just for an hour or two. There aren’t many prying eyes this far out in the countryside, but perhaps a guest needs a little less sun on a given day? That’s why designers ensured that the guesthouse’s large, eye catching window comes with a series of natural wood shutters that fold back when they’re opened or shut so seamlessly when they’re closed that the facade of the house looks completely uninterrupted.

Photos by Marcos Guiponi

Lovely modular Brazilian home dubbed Marubá Residence by Padovani Arquitetos Associados

By Courtney • Jun 20, 2019

In the sunny suburb of Campinas, Brazil, artistic designers at Padovani Arquitetos Associados recently completed a contemporarily stunning residential project for an adult family, calling it the Marubá Residence.

Sitting at the top of a small rise, the home suits its lush, green surroundings quite well. With its foundation and facade of natural, locally sourced concrete and stained wood, it appears not to interrupt the skyline of the neighbourhood despite the fact that its shape and structure are much more modern and geometric than most of the homes surrounding it.

The materiality that you see outside actually follows you into the interior as well; floors alternative between a polished version of that same concrete and perfectly stained floors made of the same wood you saw outside as well. This creates a sense of consistency between the inner and outer parts of the home, as thought they’ve been in communication.

The fact that the house sits on the highest point of the street’s land afford it quite a lovely view indeed. the area around the house, though quiet, has an urban influence, but the vantage point from the top of the rise through the home’s windows is still sunny and inviting, worth relaxing by the floor to ceiling casings in the bedroom or out on the patio for.

While most homes in the area are two storeys high like this one, they’re usually structured like semi-detached town houses. This home, however, stands alone and has a stacked, modular look about its top floor, rather than simply growing vertically in a way that’s seamless and more typical.

As is common in the area, the social and leisure aspects of the house are located on the ground floor, where visitors might easily come and enjoy those spaces with you. Here, you’ll find the living and dining rooms, the kitchen, and access to the backyard, which features a stunning blue pool that gets lots of sun. This poolside, however, is still afforded some shade thanks to the overhang at one end of that stacked top module we’ve spoken so much about.

Upstairs, in the top storey of the house, you’ll find the private resting areas. Here, the house features three bedrooms for their owners’ children and a master suite, with a bathroom at one end of the hall and an en suite for the parents. The bedrooms are designed to get as much sunlight as possible with more floor to ceiling windows, but they are also afforded privacy by a screen of movable wooden slats built into the home’s facade. These can be seen all across the long, flat side of the top module outside.

In terms of decor, designers aimed to keep things bright and cheerful but still sophisticated. Furnishings and decor details alternate between light and dark throughout each room, creating a sense of balance where things are at once uplifting and also grounded. The effect is a truly stunning contrast that suits the one created right away by the light wood and dark concrete both outside and in.