Sprawling Desert Home by the Name of Lava House Gives Cool Shelter Thanks to Paul Weiner and DesignBuild Collaborative

By Stefan • Dec 6, 2018

Lava House by Paul Weiner and DesignBuild Collaborative is a stunning and expansive oasis home located in the heat of Pima County, United States. Locally known as the Tucson Mountain Lava House, this dwelling is situated within the rocky terrain of the Tucson Mountains that falls gently to the east, down towards the Santa Cruz River. Looking out across the vast landscape surrounding the plot, and even within the home’s direct area itself, you’ll find low-lying bedrock outcroppings, various types of towering cacti, and desert dwelling plants like palo verde, ocotillo, jojoba, and creosote.

Like many houses in the area, this structure was designed to be anchored into the natural terrain without interrupting it as much as possible. The house exists between weaving natural water sources and desert vegetation without drawing attention to human imprints on nature. It provides a lovely panoramic view, show dwellers the Tucson Mountains on one side and the Santa Catalina Mountains on the other.

The house features several very intentionally placed primary walls around which the rest of the house is built. This anchors it safely to its natural slope. Around these, public or social and private spaces are arranged. These are also carefully situated within the house to balance the need for lovely, natural sunlight in every room and the fact that Lava House can experience intense sunlight in some seasons that dwellers might want to seek shade from.

In a further attempt to control heat and also maximize views, this house is actually built quite low. It features horizontal roof planes and several overhangs, giving dwellers little shady havens throughout the property. This structure makes outdoor spaces like the deck and several rock and cacti gardens pleasant to sit in.

In terms of materiality, we’ve already spoken about attempts to blend the structure into the landscape in innovative ways. Perhaps the most notable and impressive tactic designers employed for this is in their use of a material called scoria. This is a mixture of crushed volcanic cinder hailing from the San Francisco volcanic fields in Northern Arizona. This material is cheaper than traditional concrete and also has a lower rate of heat absorption, keeping the home nice and cool on hot desert days.

Photographs by: Liam Frederick Photography

Herne Bay Hideaway by Lloyd Hartley Architects

By Stefan • Nov 30, 2018

Located in Auckland, New Zealand, the Herne Bay Hideaway by Lloyd Hartley Architects is a breaktaking refurbishment project inside a 1960s brick and tile home.

The original building is nestled amidst a row of neighbouring houses, but slightly removed into its own space at the end of a long, winding driveway. Surrounded by Pohutukawa trees, the home is sat quite squatly and stubbornly smack in the middle of its plot. Before refurbishment, the building was functional but it failed to blend in any manner with the lovely surrounding landscape, giving designers a sense that it wasn’t taking advantage of its stunning view of Cox’s Bay in Waitemata Harbour.

Lloyd Hartley, head architect at his own firm, was asked by new owners to redesign this old house into a modern home that, according to his briefing, “…responds to its context and provides a private city oasis for a young family”. Hartley settled on several major design goals, one of which was the idea of creating a covered entry courtyard with a bridging to the house in order to provide the family with a pedestrian friendly entrance.

At the same time, this transformed entry space aims to provide visitors and dwellers with a sense of release once they’ve passed the end of the long driveway (where they can appreciate an exciting borrowed view of the neighbour’s impressive private tennis courts).

In terms of the house itself, Hartley’s desire to create the illusion of extra space and extra height while also increasing natural light was a huge driving force. Designers believe this would entirely enhance overall experiences in the building, so they opened a stairwell to draw in light from above. They also extended ceilings in the main living areas to fully embrace natural light and stunning outlooking views from the back.

Perhaps our favourite feature of the house is the way Hartley’s and teams linked indoor and outdoor spaces through the use of relaxing deck space. Visitors and family members can take in the beauty of the rear landscaping by sitting on ground level or upper decks, giving the house a much more free-flowing atmosphere, like you can move about the space and between indoor and outdoor areas without interruption.

In order to give the house a more timeless interior aesthetic than it once had (and to avoid the outdoor brick structure becoming dated looking all together), designers carefully selected a palette of neutral shades and natural materials. The clean detailing featured in every single room ties the house together, creating a cohesiveness that might not have been present had the chose to leave some rooms untouched while heavily modernizing others.

Photographs by: David Straight

Beautiful Off-Gird Cabin 192 by JiA

By Stefan • Nov 28, 2018

Located in Altos del Maria, Panama, Cabin 192 is a vacation complex that JiA designed to feel like a utopian escape centred around relaxation and getting back in touch with yourself!

Throughout the design process, architects prioritized the idea of creating a comforting space for people of all ages. The 192 cabins are a family driven project conceived for long term stays. The project consists of three smaller cabins for privacy and a shared main house for social interaction.

Perhaps the most unique detail of this project is that the lead architect actually design the whole space with his own parents and his two brothers (along with their families) in mind. He did not intend to make the project luxurious or ostentatious, but rather a space where he can meet his family for quality time together. He hoped to create the cabin complex in a simple, low-cost way while also making something impressive, enjoyable, and of the high quality one would of course wish for their most loved people.

The cabins are build in a beautifully mountainous area of West Panama. Upon visiting the building site for the first time, designers noticed a large number of pine trees, which are not a species that is native to the region. They made the decision to clear out and reforest their new plot with local tree species that would produce shadows for the homes and also breed more native trees in the land naturally. The goal here was sustainability and environmental comfort.

Rather than simply doing away with the pines, designers opted to keep things green and upcycle their wood within the building process itself. The pine was used to build the perimeter fence around the plot and also the main cabin.

The cabins are intentionally quite small. Each of the three smaller spaces contains only a bathroom, a bedroom, and a kitchenette. The purposed of this is to provide each visitor with their own space while also encouraging them to spend time all together outdoors or in the main house. View in gallery View in gallery

When it came to choosing actual structure styles, designers felt inspired by topical buildings. The cabins are raised about the natural soil level like more traditional huts found throughout Panama. This helps keep the humidity of the tropics out of sleeping areas, letting them feel more cool and ventilated.

Cabin 192 undoubtedly feels like it has a personal touch along with its sense of simplicity, peace, and tranquility. This is probably because the head architect’s father, brothers, and friends actually helped complete its construction! The care that went into these buildings is evident and can be felt all around.

Photographs by: Alfredo Martiz

Butterfly House in Carmel-by-the-Sea by Feldman Architecture

By Stefan • Nov 27, 2018

As if the location name of this house (which is nestled amidst the greenery in Carmel-by-the-Sea, United States) wasn’t adorable enough, Feldman Architecture named the structure Butterfly House, rendering it perhaps the most welcoming sound home we’ve ever heard of before we even set eyes on it!

Butterfly House was designed for an aging couple who intended to use it as a retirement retreat after a lifetime of hard work, as well as a relaxing escape for their grown children to give them a break from the everyday demands of work life. The search for this spectacular piece of land took two whole years, which motivated the designers to really do the area justice. When the clients found the plot, they noted countless butterflies fluttering through the meadow, which is why architects took that concept as inspiration and namesake for the house itself.

As part of doing the landscape justice, designers and the client agreed that the house should strive to integrate indoor and outdoor spaces. They aimed to keep the aesthetic modern but simple with separate spaces for everyday living and visitors who want to rest. This is why the house was built with three distinct pavilions, each with their own impressive butterfly inspired roof.

Each pavilion of Butterfly House has its own function. The central pavilion, for example, contain the main living, dining, and cooking spaces. The other two provide everything residents and guests need for sleeping, bathing, and relaxing on their downtime. Though each pavilion is modest in size, all three feel free and sprawling thanks to the way each one opens out at the back into a lovely outdoor space set up like a room, giving visitors a stunning view of the canyon below the house and the Californian hills surrounding it in the distance.

One of our favourite facts about this house is that the butterfly inspired roofs aren’t just decorative! Although they do give the house an artsy feel that’s both modern but also cohesive with the natural landscape, they also harvest rainwater. This is an important “green” architectural feature in California, where water is an increasingly limited resource. Each roof funnels water into landscape integrated collection pools, which then funnel it into cisterns used to irrigate the natural landscape.

Particularly in the stormy season, the butterfly roofs are an innovation because they work with the natural topography of the area to carry water to parts of the land that need it. This creates what designers called a “seamless transition” between nature and building, a concept this mimicked throughout the home and each of the three pavilions. This is thanks in part to the inclusion of plants in the indoor and outdoor decor schemes, letting greenery move through the building the way water moves through the land. These elements inspire a calming sense of quiet and naturally artful awareness.

Keeping with the theme of enabling a natural flow of all things between indoor and outdoor areas, the colour scheme of the house is quite neutral as well. This is reflected in the concrete floors and walls, large glass windows and opening doors, plywood ceilings, and steel supports. These natural surfaces also keep the space cool without running systems that put a strain on the environment; concrete and glass absorb much of the sunlight and heat during the day and releasing it at night when things cool down. The house uses very little energy as a result of this and a hidden solar panel system that runs nearly everything inside.

Photography by: Joe Fletcher, Jason Liske

Concrete Golf House Design by BAM! Arquitectura

By Stefan • Nov 26, 2018

Golf House, built by BAM! Arquitectura in stunning Belen de Escobar, Argentina, is an impressive stacked dwelling built with the aesthetic of a businessman whose primary hobby is golfing in mind!

Besides modelling the house after the style of a successful person who might golf in his spare time, designers of Golf House worked with another main goal: to explore the possibilities of material and volume and create a space that hits the perfect balance mark between opposing concepts. This resulted in an impressive structure that, according to the architects, exists in the spaces between heavy and light, closed and open, industrial and comfortable, impressive and simple.

The overall effect is an outward structure that stands out against its surrounding landscape without overpowering it. This is nice since the Golf House, unsurprisingly, is actually built on a natural terrain that gives it a lovely view of a golf course with its own lagoon.

Despite the heavy presence of concrete and the near severity in visuals created by the slate colours, the straight lines, and the clean, modern surfaces, the house does not feel cold or unwelcome. Instead, the strong presence of nature both in- and outside the home gives it an atmosphere of comfort and relaxation. For example, several glass walls open entirely so that concrete indoor spaces lead into green spaces filled with natural light and light breezes. This creates space, blurs limits, and allows the landscape to feel like its pouring into the manmade structure in a beautiful way.

The way the top floor of the house appears stacked on top of the concrete base serves to allow visitors to take in the view from a new height, providing them with a whole new perspective on the surrounding area. At the same time, the very square shape of not only the building itself but the windows therein frames the view in a way that focuses their vision and lets them appreciate the aesthetic contrast between the rolling green terrain and the business-like spaces in the home.

Every space in Golf House has been carefully planned out, placed, and decorated. Designers state that the goal here was to create a feeling of receiving a tour of the home as you walk through it; perhaps one that mirrors the owner’s daily experiences. First, you’re greeted with a formidable structure that has a modern, solid looking entryway and simplistic decor leading away from the front of the house. As you travel back and up, however, you see how these business-like elements of home and life melt away into more open rooms with more natural decor elements, blending golf and nature into the aesthetic the way hobbies and downtime complete the life of a person once they’ve left work.

This sense is particularly notable if you pay attention to the windows as you make your way through the house. You’ll notice how their structure and placement changes. Small skylights that lighten darker, concrete spaces give way to larger, more frequent windows filled with sunlight until you’ve reached the back of the house. On either floor, you’re faced with entirely glass walls that make the lovely natural view feel like it’s pouring into the house. The windows give you a full progression!

Part of the reason the modern looking house doesn’t appear to entirely interrupt its lovely green surroundings is the raw state of the materials that were used to build it. Designers conceived the house in a way that allowed them to leave material elements, such as concrete, wood, and glass, in a nearly pure state, making them low maintenance and linking the spaces inside to the landscape outside.

You might not notice on first glance, but the roof of this modern looking, concrete building actually might be the element that ties it into its surrounding landscape most! This is because it was built with green sustainability in mind, so it actually contributes to the running of the house. The “green” roof features local vegetation growing right on its surface. This brings all the benefits of increased oxygen production and CO2 absorption while it prevents the overheating of the roofs, reduces the temperatures inside on warm days, and provides fantastic thermal insulation in the colder seasons.

Photography by: Javier Augustin Rojas

Stunning Holiday Vila Ipojuca House by 23 SUL

By Stefan • Nov 23, 2018

Vila Ipojuca House, created and designs by 23 SUL, is a beautiful stacked structure located in Vilo Ipojuca, Brazil that feels simultaneously like a functional residence and a stunning holiday escape.

According to designers, this refurbishment of an old residential building was created explicitly with the needs of a couple of creative industry professionals and their young daughter in mind. Within their redesign, architects strove primarily to increase the amount of natural lighting and ventilation in the house, thereby providing all the spaces throughout with a freeing feeling of fluidity.

Rather than doing away with older spaces from the original building all together, designers chose to take advantage of their slightly more closed of structure by turning them into a music studio. The rest of the residence (i.e. rooms that had previously been used as background spaces rather than primary living spaces) were refurbished to be more functional and comfortable for dwelling in.

In order to open the spaces outside the home’s heart up and give them a feeling of free movement, multiple spaces were integrated into each other, creating a sense of multi-purpose. The kitchen, for example, was built as a space that flows into the living room, which in turn freely extends into an outside area with a small swimming pool. This lets family members and visitors flow comfortably throughout the house in a way that feels uninhibited and good for communication.

To further bright up the spaces surrounding the darker rooms at the heart of the layout, pink granite floors were installed along with light plywood panelled furniture. These contrast well with the concrete blocks and stark white walls. Several glass panels and sliding doors were also added, letting balconies open right up into the breeze, which is comfortable in the daytime or at night.

Designers also gave residents the option of opening up several rooms for fluidity or closing them off for privacy; this is achieved by sliding sets of shelving from place to place on rails installed in the ceiling. The guest room, for example, can be opened up and made into a relaxing reading nook or social place when no one is visiting and then closed off via sliding shelves to make it more of a private getaway for guests when they’re ready to sleep.

As if these features weren’t unique enough, designers actually used metallic reinforcements building into the existing concrete of the original house to create a whole, brand new third floor! Here, they constructed a barbecue and outdoor eating area, a laundry space that doesn’t interrupt the flow in the rest of the house, and an experimental atelier that might be used for all manner of things, making it an extremely diverse space. The effect on the outer structure is to make the stacked floors look almost like a treehouse getaway in the middle of a city.

Photography by: Pedro Kok

Pavilion House With a Relaxing Outdoor by Irene Goldberg + Pitsou Kedem Architects

By Stefan • Nov 22, 2018

Located in Tel Aviv-Yaso, Israel, The breathtaking Pavilion House by Irene Goldberg + Pitsou Kedem Architects is a stunning open concept dwelling that beautifully combines relaxing outdoor scenes with indoor living spaces for a zen atmosphere and natural aesthetic.

This wide, one-level home sits on a platform that is slightly raised above the ground. This leaves space for an underground level, giving the whole thing the look of something like a “tent on stilts”, according to architects. The concrete ceiling is held in place by metal beams and these are what the main space of the house is built around. Far from looking overly industrial, however, the house is sunny and filled with a pleasant breeze thanks to countless wide windows in the walls and “ribbon windows” neat the tops of the beams, which make the ceiling appear to float instead of seeming heavy.

Perhaps the most unique element of the house is the way natural light emanates into the main rooms through a rectangular courtyard built into the heart of the house. This courtyard section is completely open to the sky and breeze. The spaces surrounding it feature glass doors that can open entirely, giving plenty of air and natural sunlight to even the basement level.

In order to delineate the house’s different areas effectively and save it from looking entirely open concept, designers built four thick, concrete walls to make up the outer facade of the house. This balances all of the interior natural light and makes it feel like a private have at the heart of the house near the pool. For visual interest, the facade walls are covered in a thing layer of slate planks which overlap slightly, as though they’ve been piled high to create the wall.

Inside, the slate, concrete, and glass elements are balanced with wood accents and features that suit all the natural light that pours in, perfectly balancing out the otherwise modern feel. Of course, the most intriguing element of the house’s layout is the pool, which features entirely glass sides and sits above ground, making swimmers look as though they might be floating tranquilly in thin air.

Photography by: Amit Geron

Tactile split-level family home by Thomas & Spiers

By Stefan • Nov 20, 2018

Located in Dulwich in the United Kingdom, Tactile House is a lovely split-level family home that recently underwent a found floor extension, a loft conversion, and some interior sprucing up, all thanks to the visions and precision of Thomas & Spiers.

According to the designs, the ground floor of Tactile House is a veritable playground of textures. Part of their goal with this structure was to combine a variety of materials and styles in a way that would blend well with and prioritize interactive family living. This can be seen in action in the way a semi-closed playroom with a colourful set of storage drawers built right into the wall is set aside from but still visible and accessible from the kitchen and family room through a slatted wall.

Throughout the house, visitors will see all kinds of materials at play. These include but are not limited to painted steel, exposed brickwork, varying ceiling levels and textures, plywood, and rope used as curtains. The goal of using so many materials in different ways was to establish different areas of the house to be specifically (and quite obviously) for playing, resting, eating, entertainment, and so on.

On the upper floors, the bedrooms and bathrooms are quite modern. These were reconfigured to appear modern but still cozy, as evidenced in the contrast between the glass walls and the cozy reading alcove built into one wall. Everywhere you go inside the house you’ll find an emphasis on the ability of natural light to reach just about every space. This aim can be seen particularly well in the kitchen and living room where the entire wall is comprised of a collage of windows. This wall keeps up the priority on designating space without cutting anything off by making the entire stunning backyard visible from where one might relax or eat a meal.

Photographs by: James Whitaker, Billy Bolton, and Emily Seymour-Taylor

La Bincole Cabins by NatureHumaine

By Stefan • Nov 19, 2018

Located in the woodlands of Canada, La Bincole is a stunning house that combines rustic styles and traditions with modern design and building practices, all thanks to NatureHumaine.

Rooted in ideas of timelessness and minimalism, this cabin is perched picturesquely on a mountain. With its angular shape and unique appearance through the trees, the dwelling lets its beauty shine without detracting from the breathtaking natural area surrounding it.

For safety, this home is anchored into the raw, rocky foundation upon which it sits. This Makes if a safe place to be even in the harshest mountain snowfalls so typical of Canadian winters. It might look like a small place, but it’s solid and sturdy too.

The home consists of two main modules. In the first of those, you’ll find spacious living and common areas, while the second module houses two wonderfully lit bedrooms. What’s really interesting about the modules of the house, however, are the angles. Designer built the floors and ceilings to mimic the way the slope the house is built upon cascades downward, giving the sensation that the house might really be leaning into that stunning view despite its genuinely solid nature.

Perhaps even more impressive than the angles of the floor and ceiling is the strategic nature of the windows. On the south side, the home’s windows are intended to give visitors the best possible view without catching all the sun and getting too hot inside. If you turn west from there, you’ll find a windowed door from the kitchen onto an outdoor wooden platform, both of which showcase the beautiful mountain sunset perfectly.

On the outside, the house was built using a burnt wood facade that adds a weather beaten look to the newly finished structure. The natural colour scheme and appearance on the outside is only emphasized by the pre-woven hemlock planks you’ll find in partnership with the burned wood.

Inside the house, all other windows not mentioned previously do a stellar job of showcasing the view surrounding the entirety of the house as well. In fact, the large windows in the family room, living room, and master bedroom, are so crisp and lovely that they almost feel panoramic. This gives most spaces in the house a feeling of inviting tranquility. This is what the designers called a “contemplative space”.

If you can tear your eyes away from the windows and the view for a moment, you’ll notice a floor made of ceramic with a concrete finish. The consistency with which this kind of flooring was used throughout the house was intended by designers to “unite all the spaces” and remind those standing on it of the solid, natural rock foundations upon which they re really standing, down underneath the cabin into the mountain itself.

Photographs by: Adrien Williams

Brick Aperture House by Kris Grennan Architecture

By Stefan • Nov 16, 2018

If you ask us, the stunning Brick Aperture house designed by Kris Grennan Architecture is aptly named! Like cameras of auld, its square shape and strategic window placement allows light to flow into the structure in a way that’s sure to brighten each day.

Located in Sydney, Australia, Aperture House is a single story dwelling that sits amidst a small row of period houses. It stands out from the others as a freestanding cottage, providing great contrast along the street since the row is bookended by large commercial buildings. Despite having been recently refurbished, several of the more classic details in the home still remain authentic, showing off historic looking features that are typical of Inner West Sydney.

The read of the house is comprised entirely of stunning glass windows, from roof to ground. This adds a more modern look to that angle of the dwelling, letting the front blend a little more into the aesthetic of the street. To ensure that the house doesn’t get too warm or bright for comfort in direct sunlight, the yard is flanked with several stunning, large trees that provide just the right amount of shade for comfort. They also improve the view out the kitchen and master bedroom windows!

In their redesign, architects worked with the primary goal of providing considerably more floor space than existed before. Though they wanted to keep the front of the house, with its more traditional rooms, largely the same, they worked to make the back of the house slightly more modernized and open concept, letting light spread throughout and making the whole place feel much bigger and more breathable. This process was helped along by the addition of several gorgeous skylights that make the ceilings feel high and free.

To balance out the modern feel inside the house, design teams stuck to a more traditional looking brick finish on the outside. Combined with the three chimneys of the original house and the very square shape, this red brick saves the structure from looking overly minimalist and adds a homey touch. They even made sure to use local recycled bricks to reduce the project’s environmental impact.

The bring theme we’ve mentioned above actually continues inside the house as well! Material continuity is achieved without detracting too much from the clean, white aesthetic of the modern looking interior redesign through simple brick painting. This lets the home feel updated while still enabling a visual dialogue between Aperture House and the other houses along its street. This was important to designs because it upheld the local tradition of masterful brick craftmanship that is so evident in the heritage structures of the surrounding neighbourhood.

To suit the painted white bricks on the inside, the updated parts of the house stick to a sleek, simple colour scheme. The white is speckled with pops of stark black and natural wood accents, just to save it from looking too overly modern compared to the outside of the house. In combination with the red brick and windows, the overall aesthetic is one of successful redesign and satisfactory upcycling, rather than replacing the old with the new entirely.

Photographs by: Michael Nicholson, Kreis Grennan Architecture ,

Impressive Triple Stilt House Completed by Archidance in Japan

By Stefan • Nov 14, 2018

Located in Funabashi, Japan, the Triple Stilt House is a beautiful new family home, recently completed by Archidance. According to designers, the original intent of this project was to harness ideas of bodily expression in order to create a home that blends space with experience. This concept was carried out with a specific target audience in mind. Designers wanted the home to appeal to educated people who like to think about the world and structures around them but who are not architects themselves. The house was a collaborative effort, making it a fantastic blend of style thanks to the unique work and input of each architect, designer, and team member.

Within the concept of including experience in the structure, this house takes the subtropical climate it was built in into account. Designers created a semi-exterior living space with a unique shape thanks to the way certain portions of the house sit raised on stilts (hence the home’s name). Being able to pass effortlessly between outdoor and indoor areas incorporates fresh air and sunshine into the overall experience of being there.

After dark, the open layout of the home makes it resemble a Japanese lantern from the outside once the lights are turned on. The real beauty of this, however, is that the house actually takes almost no energy to run. This is thanks to a large but subtly placed solar panel and a fuel cell cogeneration system. These two features aren’t the only environmental factors designers took into account with this home, though. Despite the fact that the house isn’t located near the sea, architects noted that the stilted structure of the house reduces risks of damage or injury in the event of water based natural disasters, like hurricane flooding or tsunami.

Aesthetically, the house bears a contrast between its cleanly concrete exterior and its light, comfortable interior. The structure of the rooms is wonderfully open concept, making the whole place feel big and airy. Light woods are heavily featured, meshing well with light neutral colour schemes that keep things feeling inviting and relaxed.

From the street, this unconventional looking building brings a smile to the face of any passerby. The structure, besides simply looking interesting, bears an air of being quite welcoming and perhaps even intriguing. The exterior spaces are built such that family members might use them for all kinds of different purposes and activities, making the house look like a true home rather than just a piece of architectural art.

In every room, you’ll find a stunning abundance of light. Large windows work in partnership with the house’s semi-exterior floor plan to ensure that even the dullest weather brings a bright day to this space.

Take a look at the floor plans of Triple Stilt House:

Photographs by: Momo Kitagawa

Renovation of a House to Connect it with the Exuberant Desert Landscape

By Magaly • Nov 9, 2018

The architectural firm Rob Paulus Architects renovated this construction in 2012 for a doctor. Its size is of 4500 ft2, and is located in Tucson, Arizona, USA. This renovation opens up the house to encompass the lush desert landscape while improving the interior of the property. The new shapes are crisp and clean to contrast with the rounded exterior of the existing building.

Using a reductive approach in the interior, the walls are disassembled to provide better function, circulation, and views. Outside, an existing trellis porch transforms into an outdoor living room and a kitchen with a new elevated canopy.

A palette of colors and natural material dominates the new scheme with an emphasis on fir wood that was influenced by the client’s desire to create spaces inspired by nature. This warm wood is used in all interior cabinets, but it also appears on the outside as the bottom part of the roof plane that hangs over the area of the outdoor room. The existing closed house is transformed to interact with the exterior while creating a relaxing interior space in a decidedly modern transformation.

View in gallery: Terrace with arid vegetation

View in gallery: Outdoor furniture

View in gallery: Large decorated terrace

View in gallery: Pool area

View in gallery: Living area in leather furniture

View in gallery: Large kitchen-dining area

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View in gallery: Modern kitchen in wood

View in gallery: TV room

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View in gallery: Modern sink area

View in gallery: Pool area at night hours

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Project Based on Optimizing the Reuse of Small Sites in London

By Magaly • Nov 7, 2018

With the aim of optimizing the reuse of small plots, part of a new policy of the mayor of London, the architectural firm FORMstudio set to work on this new project, located in London Borough of Southwark, United Kingdom. The 240 square meter area is part of this new plan that encourages municipalities to proactively support new, well-designed homes in small plots through planning in order to significantly increase the way small challenging plots can meet the needs of housing in London. Benbow Yard is a perfect response to this policy.

The houses with patio, in the London district of Southwark are located in a closed and irregular plot, previously occupied by a metal factory. The challenging site had narrow access, perspectives and problems with daylight, and these limitations have directly determined the shape and the fenestration of the pair of new single-family, two-story and three-bedroom homes.

The ground floors are lined with a contemporary pale brick with vaulted floors with zinc coating for retaining walls: materials that refer to the industrial heritage of the site but that are articulated with a refined level of detail to create a sense of quality.

View in gallery: Small terrace with stone wall

View in gallery: Terrace connected to the interior

View in gallery: Modern lounge area

View in gallery: Living room with stone wall

View in gallery: Living room-kitchen in modern style

View in gallery: Modern minimalist kitchen

View in gallery: Modern dining room in wood

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View in gallery: Stairs in wood

View in gallery: Room full of natural light

View in gallery: Modern bathroom

View in gallery: Exterior night view

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A Remodeling that Manages to Fuse the Interior with the Exterior

By Magaly • Nov 5, 2018

This modern residence of open spaces and full of natural light was re-designed by the architecture firm David Coleman Architecture in 2015 in the city of Seattle, United States. It has an area of 6058 ft2, and we can see the result of the attempts to merge both the interior and the exterior. The original house, designed in 1956 by a prominent Seattle architect, is located in the private enclave of Broadmoor. It was conceived as a serpentine structure of a single floor.

The objective of the firm was to clarify the layout; add where necessary to improve habitability, merge the interior and exterior space where possible, and improve the general ambience. To achieve this, a series of initiatives were launched that had the effect of better defining the access to the house, the movement through the house, and the relationship between the interior and exterior space. This resulted in a transformation of the whole, raising the overall quality of the building and the landscape, allowing the promise of the original structures and the site to be fully realized.

The plan preserves the openness that one expects in a modern home, but it also contains an appearance of intimacy that is not expected in such a large and open building. This is achieved through the insertion of subtle but effective architectural devices, all lending a more human and accessible scale.

View in gallery: View of the external terraces

View in gallery: Main entrance

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View in gallery: Spacious interior full of light

View in gallery: Modern kitchen area

View in gallery: Modern kitchen in wood

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View in gallery: Large living room

View in gallery: Internal corridors connect the areas

View in gallery: Wooden internal stairs

View in gallery: Room with glass walls

View in gallery: Large bathroom in wood

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View in gallery: Large bathroom

View in gallery: Nocturnal view

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Wonderful Construction Overlooking the Pacific

By Magaly • Nov 2, 2018

This new home of some 300 square meters was designed in the Puntarenas Canton area of Costa Rica by the architectural firm Benjamin Garcia Saxe Architecture in 2013. The Gooden-Nahome family wanted to create their home on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and found an incredible site overlooking the sea. The biggest obstacle they found was that the site was predominantly on a very steep slope, and the view of the ocean is captured only in the upper-middle part of the ground. However, they did not see this as a negative aspect but rather saw the opportunity to explore together an architecture that was appropriate for these conditions.

Together they explored the possibilities of creating large retaining walls in order to relocate the house on the land, which is a technique commonly used by most houses in the area.

In the end, they decided to do exactly the opposite, and in fact allow the slope, land, vegetation, water and animals to flow underneath the house. The house was elevated, and by doing so, made it possible to save on the immense cost of creating retaining walls. This almost common sense decision created a very light intervention that allows the terrain to breathe while providing a spectacular ocean view from the key location on the site.

View in gallery: Views from the house to the sea

View in gallery: View of the terrace area with pool

View in gallery: Large terrace with sea views

View in gallery: Rest area inside

View in gallery: Modern living-dining area

View in gallery: Modern kitchen with views

View in gallery: Room with wooden floors

View in gallery: Room with private terrace

View in gallery: Bathroom connected to the outside

This Detached Villa has the City of Beirut at its Feet

By Magaly • Oct 30, 2018

Located in the village of Baaddat in Mount Lebanon, twenty miles above Beirut, this detached villa has excellent views over the mountainous landscape. It has an area of 562 square meters and was designed in 2016 by the architectural firm Joe Serrins Studio, under the guidance of its architects Joe Serrins and Jared Brownell. The property is covered with pine nut trees that cling to the rocky slope that falls twenty meters on a 45 degree slope. The architecture allows us to cross the steep slope and put us in contact with the landscape.

The program is organized by floors: the lowest level is the garage, and level two includes a media room and three bedrooms. The third level is the living room that has high ceilings and the largest of the four terraces. The fourth level contains the master suite and a private terrace with a pool hidden against the hillside. The building is mostly made of concrete, typical of structures of this size in the region.

The exterior is covered with a coarse gray stone interrupted by a volume of white plaster and several folding glass planes with operable doors. The landscape terraces and property debris walls are made with a local rock with a rough face.

View in gallery: View of the villa on the top

View in gallery: Villa surrounded by tall trees

View in gallery: Details of the exterior of the villa

View in gallery: Views of the town over the city

View in gallery: Pool area

View in gallery: Details of the interior

View in gallery: Salon in cream and black tones

View in gallery: Dining room with views

View in gallery: Wooden stairs

View in gallery: Room with terrace

View in gallery: Double room

View in gallery: Bathroom connected to the outside

View in gallery: Night view of the exterior

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The Common Point of the Spaces of this House are its Warmth and Luminosity

By Magaly • Oct 29, 2018

This project of 243 square meters, developed on a single floor, has been recently designed in the northern area of the city of Cordoba, Argentina, by the architectural firm Fanesi Navarro Arquitectos and carried out by its professionals Agustina Fanesi and Mariangel Navarro .

View of the house among the tall trees that surround it

It consists mainly of two rectangular volumes that intersect at one point. Responding to the idea of the project, the volumes, each with a different height to house the different uses of the house, leave their structures visible, which are supported one above the other. In this way, the structure becomes part of the façade of the house.

The volume with less height contains the private spaces and the garage, while the other volume houses the social spaces of the house. At this higher volume, two lightweight structures are attached to each of the sides, which work as an eaves for the entrance and gallery in the quiet part of the building. They tried to compose the project of simple forms and materials, in such a way that the exposed concrete and sheet perfectly accompany the composition of volumes on the outside.

The interior of the house sought to generate bright, warm and pleasant spaces with large openings. The eaves and the gallery not only fulfill the function of giving the house a semi-covered space, but also protect the construction from the sun.