The Marysville House hides among the bushy green ferns and towering tropical hardwoods, creating a perfectly quiet retreat that gives back to the landscape just as much as it takes. Steffen Welsch Architects designed this small yet mystifying two story holiday home that replaces a home once devastated by the Black Saturday Fires deep in the Australian jungle. In many ways, the home is a restoration not only of man-made living space, but of a surrounding environment that needed a bit of rehabilitation itself. The home never interferes with its setting, but enhances in ways only the most eco-conscious architecture can achieve. Continue reading →

Sometimes a design comes along so unique in concept and so exact in execution it elevates itself far above the common reaches of good architecture. The Residential Building with 15 units by Metaform Architects is a prime example of this. It twists the well-established multi-family building typology to conform to unusual site conditions and an unparalleled rigor of interior design. Those two primary driving forces result in a geometrically pure, aesthetically awe-inspiring work of architecture that serves both the vastness of urban fabric, and the intimacy of everyday home life. Continue reading →

When a building attempts to use common materials in uncommon, and innovative ways, people tend to take notice. PATCH22 defies traditional thinking (and gravity) by using wood in a way typically reserved for the likes of inherently more structural carbon steel, and in the process is used as the backbone for the Netherlands’ tallest wood-only building. The ambitious project was designed by FRANTZEN Architects, and is much more than just a high-rise imposter, it is an apartment project sensible to both the natural characteristics of traditional material and the value of a flexible interior environment. Continue reading →

Meakins Road Residence by b.e architecture is set upon 100 acres of pristine perfection in coastal Victoria, Australia. Backed by 100-year-old Cypress trees, this home was newly constructed from top to bottom, and is based around a variety of sunken courtyards; walled in for privacy while still offering convenient outdoor space to be utilized at will. Continue reading →

The ZA City Villa uses materiality and the sculptural qualities of light and shadow to create an architectural experience that culminates in a vertigo-inducing view across the sprawling city of Cape Town, South Africa. It’s the latest home design from ARRCC, and sits perched atop a cresting steep slope that provides all the inspiration the architect needed to craft a contemporary work seeded in the subtle power of natural modernism. Continue reading →

Office PROJECT architects collaborated with painter and writer Doctor Xu Hongquan to reinvent the use and spatial expression of an old factory building transformed into a modern home and studio. They conceived the Hall Within Cloud, a reinvention of material appropriation and functional orientation to breath new air into a crumbling, outdated structure that carried an enormous amount of sentimentality. It is a project rooted in preservation and the healing properties of natural light. Continue reading →

The A’tolan House provides a serene sea-side oasis that, with a single kink in an otherwise formally pure expression, transforms both scene and experience giving users a salty home tour they won’t soon forget. Create + Think Design Studio designed this beautiful coastal home, which creeps over a breathtaking bluff on the coast of Taiwan. The push-pull of nature vs. man-made is evident throughout the design, which undulates through the existing topography in ways that organize space and frame ocean views. Continue reading →

Spanish design firm Superhouse beats around zero bushes when declaring their mission for the 00/30 home series: set out to create 30 of the most incredible, luxury modern homes in the world for the super rich. Where this ostentatious goal lacks in humanity, modesty, or particular moral compass it more than makes up for in pure, unabashed architectural pornography. And I mean that in the best possible way. The first of these homes is a sleek, contemporary mansion sprawling forcefully over two floors, marking its territory with eye-popping interiors, incredible facades, and one killer exterior pool space. Continue reading →

The Estrade Residence by MU Architecture explores the ever-changing relationship between earth and water. Located prominently along the shores of Lac de la Cabine near Montreal, Canada, this modern mountain home develops an immediate connection to the steep slope that cascades alongside it, while pointing the experience beyond the hillside and out towards the distant body of water. The design balances this dichotomy with an elegant resolution by carrying itself carefully down the landscape, while being sure never to take your view away from the horizon. Continue reading →

The Dorman House by Andrew Maynard Architects is a determined example of preservation in the face of common practice. In the mind of the architect the ‘easy way out’ is a non-starter – a cop out many developers and homeowners fall victim to when faced with the realities and difficulties that come with an adaptive reuse project. This fact makes the Dorman House all the more remarkable. It is a modern conversion of an old Australian beach shack that turns heads as much as it raises eyebrows about the importance of remembering the past. Continue reading →