What’s better than a shipping container home that doesn’t look like one? How about a container home that redefines everything we thought we knew about prefabricated design? That’s exactly what we have with the aptly named Flying Box Villa by French architecture firm 2A Design. This small modern home is a visual blur – an aesthetic tour de force that is as unique as it is functional. Continue reading →

The Hotel de Ville Residence presented a tricky design problem to Architecture Microclimat: renovate an existing brick building with a modern extension that upgrades space and material without casting aside tradition. They’ve handled that transition with a steady hand, resulting in a shiny new experience that accepts the past and exposes the future to present something entirely fresh. Continue reading →

Located on a 160 acre homestead in the San Francisco Bay area, the Hupomone Ranch champions contemporary architecture flair while maintaining a traditional sense of formal composition and vernacular. It is a ‘ranch house’ in every sense of the term, made to look like an old barn with a modern facelift and promote sustainability reflected by the expansive farm it rests on. Turnbull Griffin Haesloop architects have given the client exactly what they wanted: a modern ranch style house that doesn’t dare sacrifice style for tradition. Continue reading →

A home so tiny it could fit on this page, yet an idea so large it bursts through architectural boundaries on its way to redefining what it means to live small. The prefab Minimod by MAPA Architects presents a new take on the small cabin . You won’t find a lofted bed over a cramped kitchen or any sort of Jimmy rigged steel trailer here – only a careful crafted object of obsession where no detail was left undeveloped, and not a square inch wasted. Yes, anyone can build a tiny home. Almost no one can Minimod. Continue reading →

The Nook Residence is a chameleon designed to disappear into the snowy landscape it rests in. A thick white cloak is interrupted only by sweeping panes of taught glass and the warm yellow light that permeates through. MU Architecture took setting to heart when they designed this snow-covered home in southeastern Canada, turning its back to the street in favor of the breathtaking mountain scenery behind it. It’s a unique modern masterpiece with a welcoming winter home wrapped in a stunning architectural shell. Continue reading →

Who wouldn’t want a house that looks, feels, and probably smells like an art museum? Well…probably not everyone, but certainly the artist and collector who tasked Ryumei Fujiki and Yukiko Sato of F.A.D.S. with doing just that. The House for Contemporary Art is a standout design that emerges from the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan to present something not often seen in residential architecture. A quick glance at the stark, seamless, white exterior provides instant understanding of what the designer set out to achieve: a house that is a museum but is actually still a home. Continue reading →

The Enclosed Open house makes no mistake about what lies at the essence of its design: an introverted central courtyard that opens to all sides creating an oasis for light, air and views to the sky. Wallflower Architecture designed a modern day mansion – a sprawling collection of rooms and halls that terminates from all directions at the structure’s center oculus. The owners wanted a contemporary home with an emphasis on security and protection without sacrificing light, view and landscape. A contradictory set of criteria, to be sure. Continue reading →

ARKit is an architecture firm specializing in prefabricated design and factory built structures. This beautiful prefab home makes a magnificent use of modular construction resulting in a savvy modern beach house that you’d never guess was assembled in a factory hundreds of miles away. There are just enough site-built components to erase any unsightly seams in the design, and more importantly the home fits appropriately on the site floating on a soft bed of sand set against a backdrop of slowly drifting beach trees and endlessly blue skies. Continue reading →

Tiny Heirloom Homes is a family run business out of Portland, Oregon that does one thing and one thing only: builds purely custom tiny homes for those out there looking to simplify their lives. They don’t sell tiny homes so much as they sell a lifestyle built by people who are passionate about the changes living small can bring to one’s life. They started small with a prototype house they designed to be the perfect tiny house on wheels, and the idea snowballed from there inspiring dozens, then hundreds of people who lined up to get a taste of their own Heirloom Home. Continue reading →

The Twins represent a playful homage to traditional architecture in the form of two stripped down volumes that separately embody the 6 year old crayon drawing with a red chimney with squiggly smoke pouring out of it. Set in Caraquet, New Brunswick, Canada, together they form a contemporary beach house designed by YH2 that nods to the past while creating something entirely new. Continue reading →