House W answers a very challenging issue: the creation of a weekend home on a site stuck between a driveway and a cliff where a small beach can be found below. Also windy coastal towns like Huentelauqueen, Chile present a serious challenge to those who are looking to live near the sea…The solution to this one was based on a pragmatic concept: the patio-house typology. Continue reading →

Pyramids have been built by several civilizations across the world. For thousands of years, the biggest structures on the planet were pyramids…In Saijo, Japan a new pyramid was born to shelter a Japanese family on a very modest scale. Continue reading →

In Tokyo, Japan a tiny house works as an efficient space for living… Against all odds, Coupled House demonstrates how to contradict a dense urban context, avoiding the consequent sense of claustrophobia. Continue reading →

How can a house be simultaneously big and small? The perfect example of such challenging task is hanging on a hillside of Los Angeles. It’s called Big & Small House because of a simple guideline: what’s apparently missing in square meters is provided by volume. A two-story building with a total floor area of 111sqm presents a clear effort to maximize space while occupying a site around half the size of its neighbors. Continue reading →

Do you know what Kura means to Japanese architecture? Kura is a traditional Japanese storehouse. Its typology commonly corresponds to durable buildings built from timber, stone or clay used to safely store valuable commodities. House M works as a modern interpretation of such an ancient building tradition, placed in Ishikawa in a tiny gap between the national road and the city limits. Continue reading →

Sometimes the simplest of projects turns to be the most interesting and challenging of all…Garden Pavilion has this special quality. Located in the Seattle suburbs, this tiny building with a total floor area of 33sqm is positioned at the rear western corner of the main house to maximize the open space between the two volumes. Its purpose was very clear: to serve as a flexible space for several different functions: playroom, office, and guesthouse for visitors with a small kitchenette and a complete bathroom. But how can all these diverse uses fit in such a tiny building? Well, let’s find out the secret behind the simplicity of the Garden Pavilion. Continue reading →

In Hamamatsu City, Japan there is a house with wings…figuratively speaking, of course! Mascara House is a two-story building that seems to result as a mixture between a boat and a tower volume. An exquisite formal balance is brilliantly achieved by a middle section that stands lifted off the ground and is curved like the hull of a boat. Continue reading →

Somewhere in the middle of the green mountains of Austria, there’s a modern poetic approach to the ancestral cave houses… Two self-contained concrete buildings erupt from the grassy ground like two inhabitable rocks waiting to be discovered. Their unique mineral appearance allows a very low impact on the surrounding countryside full of sloping fields and woodland thickets. Architecture follows nature in order to merge quietly into the magnificent scenario positioned on a steep incline at almost 1100 meters altitude… Continue reading →

A monolithic prism for a house… Can you image living inside something as dense and powerful as this? A concrete sculpted volume is erected in San Pedro, Chile and it’s called Fosc House: a three-story building with 160sqm of built area made for a large family. Continue reading →

In Dublin, Ireland there’s a two-story residence that emerges from the typical suburban landscape punctuated by 19th century buildings and also by the Knocklyon Castle. The original Knocklyon Castle dates back to the 15th century, so History is just around the corner from this particular piece of contemporary architecture. Continue reading →