Symbiosis Designs display the amazing Abu Samra House in Amman, Jordan. The residence was made into two cubic masses with a gallery as the connection; the house appears separated from the street view. Symbiosis Designs drew up the designs with consideration going to the dry landscape and the bright sun. The sun was plastered as the stone alternative. Beautiful views of rolling hills can be enjoyed through the gallery’s large window. Kinds of typical vegetations were planted on the dry landscape combined with kinds of garden parts that make it nice view for the house.

Source: Grand House Design

Neumann Mendro Andrulaitis Architects is located twelve miles south of Santa Barbara in the seaside community of Carpinteria, California. Fairly close by the Carpinteria Foothills Residence sits on a ridge ten miles down the coast from Santa Barbara. The architectural design evolved from our client’s desire for a home that is a tranquil place for living, art and retreat. The site strategy was to separate the guesthouse, pool and pool house from the main house, by locating them amongst the oaks on a lower terrace.

This contemporary residence is designed to seamlessly open unto the panoramic coastal ridge-top site via expansive operable glazed walls. The glazed transparency is balanced and the home is anchored in place by substantial cut native sandstone walls. The architectural design evolved from our client’s desire for a home that is a tranquil place for living, art and retreat.

The project site is located on a ridge in the foothills of Carpinteria, ten miles down the coast from Santa Barbara. The program asked for a master suite, one guest room, a study for two, a more contained den and an informal open living space they could share with their children and grand children. The site strategy was to separate the guesthouse, pool and pool house from the main house, by locating them amongst the oaks on a lower terrace. The smaller structures were easier to place around the mature oak trees without disturbing their root systems. Each structure has its own orientation and privacy.

How to develop a strategy with dramatic 360-degree views was a challenge for laying out the main house. Placing the main living space and study further away from the edge was determined to be quieter from the distant freeway noise. A courtyard created an inward oriented counterpoint to the distant vistas. A flat roof modernist scheme complemented the couples taste for modern art and furniture. Designers in their own right, they were the driving force in the overall design team. The design was limited to a simple palette of materials and forms. A European window and sliding door system was used to minimize the frames and optimize the glass. These glass walls were framed between large stonewalls constructed of the local Santa Barbara Sandstone, and volumes contained in plaster walls with an integral color (pantry, guest room, master bath and closet, storage area). The flat roofs were supported by steel columns separated from the curtain walls.

The landscape design became a hobby of the owner who studied local native plantings that were both fire resistant and drought tolerant. Some large oak trees were brought in to augment the existing oak grove, further nestle the house into the site, and create a foreground to help frame the spectacular views.

Source: CONTEMPORIST

The German firm Steeltec 37 designed a fantastic Aqua Floathome. On a “floating home” you can experience the feeling of freedom, combined with a maritime flair – a feeling of life which everyone has always dreamed of. Inspired by transparency, surrounded with nature in harmony with the water. Similar to a sail the home features a specially curved roof to form a quiet modernist feel. An unsinkable pontoon offers security and provides the basis for the dream – life in the water.

pic and info: CONTEMPORIST

The Haack House or Casa Haack is located in a gated community in Guaíba, Brasil by architecture firm 4D-Arquitetura. The beautiful home features amazing woodwork throughout the entire property. The central block has two floors: on the ground floor are the social areas at the center – living, dinner and leisure. In contrast with more opened ground floor, the upstairs and the two side volumes are more closed, one wood-paneled and the other coated of masonry.

This house sets off from others in its condominium by the design on straight lines and by the pure volume composition, a very well-known characteristic of the contemporary architecture.

Located in a gated community, where walls and fences are not allowed, this house had the design developed in three parallel horizontal bars that protects terrain sides, granting privacy to its residents. The central block has two floors: on the ground floor are the social areas at the center – living, dinner and leisure. At second floor, with access by a linear loose ladder, is located the private area. A big mezzanine makes the two floor integration, giving the space higher amplitude. A footbridge crosses the mezzanine, leading to the master bedroom, while the other rooms are on the other end of the floor.

The house structure was built on metal girders and pillars with two large concrete plans that serve as support. This solution allowed free internal spaces and large swings at the front and back of the house, creating two covered open livings.

The idea was to give a greater lightness to the central volume, integrating the interior end the exterior of the house with large frames and glass panes. In contrast with more opened ground floor, the upstairs and the two side volumes are more closed, one wood-paneled and the other coated of masonry.

pic and info: Arch Daily

The Graticule House was designed by architect David Jameson in Great Falls, Virginia. Situated on a hillside site, the Graticule House is conceived to be a trace, or reference datum, allowing a reading of the relationship between the building and nature. Fundamental to the conception of the house is the notion of cadence, where repetitious vertical and horizontal markers of the building’s tectonics are juxtaposed with the particularity of the forest and ground plane. Light and space are modulated by meshing ribbons of glass and wall planes that form a tessellation of solid and void.

123DV designs and realizes modern villas, based out of Rotterdam, Neatherlands. They goal create a sense of home in modern villas with a acclaimed sense of detail. 123DV present the Villa Veth in Hattem, Netherlands. Between forest and meadows lies a varied landscape. High, dry, sandy dunes interspersed with heather, willow bushes and grasslands. An ideal setting if you like the outdoors, like the inhabitants of this villa in Hattem.

The living area of this bungalow with woodland is orientated to the south. So lovely, that sun out on the terrace. The glass wall of the living area towards the spacious patio is designed transparent to minimize the boundary between inside and outside. From the inside of the house this provides a maximum experience of the garden and the rest of the surroundings. Because of the large canopy and floor heating, it is also nice to be on the terrace on autumn days.

From the entrance side the carport of the bungalow appears to be hovering. It is a simple architectural approach with a great visual effect. The house looks sleek and abstract on the outside, but has a warm and cozy interior. The furniture in the living room is all custom designed. The kitchen, storage space, fireplace, piano and audio equipment form an integral part of the wall unit.

pic and info: CONTEMPORIST

Guadalajara, Mexico-based Agraz Architects are known for some absolutely astonishing structural work all throughout Mexico. The X House project where a special emphasis was given to the architectural concept and language of the house. X House is, in itself, one basic diagram with a simple scheme that gives out a strong faced house. It is a combination of white concrete bodies, marble plates and design metallic shutters.

A corner shaped terrain is always an unusual practice for architectonic design. This is why a different solution was required for this house, which is adjacent to another house project of the firm, allowing the opportunity to establish an architectural dialogue between them.

It is also a project where special emphasis was given to the architectural concept and language of the house. Amongst this, the automobiles placed beneath the dweller as customized. And because it is in a corner shaped piece of land, the short front is destined to them in a mid level basement.

Therefore, principal façade disregards the vehicles from all sight, granting the rest of that level for service room and a stairway that leads to the lobby, which can be accessed also by the main entrance.

The terrain was divided by the floor setup into three similar size areas. One strip is given for the garden patio where a small tree-lined plaza turns into an extension for kitchen, living and dinning gallery. In the middle comes the central axis of the line stairway going up from the basement to the first floor and in another flight, to the second floor. And then comes the third area given over to studio, bathroom and main entrance.

This first floor is within itself one single area with retractable windows that add up the patio to the central space of living, dinning and kitchen. Whereas the second floor is divided into two bedrooms with bath and dressing room each, and a main bedroom that seizes the largest part of this surface, also with bath and dressing cornered room looking into a large window.

X House is, in itself, one basic diagram with a simple scheme that gives out a strong faced house. It is a combination of white concrete bodies, marble plates and design metallic shutters.

Knowing it is the last piece on the block X House turns out to be the hinge that pulls it all together by offering façades on both of its sides.

pic and info: CONTEMPORIST

Australian firm Marcus O’Reilly Architects is a small award winning practice with a strong design focus. Their work ranges from new homes and renovations to commercial buildings and public commissions. Broadway House is an Edwardian home in Melbourne, Australia.

This pavilion at the rear of the large Edwardian house faces directly west, so coping with that heat load was an issue, as well as avoiding direct overlooking to neighbours gardens. The louvred screen resolves this, adding, as well, a lovely warm afternoon glow through the glass louvres. The copper clad building grafts onto the existing red brick in a complementary yet contemporary way.

Tomislav Ćurkovic and Zoran Zidaric of Croatian firm DVA ARHITEKTA present Black House. Located in Zagreb the residence is set up as two separate structures, one as the primary residence and the second as a rental property. In the constructing two structures in close proximity to one another, it is important to design each on the same principle, forming a spatial composition together.

A black house requires a lot of client’s confidence. Designing two black houses, one of which for rental purpose, requires a lot more. In a sense of a programme, houses are meant to be two identical units, of the same scenario and life quality, accepting the orientation and privacy; each designed on the same principle while forming a spatial composition together.

Besides the conceptual bonds, houses are physically connected by series of walls. Walls surround the site, but continue onto the base of each object to finish on shell of the house. The volume of the house consists of two elements; the shell and the fragile glass membrane as the core of the house. The shell with its perforations allows framing; reduced views and protection of the transparent core.

Between the core and the shell number of atriums are formed, enabling certain functional zones to reach to the outside. “Framed” outside spaces are formed in that way, and they give additional quality and character to the houses; the entrance, the passage to the garden, the wooden- decked terrace of the living room, the private terrace of the master bedroom.

Besides the functionality, these spaces have special atmosphere due to relation between the full and the empty, the play of light and shade and the (non)existing line between inner and outer space.

pic and info: Arch Daily

Imagine having such a distaste for steps that you decided to build your home with absolutely no stairs. Under no condition will there be steps. That’s precisely the proposition clients of Przemek Kaczkowski and Ola Targonska proposed. The flat piece of land in a suburban part of the city of Wrocław, Poland worked well with what the architects had envisioned. Arch Daily got the architects to comment on their work.

The clients, a middle-aged couple, approached us with one definite request – they wanted to build a house with no stairs, a house that would be equally practical and enjoyable when they get old. The site offered no obvious clues – a flat piece of land in a second line of buildings, in a suburban part of the city of Wrocław, among disappearing traces of a rural past, surrounded by a chaotic mix of houses of all styles, materials and conditions.

The first decision consisted in placing the house along the northern border of the plot, towards the narrow access lane, so that the volume of the house shelters the remaining large garden from unwanted views and nuisances of the nearby road.

The kitchen is at the heart of the plan and is also a transition space between the living room and the wing of the house where bedrooms are located. The three bedrooms also open to the terrace and the garden with full-height sliding windows, though sneaking into the rooms from outside requires jumping above a narrow strip of water – a gesture towards granting more privacy to these spaces. The row of bedrooms features a bathroom at each end, and the corridor along this wing is lit from above by square skylights.

The only part of the house without natural daylight, a strip between the garage and the private wing, houses a technical room and another toilet for guests. The terrace is clad with light-colored terrazzo in large format tiles. It is connected to the garden by a wide ramp with strips of grass and grey granite paving blocks. The fully glazed facades are protected from sunlight and glare by a thin canopy that creates a frame for all the views that the open interior of the house may offer from the garden side.

pic and info: Arch Daily