The clients for this small house in Tokushima, Japan, asked architect Naoko Horibe for a timber interior and an exterior that looks like a sports car.
Naoko Horibe of Osaka studio Horibe Associates says she designed the house to “combine two completely opposing concepts in a single structure, without a sense of clashing.”
“One was an exterior like a sports car; the second was a natural interior featuring wood,” she said.
A cloak of galvanised metal folds over the sides and roof of the structure, forming an asymmetric shape with a streamlined appearance.
This layer of cladding overhangs both the front and rear of the building, creating a sheltered entrance and shading the house’s windows.
The interior centres around a combined living and dining area, which leads directly into every other room and removes the need for corridors.
Timber roof joists are left exposed across the ceilings, plus the pitch of the roof creates a pair of triangular windows along the upper sections of the walls.
The angled roof also allows space for a small loft, which the architect describes as a “special den” for the family’s husband.
A bedroom and traditional Japanese room run along one side of the house and are slightly elevated to create storage spaces underneath.
This house in Tel Aviv by Israeli studio Paritzki & Liani Architects has a transparent ground floor, which reveals a terracotta-brick floor that extends out into the garden (+ slideshow).
Paritzki & Liani Architects demolished the end property from a row of existing houses in the coastal neighbourhood of Herzliya, then built a new three-storey residence with the same size and proportions as its predecessor.
Rather than using the same footprint as the old house, the architects pulled the new volume apart in the middle and rotated one of the halves by 90 degrees.
The two new volumes sit side by side, connected at one end by a corridor but visually separated by a semi-enclosed courtyard that slots in between.
The two ground-floor spaces provide a living room and a combined kitchen and dining room. Both rooms are wrapped on three sides by glass walls, making them visible to one another and the garden.
“We wanted to unite the garden and the ground floor,” architects Paola Liani and Itai Paritzki told Dezeen. “We used terracotta bricks in a fishbone pattern for the flooring of both the interior and exterior.”
Plaster-covered walls surround the two upper floors, which each accommodate a pair of bedrooms.
There’s also a basement floor, containing a spare room and a laundry area.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
House E/J
House E/J is located near the sea, surrounded by closely positioned eclectic residential houses.
On the site there was an existing semi-detached house of only 80 square metres with a sloping roof. The construction regulations did not allow to increase the 80 square metres of built area on the ground floor.
Thanks to the request of the inhabitants for a quite dense program (4 bedrooms, all equipped with private bathrooms, a separate guest suite, entrance, kitchen, dining, living, guest lavatory, laundry room, storage, shelter and parking) we found a strategy based on perceptive mechanism (light-wind) and typological devices (environment).
The first consideration was to elude the surroundings and thus create a new and protective green garden.
For reasons concerning scale and volumetric perception we decomposed the volume in two separate houses, two volumes rotated perpendicular to one another, with a patio between them.
The elements of this habitat, base, patio, stairs, were reloaded with a new operative function: they are devices with new possible levels of existence.
The transparent base, that supports the three upper levels and reunites the functions (L,K,D), is considered an illusion box composed of intervals in the functional spaces, such as sliding doors and a mirror. These elements expand or increase the visual limits of the site.
The movements of the inhabitants in the house are fixed or hidden by new scenes of contemplation that differ according to the changing of light and reflections. The terrain is materially marked by the presence of continuous terracotta.
The patio tunnel is the insertion of zenithal light and wind into the illusion box. Above all it brings a sensorial and psychological implication of vertigo; in each floor the openings change according to the layout of the private rooms. Each bedroom has a view towards the surrounding growing garden or to the internal passage of the patio tunnel.
In order to obtain the forth façade we’ve cut a threshold of light above the stairs located between the confining wall of the adjacent property and the house, allowing a diffuse illumination in each and every level. The final result seems quite silent; nothing however is what it appears to be.
Chilean architect Ricardo Torrejón wanted to integrate the garden into this concrete house in Santiago, so he added huge windows at the back and glazed recesses along the front and sides (+ slideshow).
Ricardo Torrejón had originally planned to renovate an existing house on the site, but instead decided to demolish it and start again so that he could direct more views towards a large garden at the rear.
“Despite being uninhabited for almost 20 years, the backyard was luckily well preserved and felt like a forgotten park,” said the architect. “The relationship to the garden, particularly to the existing trees, should be in the foreground.”
The front and sides of the two-storey house are made up of flat concrete surfaces, only interrupted by the slit-like openings that create tiny semi-enclosed courtyards around the edges of the interior.
At the back, the concrete framework is infilled with large glazing panels that provide floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the garden and swimming pool.
“We thought that architecture should not compete with nature – on the contrary it should enhance its presence, colours and lights,” said Torrejón.
“Architecturally we had to remain neutral and silent in both material and colour in order to let nature play its part,” he added.
The house’s entrance is contained within one of the glazed openings and leads into an open-plan living space that occupies the entire floor.
Two separate doors offer a route out to the garden, while a staircase ascending to the bedrooms is contained at the centre of the plan.
This house is set on a 1,060 square metre site in the last flat urban area of eastern Santiago before the Andes begin. The plot is 15m wide by 67m length with an existing garden with mature 40 year old trees.
The original house, built back in the 70’s, took no particular advantage of the garden. Despite being uninhabited for almost 20 years the backyard was luckily well preserved and felt like a forgotten park. Instead of remodelling, we decided to build a house from scratch. The relationship to the garden, particularly to the existing trees, should be in the foreground.
We thought that architecture should not compete with nature; on the contrary, it should enhance its presence, colours and lights. Architecturally we had to remain neutral and silent in both material and colour in order to let nature play its part.
The house is a solid monolithic concrete block opened up through carvings instead of windows and openings. Externally, each carving becomes a place itself, some fitting just a single person, others more.
Internally, they are a sort of glazed prisms letting light in and natural ventilation and allowing frontal and diagonal views as well as an internal see-through between contiguous rooms.
The most direct result of this carving operation is that the garden is present everywhere in the house. Even in rooms on the opposite side of the house it is possible to have a glimpse of it.
Vertical yellow and grey stripes decorate the exterior of this family house in Mexico by León firm tactic-a (+ slideshow).
Located in the city of Lagos De Moreno, the two-storey residence was designed by tactic-a to make the most of natural light while also maintaining privacy for the clients and their two daughters.
An L-shaped plan frames a private garden in the south-east corner of the site. The architects have added a row of south-facing windows behind, which open the space out to a double-height living and dining room at the centre of the house.
A sawtooth roof creates additional windows facing eastward, bringing morning light into the top floor and down into the living room.
Other windows are partially concealed behind the facade, creating sets of thin apertures that are reminiscent of barcodes.
“The north facade is blind and windows on the west facade are ending with full transparency into the garden in search of the best sunlight and thermal conditions,” said the architects.
A staircase with thick wooden treads ascends from the living room to the first floor, which has the master bedroom at one end and the shared children’s bedroom at the other.
The master bedroom also leads out to a roof terrace with a pebbled surface.
A garage forms the south-west corner of the house and features wooden doors that match up to a wooden picket fence that extends around the back garden.
Photography is by Diego Torres + Gerardo Dueñas.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Huit House
The location of the house in Lagos De Moreno, firstly induces to develop a typology related to its historical condition (north and east facades are open to the outside, trying to get close to walls and colony’s buildings scale) in contrast, the facades of west and south playfully try contemporary living typologies currently undergoing an intense process of change and revision, in this case is peculiarly attractive by the degree of collaboration that occurred with the clients.
While this family is formed by four members, only two rooms were built, one for parents and another (with multiple possibilities of customisation) for their two daughters in order to encourage their negotiation and socialisation skills. In the house there’s also a large social space, a home office where the couple could work and a media room that can also be room for guests.
This program is materialised by an ‘L’ shaped block. The upper level has a light covering, divided into three double sections light oriented triangles pointing eastward. The north facade is blind and windows on the west facade are ending with full transparency into the garden in search of the best sunlight and thermal conditions (south).
A system ‘ladder-bridge-lamp’ located in the heart of the house acts as a filter between activities: work, socialising and cooking. The upper level that contains the two rooms on each extremes of the house allows a double height for the home office and the socialising space.
British studio Jonathan Tuckey Design has added skeletal partitions and skylights to bring more light into this renovated west London mews house.
Jonathan Tuckey Design renovated the Grade II-listed building for a private client and his dog, creating a two-storey home with a combined living and dining room on the first floor.
The planning authorities were reluctant to let the architects design an open-plan layout for the space, so they instead added see-through stud walls that follow the exact footprint of the original interior.
“We negotiated a difficult planning process in order to achieve this aesthetic in the Frame House,” architect Nic Howett told Dezeen. “The open plan with frame walls allowed light to flood deep into the plan.”
Five skylights bring light to different parts of the space. “A large roof light over the stairs allowed light to flood down to the ground floor,” said Howett.
Walls present a mixture of exposed brickwork and timber panelling, while the kitchen is finished in stainless steel and there’s also a reading corner.
Entrances lead into the house on both storeys. The downstairs entrance opens into a red-painted workshop and garage, used by the client to store his motorbikes.
The master bedroom is positioned alongside, while storage spaces line the edges of the corridor, and a bathroom and wet room are tucked away behind.
A birch plywood staircase connects the two floors.
The reconstruction of a Grade II listed mews house in Holland Park, West London.
Beyond the refurbished historic exterior an entry hallway with a red-pigmented concrete floor acts as both a workshop and display case for our client’s collection of vintage motorbikes, which can be seen from within the house through a large glazed partition.
The ground floor also houses the master bedroom and bathroom. Opposite the hallway a birch-ply staircase is inserted into a double-height space which is lined with black MDF.
On the first floor a framework of timber studs is located where the original walls stood, creating an open, but layered kitchen and living space. The original roof structure is visible above this framework and new skylights with timber cowls bring in natural light.
A crisp, stainless steel kitchen contrasts with the exposed brick walls and the study is lined in Douglas Fir panelling. Skilled craftsmanship elevates the modest palette of materials to create a characterful modern home.
A spiral staircase made from Brazilian ironwood links two floors inside this São Paulo house, which was designed by Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld as a private gallery and guest house for two art collectors (+ slideshow).
Isay Weinfeld was commissioned by the couple to create a house they could use to present exhibitions, host parties and house guests during events such as the São Paulo Art Biennial.
Located on the same street as both the client’s own home and the Isay Weinfeld-designed Yucatan House, Casa Cubo is a three-storey building in São Paulo’s Jardins district.
A double-height living room on the ground floor is the largest space in the house. With white walls and a poured concrete floor, it offers a blank canvas for displaying pantings, sculptures and a selection of designer furniture pieces.
Two staircases are visible inside the room. On one wall a folded steel staircase leads up to a first-floor mezzanine accommodating a library, while on the opposite side a wooden staircase ascends from the first floor to three bedrooms at the top of the house.
Both staircases are suspended from above and appear to be floating just above the floor.
Furniture chosen for the living room includes pieces by Alvar Aalto, Pierre Jeanneret, Gio Ponti and Lina Bo Bardi. Glass doors run along one edge and open the space out to a terrace, garden and lily pond.
The exterior of the house is primarily clad with cement panels, apart from a section near the top that is covered with wood.
Casa Cubo, the initiative of a couple of art collectors, was conceived to house a lodging and support center to artists and the development of the arts, but with all necessary facilities to serve as a home. The program was solved within a cubic block, split vertically into three levels and a mezzanine, whose façades are treated graphically as a combination of lines defined by the cladding cement plaques, by the glass strip on the mezzanine, and the striped wood composition that changes as the bedroom windows are opened and closed.
The service nucleus is located at the front of the ground level, comprising a kitchen, a restroom, a dining room and an entrance hall giving way to the wide room with double ceiling height and polished concrete floor, intended to host events, exhibitions or even work as a lounge that opens onto the backyard.
The mezzanine of the lounge, standing on the slab topping the service nucleus on the ground floor, houses the library, which is marked by three strong elements: a shelving unit extending the whole back wall, a strip of fixed glass next to the floor and a spiral staircase covered in wood that leads to the private quarters upstairs.
Private quarters consist of 3 bedrooms and a living room thoroughly lit through a floor-to-ceiling opening. The garage and service areas are located in the basement.
General contractor: Fernando Leirner – Bona Engenharia Structural engineering: Benedictis Engenharia Ltda Staircase mettallic structure engineering: Inner Engenharia e Gerenciamento Ltda Electrical and plumbing engineering: Tesis Engenharia Ltda Air conditioning: CHD Sistemas De Ar Condicionado e Instalações Ltda Landscape design: Isabel Duprat Paisagismo
Some of the concrete walls of this house in Yokohama, Japan, by Tai and Associates were formed against wooden planks, while some have been rendered white and others have been left plain (+ slideshow).
Japanese studio Tai and Associates designed the two-storey House in Shinoharadai for a hillside corner plot already owned by the family, creating separate floors for different generations and a small home office.
“A new program composed of a two-family residence and office is applied to the building, while paying attention to preserve the family’s history and memories attached to the land,” said the architects. Continue Reading…
This timber house in Kanagawa by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has a square plan with a teardrop-shaped courtyard at its centre (+ slideshow).
Shigeru Ban planned the single-storey Villa at Sengokubara with a radial arrangement, creating a sequence of rooms that each face inwards towards the central courtyard.
The roof of the house angles gently inward, creating a canopy around the perimeter of the courtyard, and it varies in height to create lower ceilings at the building’s entrance.
Timber columns and roof joists are exposed inside the building, and line the ceilings and rear walls of every room.
Spaced wooden slats form partitions and doorways between some rooms, allowing views between spaces.
A wooden staircase leads to a mezzanine level beneath the highest section of the room, which looks out over the main living and dining room.
Two study rooms are tucked away behind, while the kitchen and main bedrooms are positioned just beyond.
A sheltered terrace separates this side of the house from a guest suite containing two bedrooms and a bathroom.
Here’s a short description from the architects:
Sengokubara S Residence
The 2‐storey wood structure residence is situated on a flag pole shaped site, 30m square in plan with a 15m diameter interior courtyard.
With the main living room centred on the interior courtyard, all spaces are arranged in a radial manner from the entrance.
The eight sliding doors separating the main living room and interior courtyard can be opened at any time so that the space can be used as one.
The structure is made up of wooden columns and beams, which are 75mm x 350mm L‐shaped pieces, also arranged in a radial manner, creating a large one way sloped roof.
The large roof varies in height, achieving ceiling heights between 2.4m to 7.5m.
Location: Hakone, Kanagawa, Japan Architects: Shigeru Ban Architects Project Team: Shigeru Ban, Nobutaka Hiraga, Wataru Sakaki, Jun Matsumori Structural engineers: Hoshino Structural Engineering General contractors Hakone Construction Principal use: residence Site area: 1770.00m2 Building area: 576.89m2 Total floor area: 452.60m2 Structure: timber Number of storeys: 2
This house in Mexico City by local firm Taller Hector Barroso is built around a courtyard to bring in more natural light and to make up for a shortage of exterior views (+ slideshow).
Taller Hector Barroso designed the house for a mother and son in the capital’s Santa Fe neighbourhood, creating a two-storey structure with a penthouse on the roof.
Natural grey stone clads most of the house’s exterior, interspersed with pine slats that wrap some of the lower walls around the entrance.
The architects used the same stone for the walls surrounding the courtyard and added more pine to create the surface of the deck.
“The project is based on communication with the outside and outside,” they said, comparing the facade with the courtyard elevations. “We sought to eliminate the boundaries between the two so they were connected visually and spatially, generating views that extend towards the edge of the plot.”
Glazed doors fold back to allow the house to be completely opened out to the courtyard, connecting the space with living and dining rooms on either side.
“By having the indoor and outdoor continuity we generated light-filled spaces with natural ventilation,” added the architects.
A trio of large square windows sit within recesses on the rear facade, overlooking a garden that can be accessed from both the living room and a bedroom on the ground floor.
More bedrooms and a second living room occupy the second floor, while the glazed rooftop penthouse is sheltered beneath a steel roof that protrudes over the edge of the walls.
Hardwood timber floors throughout the house tie in with the decked surface of the courtyard, which has a single tree growing in its centre, and interior walls feature sections of marble panelling.
Here’s a short project description from the architects:
Casa Cumbres
Located in Santa Fe at Mexico City in one of the most exclusive areas of the city, the project is built around a courtyard, due to the shortage of exterior views. From this courtyard different areas of the program are connected as well as an extension of the living room. Boundaries are lost and create a indoor-outdoor which gives more fluidity into space. The living room area can be completely open witch enriches natural lighting and ventilation. The inner courtyard was the main driver of the project and is the main element in the composition of the project.
The presence of textures is very important; we used different woods of pine and a variety of natural stones. Finally on the rooftop we proposed a set of lines and lightness, we have a floated slab of steel to contain the playground witch takes advantage of the remaining outdoor area.
The inspiration for the project is the integration of the house to the immediate context, the incorporation of natural light to the interiors and the play of textures.
The project is based on communication with the outside/inside. We sought to eliminate the boundaries between the two so they were connected visually and spatially, generating views that extend towards the edge of the plot. Another important factor that was light. By having is indoor-outdoor continuity we generated light-filled spaces with natural ventilation.
The main idea in choosing the materials for the house was to highlight this same connection from the outside to the inside, several tests were made with different types of materials until we found the proper relationship between the taste of the client, the architect, the texture and the integration with the outside.
Light is one of the elements that best define all spaces, each room is naturally lit and surrounded by gardens, the interior and exterior are intermingled with the textures of vegetation through the crystals and the different finishes in the spaces: hardwood floors, marble wall panelling, wooden walls and continuity of material outward. In the end, interior spaces end up speaking the same language as the outside by means of light and texture.
Location: Mexico City, Mexico Clients: Single family Building area: 635m2 Credits: Hector Barroso Partner architects: Alejandro Cortina, Rafael Montiel, Flavio Velazco
Portuguese studio DNSJ.arq has completed a cluster of three white houses on the outskirts of a small town in southern Portugal (+ slideshow).
Located just outside Aldeia do Meco, the first of the three houses was designed by DNSJ.arq as a home for the clients, while the other two function as rentable holiday homes.
Two of the houses are located on a flat section of the site close to the street and the third house is positioned behind them, slightly further up the hill.
Architect Nuno Simões said the team decided to arrange each house in a different composition, “almost like a jazz improvisation.”
“We decided to make the bigger house for our client – in the hilly side of the land with the swimming pool – and the other smaller two for rent,” Simões told Dezeen.
“The two smaller houses, which have a more congested situation, were for living mainly on the patios, while the larger house faces a small river with a glimpse of the ocean,” he added.
Each house has brick walls that coated with white render, as well as poured concrete floors. All three open out to patios on two levels and feature their own private swimming pools.
A garage connects the two smaller houses. A pathway leads to the third house, which is twice as big and boasts more bedrooms and a spacious kitchen.
The intervention that is proposed is located within the urban perimeter of Aldeia do Meco. It is a narrow strip towards sunrise/sunset, flat up to about half of the land and thereafter acquiring an pending until the river bordering the west.
The settlement program includes the construction of three houses, two for rent and a residence for the owners.
The first two houses are grouped together (Casa 1 and Casa 2) on the flat part and closer to the street and settled the other house (Casa 3) on the ground to the west.
This house adapts to the topography, adjusting to the presence of existing trees, and enjoying the views through a system of terraces that extend the house outdoors. Unlike Casa 3, Casa 1 and Casa 2, more exposed to neighbouring buildings, enjoy a more intimate relationship generated by a system of courtyards.
Important starting point was the impossibility of any sophistication constructive opting for current building systems.
The banality of the building grew into a minimal architectural lexicon composed of white unequal volumes, but similar in nature. This game was complemented with the austerity of the chosen materials.
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