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“Suspension House” preserves all the charms of this very special setting but lessens the home’s impact on the creek. The project presented an engineering problem at the outset: how would the architects expand and modernize the home without changing its outline? Their solution was to stack a whole new level on top of the two existing ones and modify the structural supports so they could accommodate the extra weight.

The original 1970s version of the home was built on columns driven into the creek bed. The new structural system uses steel supports under the floors to anchor the home to the bedrock so that no part of it is touching the water. The tranquil flow is unimpeded, and nearly every living space inside the 2,500-square-foot dwelling enjoys a beautiful view. Each level has its own glass-enclosed balcony, and a spacious deck (also following the contours of an existing structure) spills out onto the hillside. From inside, massive new floor-to-ceiling windows create an immersive experience.

Set at a 90-degree angle to the two original floors, the new addition contains the home’s primary suite, bedroom, and flex room. The shared spaces like the kitchen, dining area, and living room are on the middle level, and the spaces closest to the water include a guest room and utility room. The pale zinc cladding and black steel framework coupled with the stacked rectilinear shapes preserve the original home’s modernist feel.

“Transparent materials and carefully considered sight lines merge the home with this dramatic landscape,” say the architects. “The two lower floors stay studiously within the confines of the original building; yet the minimal glass volumes, steeped in the surrounding beauty, feel more expansive than ever. A third floor addition strikes a more slender profile facing east to engage the breadth of the site. The experience is one of being in nature and also humbled by it.”

Of course, the project calls to mind the famous Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright, a 1935 home in southwest Pennsylvania built partly over a waterfall on the Bear Run creek. But that’s not the only beautiful home that enjoys such unusual surroundings. “Bridge House” by architect Dan Brunn hovers above a small natural stream in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles, using lightweight modular steel for a low impact on the natural site. And in rural Australia, architect Max Pritchard built a similarly bridge-like home with recycled corrugated metal siding, set across a seasonal winter creek that divides the property.

The post Modernist Suspension House Spans a Creek Between Two California Hillsides first appeared on Dornob.

In a word, NCaved is dramatic. Set into the hillside on Greece’s Serifos Island, partially disguised beneath a blanket of dirt and scrubby vegetation, the home looks like one of those cliffside concepts that are a little too wild to ever be built, imagined by architects but scorned by structural engineers. In this case, however, we’re not just looking at skillfully rendered digital spaces. Completed in 2020, this home is, in fact, the real deal.

The camouflaged effect isn’t (to this writer’s knowledge, at least) an effort to hide from international authorities. The choice is an entirely practical one, as following the contour of the hill protects the home from the brutal northern winds while preserving spectacular views of the ocean.

“We applied a rectangular grid to the slope to produce a three-dimensional ‘chessboard’ of solids and voids that accommodate and, at the same time, isolate the residence quarters,” the architects explain. “This strict geometry is discontinued with the rotation of the last axis of the grid, which provides the living area with ampler views. Shifting the axis intensifies the sense of perspective significantly, and thus the imprint of the residence appears minimized at the conceptual end of the ascent.”

“Longitudinal walls of dry stone outline and protect the interior and exterior spaces. They insist the vertical borders, which lead the visitor’s gaze to the horizon line. In contrast to the sturdy stone walls, the transverse facades are light, made of glass, and can open along their entire length. The front is fully open to the east view, while the rear windows frame indoor gardens, enhancing the air flow and letting light into the residence. Lighting and ventilation with front and rear openings, stone, a planted flat roof, suitable insulation, and energy-efficient glass panels add to NCaved’s excellent bioclimatic features.”

Inside, the home’s main functions are divided into three levels, with the bedrooms on the lowest floor, the living area on a mezzanine, and a private guest floor at the crest of the hill. A staircase connects all three levels externally, but only the first and second floors are connected inside. The architects describe the voids they’ve carved out of the hillside as “in caved,” thus the name of the project. They wanted the spaces to retain the rough feeling of natural cavities, which influenced their choices for interior materials and finishes.

With breezy terraces and all that sunshine, the house itself certainly doesn’t feel like a domain of evil. Taken as a whole, it’s actually pretty dynamic, peaceful, and beautiful. Still, somewhere out there, you can bet there’s a location scout drooling over these photos right now, imagining sweeping aerial shots of the exterior standing in for the lair of cinema’s latest unscrupulous criminal mastermind.

The post NCaved House: Mold Architects Embed Home into Greek Cliffside first appeared on Dornob.

The town, which once thrived in the silk industry, is currently in the midst of a revitalization, with Shiroiya Hotel in particular being seen as “a living room” for locals and travelers to relax, dine, and enjoy art. In recent decades, however, the hotel fell into decline and closed. Japanese business mogul Hitoshi Tanaka, CEO of eyewear company JINS, enlisted Fujimoto to make it the jewel of his hometown once again, overseeing a renovation that also includes guest rooms designed by an international team of creatives including Michele de Lucchi, Jasper Morrison, and Leandro Erlich.

In an interview with Designboom, Fujimoto explained that he didn’t feel particularly inspired when he saw the existing building, and that the four-story hotel made of reinforced concrete “wouldn’t be a very special place” if the team just completed an interior renovation. Naturally, they had to take it further than that. Then, by a stroke of luck, the lot next door became available, and they had the opportunity to transform the heritage structure while also building something new.

“From my personal background, I have always been interested in integrating the natural environment with an architectural environment, because I don’t like to divide nature and architecture,” Fujimoto says. “Nature has a nice diversity, and it’s more of an open place where people can choose where to sit, or what to do.”

The result is a stunning “Green Tower” that brings the natural scenery of the region into the downtown area. The grassy hillside wraps around the new volume, topped with small house-like volumes and pierced by windows. A staircase zig-zags up its surface to the pinnacle. Suddenly, the environment around it is reinvigorated, seeming to bloom under its new sense of purpose as a center of activity.

The theme continues in the original building, where Fujimoto followed through with his initial idea to eliminate many of the horizontal planes of the hotel, creating vast new atriums open to skylights. These spaces are perfect for incorporating lots of living greenery, which contrasts with the solid, geometric Brutalist shapes of the concrete. Stretching through the new voids are Leandro Erlich’s “Lighting Pipes,” functional sculptures that double as lamps.

Last year, Fujimoto completed L’Arbre Blanc Tower in Montpelier, France, a mixed-use multifamily project featuring cantilevered balconies supporting plants, which turned out to be a fascinating example of how odd-looking renderings translate to real life buildings. Some of his other notable works include residential projects that make interesting use of tight urban lots, like the surreal “stacked houses” apartment building in Tokyo and the bright white “House N,” which consists of three perforated layered shells.

The post Sou Fujimoto Builds a Grassy Hillside in the City for “Shiroiya Hotel” first appeared on Dornob.

For “A House Hidden in the Landscape,” architecture firm FRB Arquitectos took the seldom-trod middle path. Since the house’s hillside location isn’t too dramatically steep, its design was able to follow the natural topography with minimal intervention. A succession of inverted overhangs creates a multi-tiered space with plenty of room for outdoor recreation and enjoyment of the views overlooking Córdoba, Argentina.

The home starts at street level with a wide staircase set into a lawn, both of which technically form part of the roof. The staircase becomes almost like an amphitheater from which to take in the surrounding Sierras Chicas hills, dividing the social parts of the home from the private ones. Almost none of the actual house can be seen from the street. In fact, passersby could be forgiven for thinking it was part of a public park.

The architects explain that the house’s “walls emerge from the ground joined to the soil, with the roof being the protagonist. An exterior staircase acts as the main entrance and descends to a central courtyard that organizes the arrival to the interior. The pool, overlooking the horizon, is at the end of the access axis. The main volume is projected in the perpendicular direction, housing a fundamental part of the program including both housing and working spaces.”

“Another volume that functions as a study and barbecue area is located on the opposite side of the lot. Both volumes protect the courtyard from the wind, creating a particular microclimate while incorporating the exterior space into family life. The windows of the facade, with the possibility of being completely opened, allow a connection between the interior and the exterior through the courtyard, generating the concept of a gallery-house. A vehicular-level entry, comfortable enough in relation to the slope, blocks the south facade from the most intense rains.”

There’s a curious division in aesthetics between the two main volumes of the home, with one consisting of a lighter textured concrete facade and the other smoother, darker, and more rounded. This plays into the separation between work and play, social life and private life. It also picks up various shades and materials in the landscape itself, from the bright cloud-white of the pool to the sand, clay, and rock of the facade and stairs.

The most intriguing element of the home might just be its least flashy. Tucked around a corner, steps set into the grassy hill cascade down from a side door hidden among the trees, adding to the sense that the home’s interiors are teeming with things to be discovered. Whereas the living spaces are positioned for the best possible views of the surrounding hills, the stairway elements anchor the home in its own hillside setting.

The post Concrete Home in Argentina Gently Steps Down Onto the Hillside first appeared on Dornob.

It’s sound advice if you know you’ll want to move sooner rather than later, or if you’re perfectly content with colors, designs, and decor that’s fairly mainstream. But not everyone wants to live that way. Some creative people just have to express themselves through their living environments, property value be damned.

And who knows? Maybe there is someone else out there who’s looking for exactly what you’re selling. One homeowner in Hood River, Oregon decided to take that risk, putting an unusually rainbow-hued home on the market for $1.45 million. Known locally as the “rainbow house,” the six-bedroom, four-bath home offers views of nearby Mt. Hood and the Columbia River valley.

Architecturally, it’s pretty standard for the area. Before its colorful paint job, the 1917 home probably blended in with all of its neighbors on the hillside. But the current owner eschewed shades of gray and beige, opting instead for a vivid blue roof that’s actually pretty on trend (looking a lot like Pantone’s “Classic Blue” Color of the Year). Almost everything else in the house, from the stairs leading up to the terrace to the panels on the garage doors, has gotten a similarly cheerful paint job.

Inside, you’ll find cobalt floors and neon furniture set against white walls to keep the bold color palette from getting too overwhelming. All 5,340 square feet of the house display the same happy-go-lucky vibe, but it’s easy to see how an interior transformation to something more neutral would be fairly easy to pull off.

Still, it’s fun to get a peek at the belongings of the type of person who’d paint a house like this in the first place. Just check out all the blown glass light fixtures, sculptures, paintings, faux flowers, and accents that complement the color scheme and give the home a charmingly kooky personality. But above all else, the best part of the house might just be the double-height glass solarium complete with a classic chandelier.

Here’s some information from realtor Michael Frost P.C. of Windermere Real Estate:

“The most iconic home in downtown Hood River. Perfectly situated on a half acre with amazing Columbia River views, plus [those of] Mt. Adams & White Salmon river. Incredible landscaping, terraced walks, and patios, oversized four-car garage with rooftop deck and gazebo plus sleeping area with full bath. A true classic!”

Some might find the overall effect of “Rainbow House” a little garish, but it probably still brings smiles to their faces as they pass by. With any luck, it’ll find a new owner that sees it for the unique place it is and chooses to keep it that way.

Looking for some more colorful and creative home inspiration? Check out a Piet Mondrian-inspired tiny house, some wild custom exterior paint jobs, and an incredible sculptural home shaped like a spiraling shell.

The post Riverside Rainbow-Hued House in Oregon Selling for $1.45M first appeared on Dornob.

Located in Channiir in the Mount Lebanon district, CH730 Villa is set on a mountainside, with its stepped plan facing north and access located to the south, at the top of the slope. The site is challenging, to say the least, with a sharp incline that makes it difficult to build anything in a conventional way. But the views make it all worthwhile, taking in the valley of Channiir below. The steepness of the incline inspired the architects to come up with a design that puts the focus on those views — and they had to do it all on a budget.

The firm explains: “The basic conceptual idea behind this project was to build a home with three main objectives: achieving a good adaptation in the overall streetscape, inserting the building into the topography of the original terrain, and implanting the client program: the result, conserving the environment with a potential of altering different views. DAZ regards each project as a unique opportunity to create tailor-made solutions and designs.”

“The team’s thorough attention to detail, finishes, and materials allows us to create harmonious projects. Thus, the idea of the house is based on placing a monolithic concrete structure on a black glass platform following the cliff overlooking the spectacular view of the 500-meter hillsides between it and an old river. This parallelepiped module follows the direction and the angle of the cliff so that the house appears to be naturally encrusted into the hillside.”

The DAZ team adds: “The architectural design is kept basic in form, allowing the architecture to shine through its shape and facade details. Geometric forms and contemporary details translate the simplistic and monolithic overall of the design. The volume’s composition results from the rotation of the upper part of the volume on an axis following the natural slope or topography, while the lower part maintains its horizontality, especially towards the side of the slope. DAZ transformed a simple rectangular volume into a better and improved shape that answers all the site’s requirements and obstacles.”

The architects see the monolithic qualities of the volumes and their gray cladding as visual references to massive, solid boulders and mountains, as softened by the use of wood cladding. Inside, the effect is a little cozier. Two of the home’s four levels project out from the slope, while the other two are built into the hill, “forming a support to the parallelepiped module.” Measuring about 6,100 square feet, it’s organized to offer seamless circulation in both horizontal and vertical directions.

In this case, you could interpret “ground floor” in a number of different ways, but the architects define it as the point from which you enter, at the top of the slope. These spaces hold the living and dining areas, kitchen, and other communal areas, while the next level houses the master bedrooms, children’s bedrooms, and a second family living room. Below that is a level housing a TV room, entertainment room, guest bedroom, and additional living room, while the lowest level is a basement from which the infinity pool and outdoor terrace can be accessed.

The design is quirky, to say the least. All of the different window shapes give it a bit of an eclectic look, and the portion of the house that appears to be leaning from the outside is purely decorative, ultimately blocking some of those desirable views — but it’s definitely an eye-catcher!

The post Quirky Cliffside House Looks Like It’s Tumbling Down a Hill first appeared on Dornob.

Made primarily of monolithic reinforced concrete, the 300-square-meter (3,229 square foot) home has a fanciful organic design that would somehow be at home in the universes of both The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. It rises from the landscape like a natural hill punctured by rounded skylights and chimneys, with a double-height glass facade facing both a reflecting pool and swimming pool outside.

Niko Architect set out to create a balance reflective of a living organism, one that rejects the idea of architecture and nature existing independently of each other. In fact, they argue that futuristic architecture is “a natural extension of nature.” The different functional zones of the house are separate enough to provide privacy and a sense of calm and quiet, but connected enough to make up a single whole, including the outdoor areas.

Instead of being bound to conventional ideas of how homes should be shaped, they decided to allow the composition of the project to develop freely according to what felt harmonious. But one of the major considerations was designing the property so it could have that feeling of being in a remote natural place without sacrificing any modern comforts. That meant tucking most of the interior volumes beneath the artificial hill, with constellations of skylights and the glass facades keeping them from feeling dark and cut off from the lushly landscaped yard. From the perspective of the inhabitants, gazing out at the water, their neighbors might as well not exist at all. Yet, in the photos, you can see those other houses just peeking over the fence line.

Inside, “House in the Landscape” is sculptural and minimalist, with hardly a straight line in sight. Curving white plaster staircases and natural materials like teak wood reinforce the connection to the outdoors, adding to the overall ambiance that “favorably affects the internal emotional state.”

The Niko team adds that their main inspiration for the design was “the metabolism of organic architecture. As a result of the inexpressive environment, the fundamental concept base was the integration of the building into an artificially created landscape and the inextricable connection of architecture with the open courtyard site structure. This is a dialogue with the natural order context. The project was created taking into account the living moving space for human life as a creation and a component of this nature. It is a union of biological images, engineering, and architecture.”

“The architectural composition of the building develops from the outside to the inside. It is interconnected with the environment, being an organic architecture with a philosophy of metabolism. Temporary and permanent components are clearly traced: the framework and the changing essence of the surrounding world, the biology of architecture, [and] the unity of architectural and natural design.”

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“Our design for the project responds to the layering of Tokyo; the juxtapositions of scale and the character of buildings that draw the eye upwards,” says Neil Hubbard, group leader at Heatherwick Studio.

“Set within a natural valley, we have chosen to accentuate that topography through our design, creating an undulating arrangement that uses a pergola-like structural system to create a variety of landscaped spaces, from hidden gardens to sunken courtyards. Weaving and flowing through the scheme, a family of pavilions emerges from the grid of the pergola. Rather than focus on one single impression, we hope to encourage exploration by creating hundreds of moments to be revealed and discovered.”

Led by architect Thomas Heatherwick, London-based Heatherwick Studio is no stranger to working living vegetation into its designs. In this case, the “planted pergola” makes brilliant use of an irregularly shaped plot, with an undulating roof that stretches down to reach the ground and planted balconies tucked into the vertical spaces.

“As many new developments around the world can be harsh and sterile, we wondered if we could provide a more human-centered alternative by integrating surprisingly intense quantities of planting and greenery,” says Heatherwick.

“As a way of combining an architectural construction system with significant amounts of nature, we developed the idea of a garden pergola scaled up to district size. This concept has allowed us to bring an overarching logic to an eight-hectare piece of Tokyo whilst also making space for facilities such as housing, shops, hotels, spas, a school, and a temple within the sections framed by the grid.”

Some areas of the “planted pergola” penetrate the ground, reaching down into the basement levels to provide natural light. The design references traditional Japanese crafts like edo kiriko, a 19th-century glass etching technique.

The project is the first by Heatherwick Studio to be constructed in Japan, and it’s set for completion in March 2023. Other structures in the district are currently underway, including apartment towers with wood-clad interiors by architect Sou Fujimoto, hotels, and a seven-story school for 700 international students. All of them will be connected by an underground pedestrian tunnel that contains a food hall.

Developer Mori aims for Toranomon-Azabudai to be a “modern urban village” offering a park-like atmosphere in the heart of Tokyo. It’s been in the works for 30 years, and construction finally began on August 5th, 2019.

“It’s been a remarkable period over the last four years to work with Mori Building Company, to create this new part of Tokyo — going beyond the norms of typical large mixed-use developments to create something meaningfully embedded within the city,” says Hubbard.

The post Heatherwick Studio Proposes a Planted Pergola Building for Tokyo first appeared on Dornob.

In this region, sprawling properties are common. The structures built on them aren’t necessarily all clustered together, so they can take full advantage of their surrounding landscapes. The quiet rural municipality offers lush forests, grassy meadows, the perfect weather for swimming pools, and often even views of the Atlantic Ocean.

For this project, architecture firm Atelier 1111 wanted to maximize connection to these natural features, seamlessly integrating the architecture into the protected enclave of stone pines, olive trees, and cork trees.

The property features what Atelier calls a group of “four elements” — the main house, a garage, a swimming pool, and this smaller “Cottage House,” which is partially sheltered within the earth. All of these structures are located “in very distinct parts of the land” and take inspiration from their immediate surroundings. In the case of the Cottage House, the first structure to be built on the site, the architects looked to the texture of the cork trees as well as traditional earthen vernacular architecture of the area, like the rammed earth houses of Alentajo.

“Most of this project was a discovery,” they explain. “We did not start with a predefined form or image. We were always in between fusion and imposition. Outside, we sought to adapt the construction to its context, but at the same time, add something to it. Inside, we wanted to take advantage of the light variations, trees movements, and smell, feeling the landscape through the different seasons of the year.”

Intended as a place to sit and contemplate nature, the Cottage House is “implanted” into the hillside to help protect it from the elements and give it a unique perspective of the forest. Though it’s undoubtedly modern in form, it feels almost like an extension of the land. Comprised of an entrance porch, a living/kitchen area, two bedrooms, a bathroom, a storeroom, and an informal terrace, the house needs no air conditioning or heat thanks to its living roof.

“We have always tried to make spaces based on simplicity, keeping only their essence,” adds Atelier 1111. “They might express a certain roughness, but this is eventually compensated with other elements. In this project, we had a special interest in shadow and thickness in transition moments.”

“Sometimes, the interior walls and ceilings continue to the outside. When the windows are completely open, the interior space grows and the limit is redefined. Although there are texture variations, the materials, in and outside, are exactly the same. We chose solid materials, with a remarkable thickness and weight. The aging way of each material was fundamental to these choices. We really want to [create the feeling of] time passing through the construction, just like it passes through all of us.”

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The faceted translucent exterior of the Plasencia Conference Center and Auditórium may give it an amorphous appearance from the outside, but it actually conceals a complex multi-layered floor plan full of vivid colors and dynamic spaces. The building is a contradiction in terms, appearing both organic in form and utterly alien, gleaming in all its artificiality over the rugged natural landscape. Occupying a steeply sloped plot on the side of a hill, it seems delicately balanced. Its perched position beside a retaining wall and parking lot reflects a need to impact the rocky landscape around it as little as possible — to the point where it physically juts out at one end.

The semi-translucent ETFE panels wrapped around the conference center give it the look of an enormous lantern by night, similarly producing a skin-like effect by day as visitors access its scarlet innards. Comprised of an entrance lobby, a secondary hall for 300 guests that can be divided in three, a restaurant, and exhibition halls, the building is accessible via the bright orange gangway that cuts a stark diagonal line across its facade.

“From here it is possible to move all around the central concrete shell, [going] up or down on a set of ramps and spiral stairs that mingle exterior and interior spaces,” explain the architects. “This is for two reasons, economy and expenditure. Economy by not climatizing or using glass to enclose certain parts. Expenditure due to a crossing of spaces — in-out-in on account of the mixture of their climates.”

The architects see the project as a midpoint between urban life and what’s left of the wild after human intervention. One side has been altered by our own activity, the other by only climate and wildlife. Everything that’s been touched by humanity “has covered up those millennia with the sweep of a trowel in a few years.” While it’s certainly artificial, the Auditórium aims to show maximum respect for the land, and with that goal in mind, it’s designed to be dismantled.

The space the conference center now occupies represents a preserved island of natural earth in a future expansion zone, even if it’s ultimately little more than “a small puddle in the sea” among the construction that will inevitably spring up all around it. One could argue that such a tourist-drawing development as the Auditórium can’t help but contribute to continued expansion and its negative effect on the environment, but the architects see the transition from untouched wilderness to suburban sprawl as a kind of unstoppable force. At least this way, some small part of the hillside will remain as it has always been.

The post This Angular Glowing Conference Center is All About the Environment first appeared on Dornob.

That’s especially true when your environment is as beautiful as this lush hilltop in Granja Viana, Brazil. Relatively speaking, the clients had a limited amount of money to work with when they commissioned to design a home for their steeply-sloped building site. The plot has stunning views of the horizon, but the clients couldn’t afford the highly reinforced style of house typically built for similar hillside locations. The architects had to think creatively to come up with a solution that would satisfy their budgetary constraints without turning to forms that would limit their enjoyment of the setting.

With retaining walls out of the question, the architects turned to a novel approach: inverting the whole house. Rather than building up from the access point at the roadside, reinforcing the slope, and supporting the home with pillars, they built down, resting the home at the site’s lowest possible point. That means the driveway is flush with the home’s roof, allowing it to be used as a spacious terrace with unobstructed views. To access the home, you cross a bridge-like walkway and descend a staircase to the top floor, which itself hosts an open-plan living room.

Floor-to-ceiling glazing in this area opens right onto a second terrace overlooking a courtyard-style backyard below. Two additional walkways set on the roofs of the lower wings extend to the back edge of the site, offering another level of elevated outdoor space for lots of sun exposure and ideal observation of the sunset. By contrast, the sheltered ground floor courtyard is shady and private, protected from the gaze of neighboring houses.

“Descending to the intermediate floor of the residence at the end of the staircase is the library. On this floor, we created a plateau to make a winter garden that can also be admired from the floor of the room and serves as an entrance of lighting and ventilation to the environments that surround it,” say the architects. “Soon after passing through the library, one can have access to the intimate corridor, where the three dormitories of the residence are, all with views to the west.”

From there, you can descend yet another level to the bottom floor music room, which itself is shaded by the projection of the bedrooms above. The house is primarily made of low-cost cement blocks, which remain apparent in the finished structure, along with mixed metals, porcelain tile, and cement flooring and hexagonal hydraulic tiles in the kitchen. The wood used for the built-in furniture, ceiling cladding, and decking is cumaru and cedrinho, both of which are local Brazilian species.

 “RD House” isn’t exactly low-income housing; it’s still a luxury residence, albeit one built a bit more frugally than usual. But it does offer an example of how architects could make simpler budget-conscious structures that cut costs while prioritizing three of the factors that can help housing feel much more comfortable and livable: views, daylight, and fresh air. Flat-roofed cement block houses at all price points could easily be modified to offer rooftop terraces, courtyards, and more generous openings to the outdoors, even in humbler neighborhoods.

The post Views Abound at the Terraced Modern RD House in Brazil first appeared on Dornob.

This private residence is situated on a steep slope. While the site’s original structure was removed to make way for the Gerês House, its stream and adjoining land, complete with incredible views of the greenery below, were taken full advantage of. The new home is a contemporary construction executed in overlapping planes of concrete — a choice made to allow the project to spontaneously respond to the area’s steep terrain over a number of different levels.

The construction is made up of two main elements: a large wooden volume and a concrete plinth, the former of which is practically suspended above the latter. The plinth itself is set into the slope, simultaneously allowing people to access the house from the upper level and freeing the lower planes up so that the view out over the surrounding landscape can be fully appreciated. The wooden volume is mostly open plan, and the fluid nature of its common areas means the residents can use it in a number of different ways. The kitchen and bedroom areas are located on the same level as the living space, but there are a few more enclosed and intimate spaces on the home’s mezzanine level to accommodate privacy needs.

The Gerês House was designed by Carvalho Araújo, while the furniture inside it was conceived of by Álvaro Siza, one of Portugal’s most esteemed architects. Everything was made specially for a family who wanted a serene weekend escape where they could indulge in their passions for art, architecture, and entertaining. The stream was expanded to create a pond in the lower garden level, which itself is surrounded by a nice mix of both natural and manmade elements. Steps trace an idiosyncratic route down to this area from up above, passing through uncovered portions of the concrete base that have been made to function as outdoor terraces. A water feature flows from the top of the site over a set of landscaped concrete trays and connects to the stream below, ensuring that water is abundantly present all throughout the site.

The home’s interlocking volumes of wood and concrete similarly flow into one another, with the board-marking on the concrete making it virtually indistinguishable from the planks being used for cladding. Mechanical glass doors reach 18 feet in height to separate the living area from an outer deck beyond. This glazing also marks the transition between the two volumes, allowing the residents to open up their home’s internal spaces to the outside world whenever they feel like it. There are also a number of exciting elements to be found within the house itself, including hot tubs with panoramic views out over the garden and exposed ceiling trusses.

The post Stunning Portuguese House Takes Advantage of Site, Stream, and Views first appeared on Dornob.

That is, until “Greendo” (Miyawaki Gurindo) came along. Architect Keita Nagata of Keita Nagata Architectural Element came up with a novel design for urban housing that produces spacious apartments topped with an undulating ribbon of rooftop gardens, all on a challenging sloped plot. Built into the foot of Mineyama mountain in the Kagawa prefecture, the complex takes advantage of the natural insulation and geothermal temperature control of the soil.

The complex is fully passive, “living and breathing” with the land. Each of the five housing units is buried into the slope to maintain a stable indoor temperature of around 59 degrees Fahrenheit, with ventilation pipes bringing in fresh air. Buried tubes bring up cool air from the mountain in the summer and warm air in the winter.

Steel-reinforced concrete makes up the outer walls for earthquake stabilization, and layers of anti-humidity insulation prevent moisture problems. An additional insulating layer of air between in the inner walls, as well as in the ceilings and floors, prevents heat movement by convection in a manner similar to the way a Thermos bottle works.

Not only does this design create a stepped series of grassy surfaces for the residents to enjoy, it avoids disturbing the slope to an extent that could cause erosion or mudslides. Visually, the result is like a Japanese version of hobbit houses, with rounded rooflines and doors. The rooftop itself features grass-covered awnings projecting out over glassed-in volumes to bring light into the subterranean spaces, as well as gentle slopes for walking from one level to the next.

You might imagine that the luxury of such private green space in a city where vegetation is fairly scarce would come at a high premium. The apartments themselves are pretty comfortable, after all, with generous glazing, lots of built-in furniture, warm wood floors and private patios. However, rent ranges from just $530 to $1,000 per month, making it a highly affordable option for anyone who manages to snag a unit while it’s open.

73 percent of Japan is covered in uninhabitable mountains, which is part of the reason cities like Tokyo are so packed while other regions are sparsely populated. Greendo is a smart way to get around this problem, working with the land instead of against it while boosting quality of life in the process. It’s innovative, earth-friendly, low-cost, low-risk and looks really cool, too. Who wouldn’t want to live in an urban hobbit house, enjoying the nature-oriented aspects of rural and suburban living with access to everything the city has to offer?

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Mimicking the shapes of the surrounding hills, floors sloping up to strategically located windows let light into a basement room and two other levels of this Japanese home while directing views upward beyond the neighboring structures. Takeshi Hosaka architects decided to work with the buried feel of the site, making the entire home feel as if it’s underground without sacrificing natural light and ventilation.

On the basement level, wood-lined floors curve up to meet high windows on both the east and west sides, bringing in a breeze, with a high ceiling encouraging air flow above the living space. These windows look up at the grassy retaining wall on one end, and a small courtyard on the other.

A similar layout on the first level directs views up toward the sky. A staircase spirals through an oculus cut into each curving wall to get from one level to the next, also functioning as a skylight. The slope becomes more gradual as you rise, with even the roof following the same shape in a more subtle form, collecting rainwater and carrying it to the ground through a slit on the southern wall.

“A house with a basement and two floors above ground was planned in a residential area in Yokohama, which is characterized by rolling hills. The 60-square meter site is sandwiched by existing houses to the south and the north. On the east side, the site faces a 3m-tall retaining wall. In these ways, the site at first looked like it was buried by the surroundings.”

“In response, the design sought to pull in an equal amount of light and wind in section to both the basement and the ground level. Each floor was given the same ceiling height. The slab on each floor was bent near the exterior to give the same window size in section to each floor. When looking at the elevation, the same four sliding windows line up as if to indicate that the house, with a height of a two-story building, is three stories tall.”

“In the basement, a wind unexpected in a room located underground travels from the window on the east to the window on the west. Moreover, the core height of the furniture was set at 300mm below the slab so that the wind would travel above it. The ceiling of the concrete, which gradually rise, invites natural light to the interior. The green of the slope on the east side can be seen at the end of the rising ceiling.”

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