Tag Archives: house

Concrete house lets you live in the middle of the forest

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Having lived in a city all my life, I’m used to waking up in the morning, looking out the window, and seeing nothing but buildings. So of course it’s my dream that one day, I’d be able to live in a place where I am surrounded by nature but still have the conveniences of “civilization”. We’re seeing a lot of house concepts right now where all you need to do is step out of your front door or sometimes even just look out your window and you’re one with nature.

Designer: Pérez Palacios Arquitectos Asociados

One such house is Copas, a contemporary and minimalist concrete house located in the forests of Valle de Brava in Mexico so you get the best view of nature from your window and especially from the rooftop terrace, where you feel like you’re part of the forest. The colors of the house are similar to the tree trunks and rock formations that surround it. The overall design of the house gives you the impression like you’re climbing a mountain.

The private bedrooms on the lower level has glazing that frames the forest while the kitchen, dining room, and the lounge space also give a beautiful view of the surrounding woodlands. The terrace on the roof extends towards the trees while the swimming pool on the higher volume is the perfect way to cap off a relaxing day in your abode.

The two-volume house is integrated into the slope so there’s not much excavation that will disturb the surroundings. The house has also different finishes to complement the concrete look, including wood furniture, natural rugs and fabrics so you get an even cozier feeling. This is such an interesting house to live in especially if you’re sick and tired of the concrete jungle.

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Flat-packed accordion-style house can be easily deployed in emergencies

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While a permanent mode of residence is always ideal for most people, there are times when that is a luxury that they can’t afford. This can happen in times of natural disasters like floods or earthquakes, military deployment in remote locations, or even shelter in a tourist or pilgrimage spot. Temporary housing, on the other hand, feels nothing like a house at all, especially since they’re often made with low-quality designs to make it cost-effective and easy to tear down when no longer needed. A better and longer-lasting solution would be a portable home that can be extended, set aside, and reused as needed, such as this housing concept design that takes inspiration from flat-packed furniture that can easily be set up even by just a handful of people.

Designer: Komal Panda, Suyash Chavan

There has always been a need for portable or easy-to-assemble housing, even outside emergencies and disasters. Being able to put up a roof over people’s heads in a quick and efficient manner never goes out of fashion, and there is an almost never-ending number of attempts to make that practical and cost-effective. Prefabricated housing is one such possible solution, but it still takes a lot of time and effort to put the house together. These types of houses can’t be easily moved once they’ve been built either, which makes them less ideal for less permanent abodes.

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Baadi is a concept that takes the popular flat-pack furniture design to houses, though you don’t exactly assemble one from disparate parts. Instead, you pull out one side of the house, and the rest of the walls expand and unfold like an accordion. This mechanism allows a house that’s big enough for two to four people to be collapsed down to a very flat structure and moved around as needed. The design also makes it possible to deploy multiple houses quickly with only a few people involved, which is a key element when the houses are indeed needed for emergencies.

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Just like flat-packed furniture, however, there is a connotation of such designs being soulless and dry, especially from lack of customization options. Baadi, however, is designed to be modular and flexible, such as in how many panels can be used to extend the size of the housing, as well as colors for the panels. The latter aspect is actually critical when the houses need to be very visible even from a distance, in case identification and location are needed during natural disasters.

Admittedly, the concept doesn’t leave much room for using different materials, though it’s not that hard to imagine how the design can be extended to support a wider variety, as long as they meet the requirements of durability and resilience. After all, such a housing system places greater emphasis on portability and flexibility, while still providing the necessary protection and comfort when regular houses are near impossible to have.

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This Pavilion-Style Pool House In Northern Spain Is Inspired By Japanese Design Philosophy

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This stunning pool house designed by Spanish studio Baldó Arquitectura is called the Godai Pavilion, and it is characterized by a generous use of bamboo and an impressive overhanging roof. The pool house was created for a home located in rural Cantabria, in northern Spain. The structure is heavily inspired by Japanese design and features many of its unique details.

Designer: Baldó Arquitectura

The Godai Pavilion was designed in accordance with the local climate, and to boast the natural materials used to build it. The pool house is built to the south of the site, in turn building an enclosed courtyard garden with other pre-existing buildings on the site. “The pavilion [creates] a dialogue between different architectures, with the pool as a central element and a link between the existing home and the new pavilion,” the studio said.

The name and design of the pool house are inspired by the Japanese philosophy of godai, which is based on the five fundamental elements – fire, earth, water, wind, and space. You can see the concept in the structure’s large roof, and the sheer transparency of the facades, which showcase the surrounding landscape. You can see that the facades of the structure make a slow shift from solid to void, and are covered with bamboo slats. The slats follow the Fibonacci sequence and are designed to offer privacy to the building and control the natural lighting. The pavilion was constructed using bamboo, which brings to mind the image of Japanese-style tatami rooms. The ceilings are also inspired by the art of origami.

The interior of the pavilion is marked by a triple-aspect living space, which leads to a timber deck, where steps take you to the pool. Besides bamboo other materials were also integrated into the pavilion such as cork, local pine, mineral rock wool insulation, and recycled oriented strand board panels.

Various passive design systems for solar and rain protection were also integrated into the structure, for example, a large roof that offers plenty of shade and reduces solar gain. “The local climate takes on a fundamental value, where strong winds, rain, and summer sun become protagonists,” explained the studio.

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Floating Home In Ecuador Is Designed To Preserve The Community Of A Centuries-Old Floating Village

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Dubbed La Balsanera, this floating house is nestled along the Babahoyo River in Ecuador. Designed by architecture studio Natura Futura Arquitectura and architect Juan Carlos Bamba, this home is located inside a centuries-old floating village that suffers from the risk of disappearing for good! La Balsanera is an effort to preserve the community and to serve as a prime specimen of sustainable redevelopment.

Designer: Natura Futura Arquitectura and Juan Carlos Bamba

The river is closed presently as a commercial fluvial route, and hence the number of floating structures has gone down from two hundred to twenty-five. La Balsanera was designed in an effort to bring back “the tradition of living on the river” according to the architects. The home occupies 70 square meters and is built for a family of three. The family sells food to the community and repairs wooden boats, signifying the socio-economic utility of the river.

La Balsanera features a two-meter-wide extension to a platform that function as terraces for the family to utilize as “productive environments” – for example, a cafe seating area, anchor point, or tourist boat. “La Balsanera explores possible floating solutions that recover local artisan techniques while promoting the active and productive participation of the occupants in vulnerable communities,” said Bamba.

The floating home is constructed from wooden porticos that are built every two meters to build a gabled truss structure. This structure is topped by a corrugated roof that provides shelter to the outdoor terraces, as well as a colorful hammock. The home includes a central space that accommodates a shared living room, kitchen, and dining area, as well as two bedrooms. Two external strips at either end of the space provide a shower, toilet, laundry space, and boat workshop. The space is also equipped with “chazas” which are slatted openings that have been made from recycled wood. These “chazas” help ventilate the space and maintain a cool environment indoors. A bridge functions as an efficient walkway between the mainland and the floating home. It is made using bamboo and various planks of wood. Shutter doors have been incorporated throughout the space, connecting the living spaces to the terraces.

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Floating Bamboo House is designed to withstand rising sea levels in Vietnam

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Called the Floating Bamboo House, this architectural prototype by Vietnamese studio H&P Architects is exactly what it sounds like! The floating home is built from bamboo and is designed to withstand rising sea levels. It has been created with the intention to provide locals who are living in and around the Mekong Delta in Vietnam with a suitable model for climate-resilient housing.

Designer: H&P Architects

“Vietnam is one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by climate change,”  said H&P Architects founder Đoàn Thanh Hà. “Floating Bamboo House is believed to provide a useful alternative for millions of poor households to create a stable and safe accommodation themselves, and adapt to the worst scenario of responding to climate change,” he continued.  The Floating Bamboo House is designed to be a three-compartment home equipped with a square ground floor plan that occupies six by six meters. The home also has a first-floor story in its roof eaves.

The exterior of the Floating Bamboo House is inspired by the vernacular Rông House, which is a traditional and rural Vietnamese building typology amped with a tall and steep thatched roof. The house is built using locally sourced solid-cored bamboo pieces, which have a diameter of three to five centimeters and three or six meters long. The external facade is covered with lightweight bamboo screens, woven bamboo sheets, leaves, and corrugated iron. Plastic drums have been fixated to the underside of the house to allow it to float. A septic tank, water tank, and filter tank have also been attached here.

“Floating Bamboo Houses [could be] connected with each other by floating playing grounds, vegetable-growing rafts [and] fish-raising areas,” the studio said. The home was designed for adaptation. It features a door system that can be opened and closed, to offer shelter and protection from adverse and extreme weather situations. Also, the floor panels on the upper storey can be removed, allowing the structure to be used as a library, classroom, or communal meeting space. H&P Architects believe that in the future multiple floating homes can be built, and formed together to create floating villages.

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The Tapered House Is Elevated On Stilts To Adapt To Diverse Terrains & Landscapes

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Designed by Antony Gibbon, the Tapered House is an innovative and elaborate new addition to his Inhabit series. The home is another vivid creation by Gibbon, which follows his design philosophy that centers around pushing the boundaries of architecture and laying down a harmonious and serene connection with nature. The other homes in the series include the Repitilia House and Loch Eight, and the Tapered House continues the unique design language seen in the other structures.

Designer: Antony Gibbon

The Tapered House is settled along the shores of a lake and is surrounded by calming woods. The house is designed to be versatile and perfectly merges with its surrounding natural environment. Since it features raised stilts, you can place the house on the edge of a lake, river, pond, or any sloped terrain. This subtle elevation enables the Tapered House to effortlessly merge with the various contours and curves of the land while ensuring that is it well-settled on the ground. It is a prime specimen of form meets functionality.

The Tapered House is a spacious home while covering a footprint of 110 square meters. It includes two bedrooms. The ground floor of the house occupies eighty-one square meters, and it features a reception area, lounge, kitchen, one of the bedrooms, and a shower/washroom. The home also includes outdoor terraces that are located at the front and the rear of the property. The second floor, on the other hand, occupies twenty-nine square meters and holds a large double bedroom, office, and a built-in storage space.

The exterior of the home is clad in panels of various timber finishes. The timber finishes add a sense of warmth and zen to the structure while allowing the project to have an element of customization, which enables it to be adapted to different locations. All in all, the Tapered House is a modern and chic home amped with well-designed amenities, and customization options, allowing it to be adapted to the personal needs and requirements of various users.

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This Oiled Cedar-Clad Home In LA Perfectly Merges Scandinavian Modernism & Bohemian Experimentalism

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Dubbed the Grafton House, and located in LA’s Echo Park neighborhood, this wood-clad residence beautifully incorporates Scandinavian modernism and the bohemian experimentalism that is usually seen on the LA Eastside. The home was built by Sweden-born architect Fredrik Nilsson for his family. It is perched on a sloped site and equipped with views of the surrounding hills, and a stunning city skyline.

Designer: Fredrik Nilsson

The property was purchased by architect Fredrik Nilsson of the local firm Studio Nilsson and his wife a couple of years ago to create a space for a growing family. The property occupies 2400 square feet and was accompanied by an old 400 square feet cottage. Although the cottage is aging, and the property is quite humble, the couple decided to build a homely and warm sanctuary there. “The aim was to expand the feeling of space and tranquillity while remaining squarely in the middle of a noisy, walkable part of the city, where the buzz of police helicopters is not uncommon on a daily basis,” Nilsson said.

The home is inspired by Nilsson’s Swedish roots, as well as his wife’s Indian heritage. He said he wanted to build “a small-footprint, urban treehouse – one inspired by Scandinavian modernism and his Indian-American wife’s desire for warmth and color”. Currently, the old cottage is no more and instead is replaced by a two-story, 1850 square feet house. The facade of the home is clad in raw cedar, with windows and openings that allow daylight to stream into the home while also providing privacy. The upper floor subtly cantilevers over the ground floor, creating a shaded entryway. “Opening the entry gate, guests comment that they feel they have entered a fairyland sanctuary,” said Nilsson.

As you enter the home, you are welcomed by a reverse floor plan marked with private areas on the ground floor. The public spaces are housed on the upper storey. The upper floor also includes an office that can be used as a guest bedroom as well. The views surrounding the home are pretty serene as well, including distant vistas and glances of the nearby trees around the home.

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A Contemporary Pavilion-Style Home Also Functions As An Art Gallery For The Family’s Art Collection

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Dubbed Casa Galeria, this 6458 square feet structure is designed as a gallery concept that functions as a unique space that accommodates their collection of art. Designed by BLOCO Architects, the home features an innovative roof structure supported by five large inverted beams. The beams span the entirety of the 12-meter-wid roof, in turn creating “the gallery”, or the central and main space of the house. The gallery is a multifunctional area with a living room, dining room, balcony, kitchen, and garage.

Designer: BLOCO Architects

The exterior of the house showcases a pattern called Bárbara, which is named after the owner. It includes an array of blue and white tiles, which provide an intriguing contrast to the clean white walls. Whereas, the bathroom tiles are more fun and loud colors such as green, yellow, and orange, with a similar design pattern as the interiors.

The design of the Casa Galeria isn’t simply about functionality and art preservation, it also focuses on the layout of the house. The living spaces are divided by two open linear gardens that add green and biophilic elements to the home. The first garden is located between the solar protection wall and the windows of the central living area. It is located closer to the street, while the second one divides the social space from the bedroom hall.

The interiors of the Casa Galeria are designed by BLOCO Architects and shine a light on the family’s stunning art collection. Neutral materials and colors were opted for, creating a surreal backdrop that elevates the artwork, building a grander impression. Custom tile panels were designed by the Brazilian artist João Henrique, which provides an additional layer of uniqueness and beauty to the space. In an effort to protect the art pieces from the strong Brazilian sun, the architects created a large wall, which is raised from the floor, and supported by pillars. This protects the space while permitting soft natural light to enter through the open garden, creating a peaceful environment. The house also features a brushed gray granite floor in all the rooms, offering a calming and neutral tone to it.

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This Beautiful Brazilian Home Is The Sleek, Contemporary & Practical Home You’ve Been Searching For

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Nestled in Nova Lima in Minas Gerais is Tetro Arquictectura’s Laguna House. The four-bedroom Brazilian house is amped with a stunning view of a lake, with mountains in the backdrop. It is a sleek and modern abode that perfectly utilizes the views and contours of the property it is located on.

Designer: Tetro Arquitectura

The beautiful Brazilian home is designed by architects Carlos Maia, Débora Mendes, and Igor Macedo, and is elevated on a rectangular core, and supported by a group of tall slender pillars. The lower level is sunken and it holds the three ensuite guest bedrooms, a covered terrace, an outdoor kitchen, and a dining area. While the main living spaces are located above it, with a rectangular concrete slab roof towering over them. The main living spaces correspond with a big square courtyard, and the master bedroom subtly cantilevers over the garden. It also holds a massive and impressive walk-in wardrobe. The kitchen, utility room, and staff accommodation are located in the same row as the bedrooms below. An external covered walkway provides access to them.

The minimalist home includes the main entrance which is built of a series of concrete steps that smoothly follow the contour of the land, leading you up to a covered porch, positioned along a courtyard garden. As you enter through the main entrance, you are welcomed into the main living space, which has an area for seating and dining as well as a kitchen. The home also includes a covered balcony with sliding glass doors that lead to it.

The entire home has a raw yet contemporary feel to it. Raw concrete is teamed up with natural stone and vertical hardwood slats for privacy and sun screening to create an inviting and warm space. Aluminum framed floor-to-ceiling windows mark the entirety of the space. The concrete roof is projecting and helps not only to reduce solar gain but also ensures that the sunlight reaches the interiors only during late afternoon. The home is simple but thoughtfully designed with the private spaces located on the main floor, while the guest bedrooms are kept on the lower level.

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An Old Public Laundry In Barcelona Was Transformed Into A Raw Modern Home With Two Central Courtyards

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Spanish architecture studio CRÜ did something truly interesting and innovative by transforming an old public laundry into a house and a studio. The old laundry is located in west Barcelona, and the studio remodeled the space for a couple. The home is dubbed La Clara, and the architecture studio reconfigured the ground floor laundry into a home by integrating a two-story structure to the rear. While also creating a studio space in the front section of the property.

Designer: CRÜ

The two new structures have been located around two courtyards, and a serene glazed corridor, which functions as a connecting space that allows the residents to transition between the studio and the rest of the home. The design and idea behind La Clara was to retain the history and nostalgic value of the laundry, by paying a tribute to the “effervescent rawness” of the pre-existing structure.

“All existing walls and stairs are undressed to show only the entrails, to recover the stench of soap and gossip. This aesthetic choice imparts a sense of continuity and rawness, reinforcing the project’s connection to the old laundry,” said the studio.

The two central courtyards were positioned quite thoughtfully, with the larger courtyard segregating the studio from the private house at the back. The smaller courtyard on the other hand allows more light into the bedroom. “The central courtyards, or voids, are a key aspect of the design,” said the studio. “[They offer] an innovative solution to provide natural light and ventilation to each room while visually and spatially separating public and private areas.”

The interior of La Clara features a spacious open-plan living and dining room, as well as three bedrooms. Trowelled concrete was utilized throughout the ground floor to create a homely and inviting space. The concrete was paired up with exposed brick walls, concrete beams, ducting, and white metal trusses. A quaint brick staircase is nestled behind the kitchen cabinetry which is connected to the main bedroom on the upper floor. It is clad in corrugated metal sheeting on the external facades and provides views into both the central courtyards.

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