The traditional Chinese courtyard house or siheyuan is a typology well-known for its illustration of Confucian ideals, accommodating extended family units wherein many generations live under one roof. To live under the same roof means to live together, and this metaphor is the nexus that ties the notion of community, especially in an intimate context, to the form crafted for this project. For this private residence commission, Neri&Hu is given a set of unique requests by the client: the new house constructed in place of the previous one should accommodate all three siblings, who as adults have outgrown their shared house; it should include a small memorial space in the form of a garden for their late mother; lastly, the new construction should retain the memory of the pitched-roof form, a defining feature of their childhood home. The previous house was built in the style of the British colonial bungalow, with hybrid elements of traditional Malay houses such as deep roof eaves for rain sheltering, as well as Victorian details. Understanding the functional importance of the roof and the client’s emotional attachment to its form, Neri&Hu embrace the symbolic nature of the pitched roof and combine it with a reinterpretation of the courtyard house.

In this project, Neri&Hu have explored how notions of communal living and collective memory can be expressed spatially. The original site featured a lushly vegetated edge that formed a natural green buffer along the perimeter, a feature that designers have retained. The new two-story house organizes all communal spaces around a central garden, which occupies the courtyard space serving as a memorial garden for the family’s matriarch. The ground level is extroverted in nature, with expansive glass walls to connect all spaces to the gardens along the edge of the site. Neri&Hu aim to maximize visual transparency from the communal areas – living room, open kitchen, dining room, and study, so that from the ground floor the inhabitants may look into the central memorial garden while cocooned by the dense vegetation surrounding the house. Large glass doors can slide open so that in optimal temperate conditions the house can take advantage of cross ventilation and direct access to the gardens.

For the upper level, Neri&Hu pursue the idea of the pitched-roof form as not only a signifier of shelter but also an element that both unifies and demarcates the public and private realms. All private bedrooms, located on the upper introverted level, are housed within the roof’s steep gables so that when seen from the exterior, the house retains the appearance of a single-story hipped-roof bungalow. Skylights and large glass walls connect to bedroom balconies where views are oriented outwards to the perimeter garden spaces. Through sectional interplay, the design team introduces three double-height areas to connect the communal functions and the corridors above. These spaces of interpenetration create vertical visual connections to allow one to peer into the public realm from the private.

One can see a carved void in the roof volume, which frames a small tree before arriving at the central memorial garden. On the exterior, where balconies and sky wells are carved out from the volume of the pitched-roof form, the walls transition from smooth to board-formed concrete to take on the texture of wooden planks. The circulation on the ground floor is based on the shape of the circle to reinforce the ambulatory experience of walking in the round and to define the memorial space as a sacred element. Since the circle has no edges or terminating vantage points, it allows one to always find a return to the center both spiritually and physically. The garden symbolically defines the heart of the home as an ever-palpable void, persisting as the common backdrop to the collective lives of all inhabitants.

The house is rebuilt on a family’s old house site, on the front side of a quadrangle embosomed by mountains. The architect got the idea that the house should get close to nature and noticed some drama in humanity: men hope a cut above others, simultaneously intimacy with them.

At last, the design coordinates the huge outlook and the small courtyard, with a pent-roof from the yard side up to the front side; in front of the building, several plain stages at different heights adjust the landform, constructing territory like bounding walls, simultaneously staying a friendly gesture for neighbors;

an outdoor path connects the stages, being an open spatial sequence; the path connects the indoor space of every floor through the entrance guard,, making every level attaches to the earth, creating a close relationship between man and nature which have been never seen in a traditional residence.

Unattainable, as well as sending a man to a view who never seen, a mountain is of dual character. The architecture finally constructs an experience of climbing: an unattainable-winding path leads to quiet seclusion- opening up. Multivariate “mountain”, meets man’s complicated needs, and blends into the nature around him.

Rises on a steep slope of a mountain overlooking Lake Lugano, the house is a post-World War II stone building, that involves small but important interventions on the facades in addition to the complete renovation of the interiors.

On the border between the urbanized area and the surrounding dense forest, the external wooden balcony, contrasting with the local stone facades, is redesigned the façades painted in black, establishing a connection with the light and dark shades of the vegetation and the landscape.

A large living area on the ground floor and the sleeping area on the upper floor, with three bedrooms overlooking the balcony facing south, towards the lake.

In the living area, the space is freed up through the creation of a service belt housing the kitchen, the closet, a bookcase, the staircase, and the fireplace, and the generation of an entrance area with a wardrobe and a service bathroom.

The artist spent five years observing the land in relation to the sun and the natural environment and 3D-modeling various forms and structures. She then partnered with Tokyo’s Ring Architects to build a house that would be in harmony with the landscape.

The building’s spherical shape was inspired by the bleached coral that frequently washes up on the shores. The studio on the upper floor overlooks a small crop of ocean rocks, Additionally, there is a main bedroom on the ground floor, two guest rooms, and a room for tea ceremonies.

The exterior walls of her house are made of pearlescent white concrete that Mori laboriously mixed to her perfection; the floors are also poured from white-coated concrete that is flatter and less lustrous. Additionally, all of her furniture—which she is having shipped from London, where she used to live—is white.

Inspired by the name of the island’s sun god, according to local myths and songs, Mori has named her house Yuputira. Nature—the ocean, the sun—is such a powerful force. Worshipping the gods of nature is very primal for the islanders. It is part of everyday life.

Only a 37 m2 studio project on Bagritskogo street with an interesting functional solution.

An important task for us was not to make visible cabinets and to provide a lot of hidden storage spaces. Because in small spaces it is very difficult to keep order and not cluttered with things and furniture.

It was important for us to free up as much space as possible for living and not to force it with furniture. Therefore, we connected all the important functional areas in one plywood volume and placed it along one of the walls of the studio.

Casa Regina is a house built by OAB for Pete Sans, industrial designer, and surrealist artist, and Regina Saura, painter, and mural artist, in the village of Gaüses in Alt Empordà, has represented much more than a professional commission.

The house is on a long, narrow site between neighboring plots which descends from the eastern end of the main street in Gaüses to a torrent running along its western boundary. The project layout, determined by the topographical orientation and concern for privacy, is a set of 12.5 x 5-meter pavilions interspersed with voids or courtyards. The program is organized in the pavilions, and the voids provide access and allow cross-ventilation and light into the interiors.

It is a simple building, efficient thanks to its insulation, which expresses the form of its construction in the materiality of its finishes. Inclined ceilings built with concrete and steel semi-beams, ceramic tongue and groove that receives the insulation, and Arab roof tiles as a finish imposed by the regulations are complemented with walls of white stuccoed blocks and polished concrete floors.

Outside, there is a garden with native species as an extension of the local landscape, a small swimming pool, and a movable pergola designed by Pete Sans.

As part of the reconstruction, the existing house on the hillside from the 1960s was stripped down to its basement, according to the new design rebuilt with two independently acting stories, and adapted to the structural requirements of the steep slope in order to prevent the risk of mudslides and landslides.

For this purpose, a three-dimensional concrete structure was erected, which, together with an exciting mix of materials and a clear design language, characterizes the building.

Towards the northwest, the site is delimited by a distinctive slope, which, as a striking topographical feature, is of central importance in this project.

Right from the start, the two upper floors had to be rebuilt in timber construction in order to benefit from its warmth and feel and to create a cozy atmosphere, especially in the interior. A wish that had to be put aside due to the static requirements – for the middle floor. Because a wooden structure would not have been able to absorb and dissipate the load that is due to the slope and would not have been able to withstand mudslides or landslides. As a result, only the bottom floor was retained and, taking load transfer into account, the residential building was raised again with two newly built, very different floors. At the same time, the architects made optimal use of the building plot: they opened up the floor plan to the terrace and shortened the facade so that they were able to create new, high-quality living space on the basis of the old walls within a very short construction period.

Due to the high demands on the load transfer, the concrete corridor had to be drawn in, which runs lengthwise through the property and thus defines an important and dominant axis. Starting from this, the building development and the room layout of the newly created floors can be derived. In addition, the new backbone of the single-family home also defines the clear lines of the entire redesigned structure, which is characterized by compact geometry, simple shapes, and, more recently, by the strong presence of concrete.

Starting at $32,000, the one-room escape is distinct in its hexagonal plan, a shape borrowed from natural patterns–Beehives and carbon structures in human cells are the same–It makes it seem like a larger space.

That three of its six walls are floor-to-ceiling glass enhances that effect—and creates a deeper connection with the surrounds, whether that’s a remote piece of property or a backyard garden.

The glass uses insulated glazing from Saint-Gobain with metallic blue external reflection—it allows for privacy and has great solar control.

Interior finishes come in a few options, but here, used oak laminate for the ceiling and walls. Heated vinyl flooring is an option, and for added comfort and convenience, more features include dimmable ceiling lights, wall-integrated speakers, electrical sockets in the walls and the floor, and an air conditioning module.

MuuwSpace really functions when it’s placed so that the windows are directed toward the sea, a lake, fields, a forest, or the mountains. The cabin is meant to work anywhere, even in a city, for example, your backyard, it has great sound insulation so that a lively scene becomes an ambient backdrop to a work or relaxation session.

The building is developed in the factory and can be delivered to your chosen installation site in separate pieces, and provides a sense of calm that you will never have experienced before.

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Perched on top of a hill southeast of Tuscany, a harmonious farmhouse renovated from a stunning rural setting by the London-based designer and gallerist Shiro Muchiri.

It was a classic Tuscan wreck. Built-in the 19th century, the farmhouse was one of many on the sprawling estate of Villa di Torre a Cona. It was actually home to two farmer families. Untouched since the Forties and semi-derelict, it had been used more recently as a shelter by hunters.

The roof notwithstanding, the building was structurally sound. The terracotta bricks on the floor are nearly all original; Where the plaster had fallen away from the stone walls, new plaster – carefully color-matched on-site by a local artist – was applied. The beams on the ground floor were in good condition, so they were kept, their rugged imperfection enhancing the feeling of a house that has simply aged.

The house is roughly U-shaped, creating a sheltered courtyard towards the back. The owner and guests can enjoy lunch in the sheltered area at the back of the house. The courtyard leads down to a pool, which is set just far away enough from the house to feel part of the landscape. There are more than 400 olive trees.

Perched on top of all this is the tower, where Shiro has created a study for herself with views over the landscape.

The birds merely join in with the bees and crickets and the gentle breeze to create an ideal soundtrack for languid days by the pool. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Hidden in an almond and olive grove of thirty acres on the southern part of the island of Majorca, NEUENDORF HOUSE was created by architects John Pawson and Claudio Silvestrin for the Neuendorf family.

This vacation house for a German art dealer is set in an almond grove on the island of Mallorca, with views of the sea and mountains.

The composition of the atrium is emphatically vertical, the exaggerated height of the walls dramatized by the narrowness of the slot opening. As the design brings together certain conventions of interior and exterior spaces, so it plays with the opposition of raw nature and the formality of architecture, with pigments from the soil being used to tint the render.