This spectacular house is situated among a densely built-up detached and semi-detached houses in Hiroshima, Japan. The facade surfaces are covered with dark timber, giving it the look of a contemporary wooden hut… With one peculiarity: The first floor has been lifted above the ground floor and a void has been created as a result.

But just as the human body has its bones and muscles, the architectural body has its structure elements and vertical communication channels. These came to be seen anatomically after lifting one floor above the other. I can even see the white steel supports going even thinner and thinner in the process of pulling the part of the upper body. I can see the transparent glass skin appearing around the staircase after the transformation. Continue reading →

Do you believe in miracles? Let me introduce you to one in particular. In Fujisawa, Japan there´s a very small site where Japanese architects, ON design, definitely transformed less into more. ‘The house with empty lot’ is a private residence for a musician and a surfer couple, featuring only 62, 98 sq. m. of building area.

Situated on a tight space with barely no open facades, the volume is conceived as a hybrid living space with an individual ‘tiny house’ on each side. This spatial separation provides the privacy required for the coexistence of two different hobbies and lifestyles. Continue reading →

Sometimes restrictions lead to outstanding results! The Belly House, by Japanese architect Tomohiro Hata, brilliantly testifies to that. In Kyoto, Japan, there are several laws which restrict external volume, shape, materials and color. So actually when you think of it the exterior appearance of this house was already decided. A pre-defined ‘package’ works as a starting point to a marvelous architectural solution. Continue reading →

A cute summer house (689 sq. ft.) or rather summer barn stands happily in a lavishly green scenery on Gotland Island, Sweden. Indeed, the house looks literally happy and I can’t help thinking of the sweet summer holidays a child could spend there (although washing facilities are outside the house…). Continue reading →

Summerhouses always reflect joy and pure amusement. On the coast of Hoganas, Sweden, Stockholm-based practice dinnelljohansson has achieved this goal by designing a minimal space for a lucky family! Let me guide you through this contemporary reinterpretation of Palladio’s world renowned villas in the Veneto region… but in a more limited budget scenario. Continue reading →

When I look at the pictures of this house I forget everything. Something happens: I’m feeling inspired. This is the magic of architecture, the magic of design. As it can also be read on the architects’ original description of the house, it is iconic. It is called the Barn House I. First of all, the proportions are iconic. It is a regular cube, with a square lay-out. The roof has an incline of 45 degrees.

The outer appearance of the house is very laconic. However, it doesn’t look like the house was meant to be small or minimalistic. On the contrary, the house feels generous in volume. I’m not sure of the exact size, but I suppose the construction area is no bigger than 530 sq. ft. Continue reading →

The House with Eaves and an Attic (yes, there is a house there, behind the huge roof) is situated on a small plot at the top of a hill in Tokyo. The aim was to create a spectacular appearance of a building and to utilize all the space you possibly can out of the dramatically small site on the edge of the slope. Continue reading →

Alchemy Architects declare: Everyone loves barns. As they describe their Blair Barn House project in Wisconsin. Somehow it didn’t persuade me. Why should I love barns…Is there something I’m missing here? I went to explore this object only because the look of the building in the landscape seemed interesting to me. I came to the conclusion that it is a nice cube house.
The most peculiar thing about the shape of the building is that the edges of the cube are twisted, so that the whole silhouette seems odd, uneven, friendly and interesting. This outline is better readable also due to the position of the house – it is located at the top of a small hill. Continue reading →

This small prefab home is located in Northern Minnesota and doesn’t even resemble a prefab house; mostly because of a special local siding – the red stained pine.

I like this mixture of the universal (you can buy a prefab house, like a furniture item, and put it wherever you’ld like) and the local (when various local peculiarities are applied to the project, like the siding element here).
Plus, the house sits very well on the site, having an open deck overlooking a forest, and an upper terrace on the roof of the one-story part of the building. Continue reading →

Located in Tokyo, this small house is extremely white, almost ghostly, but also sweet and cute, just like the cartoonist figure of Casper – the friendly ghost. And as an old good Casper animation film does, this building arouses nice, joyful emotions. As the song goes “All you need is love”; in architecture and design, it can be put this way: “All you need is joy and surprise”. That’s why I’m in love with this house. It brings joy and surprise, to me at least. Continue reading →