JELLYFISH HOUSE by Wiel Arets Architects

JELLYFISH HOUSE

a project by Wiel Arets Architects

Marbella, Spain, completed 2013

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Situated right on the coast of Spain in Marbella, the Jellyfish House, designed by Wiel Arets Architects (WAA), utilizes a cantilevered design so that when the homeowners are on the top floor the views of the ocean can always be seen. The cantilevered design holds something pretty unique – a pool on the roof with a glass bottom. The blueness of the water through the glass creates a beautiful ceiling to the outdoor space below.

EARTH HOUSE PROJECT by molos group

EARTH HOUSE PROJECT

a project by Molos Group

Tirana, Albania, completed 2014

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The Earth House Project located in Tirana, Albania was designed by the Molos Group from Kosovo as an innovative contemporary structure integrated with the landscape by replacing most of the exterior walls with vegetation.

CLIFF HOUSE by Modscape

CLIFF HOUSE

a project by Modscape

Victoria, Australia, 2014

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Prefabricated architecture specialists Modscape have planned a conceptual property perched above the ocean in the Australian state of Victoria. The project, which is designed for a couple exploring options for a holiday home, hangs off the cliff face in the same way that barnacles cling to the side of a ship. Envisioned as a natural extension of the landscape, the dwelling shares a direct relationship with the sea below, utilizing modular design technologies and prefabrication methods. 

EL BLOK by FUSTER + Architects

EL BLOK

a project by FUSTER + Architects

Vieques, Puerto Rico, completed 2014

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El Blok is a boutique hotel located in Esperanza, a quiet town on the south side of the island of Vieques, located 13km off the east coast of Puerto Rico.  The hotel is situated on a small commercial lot along Esperanza’s waterfront. The compact form of the hotel houses a program of 23 guest rooms, a restaurant, a roof terrace with Jacuzzi, parking and service areas.

ISSAM FARES INSTITUTE by Zaha Hadid Architects

ISSAM FARES INSTITUTE

a project by Zaha Hadid Architects

Bliss, Lebanon, completed 2014

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The ‘Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs’ (IFI), designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, has been completed at the American University of Beirut as part of an on-going campus redevelopment. The facility immediately serves the school’s students and administrators, but on a larger scale is a hub for local, regional, and international academics, researchers, and politicians. The IFI comprises a rigorous educational program that the design of this building seeks to facilitate. It aims to harness, develop, and initiate research of the arab world, in order to enhance and broaden debate on public policy and international relations.

SHONAN CHRIST CHURCH by Takeshi Hosaka

SHONAN CHRIST CHURCH

a project by Takeshi Hosaka

Kanagawa, Japan, completed 2014

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In order to create a spatially emotive worship hall, Takeshi Hosaka Architects has composed the ‘Shonan Christ Church’ with curving concrete roof forms separated by banded skylights, resulting in a striking lighting condition. The convex shapes produce a gradient tonality, while bands of direct sunlight accent the space and surfaces. Located in the coastal Japanese city of Fujisawa, the building is a five-minute walk from the Shonan Sea.

KEŽMARSKÁ HUT by Atelier 8000

KEŽMARSKÁ HUT

a project by Atelier 8000

High Tatras, Slovakia, competition entry 2014
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Atelier 8000 has design a sustainable mountain hut for Slovakia’s High Tatras as part of the Kežmarská Chata (Kežmarská Hut) international competition. Seated on one of its vertices, the simple cube “evokes an erratic block left behind by the retreating glacier,” while it’s “sharp edges” blend into the mountain backdrop.

KONZERTHAUS BLAIBACH by Peter Haimerl Architektur

KONZERTHAUS BLAIBACH

a project by Peter Haimerl Architektur

Blaibach, Germany, completed 2014

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As part of an urban redevelopment project aimed at revitalizing the center of Blaibach, Germany, architect Peter Haimerl has designed the town’s concert hall as a stone clad rectangular volume, which emerges from the ground with an inclined orientation. The building’s tilt produces the slope necessary for the auditorium’s seating, while also creating the building’s main entry from the adjacent public square. Inside, the hall’s surfaces are made of overlapping pre-cast concrete panels, whose composition conceals the lighting and regulates acoustical qualities of the space.

HOUSE IN BYOUBUGAURA by Takeshi Hosaka

HOUSE IN BYOUBUGAURA

a project by Takeshi Hosaka

Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan, completed 2012
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A regular concrete box and glass facade define the exterior of Byoubugaura by Japanese practice Takeshi Hosaka Architect, but further observation reveals quite a unique interactive home with unexpected spaces. The home consists of a basement level and two floors above grade - simple in program but complex in structure. The concrete floor plates are drastically curved upwards at the front and rear facades, allowing no direct view into the spaces, which are in reality sunken below the grid established by the structure. 

FRIEDRICH BAYER BRIDGE by LoebCapote Arquitetura e Urbanismo

FRIEDRICH BAYER BRIDGE

a project by LoebCapote Arquitetura e Urbanismo

São Paulo, Brazil, completed 2013

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The City of São Paulo has few bridges only for cyclists and pedestrians.

In front of the Bayer headquarters, the bridge is located where the Pinheiros river meets the Canal of Guarapiranga’s dam. By connecting both sides of the river, the bicycle path parallel to the river is extended, and citizens, Bayer’s employees and the community around become closer to the metro station.

ONE CENTRAL PARK by Ateliers Jean Nouvel

ONE CENTRAL PARK

a project by Ateliers Jean Nouvel

Sydney, Australia, completed 2014

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One Central Park (OCP), by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, is an innovative and environmentally ambitious landmark project within the redevelopment of the Carlton & United Brewery site in Sydney. One Central Park offered Nouvel and Blanc a canvas of an entirely new scale. Here they built an integrated experience for living in harmony with the natural world.

S-HOUSE by Yuusuke Karasawa Architects

S-HOUSE

a project by Yuusuke Karasawa Architects

Oomiya, Saitama, Japan, completed 2013

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There is modern architecture and there is avant-garde. Tokyo-based Yuusuke Karasawa Architects designed a glazed, split-level house in Japan’s Saitama prefecture that explores the owner’s interest in the networks formed by space and nature.

Philosophy and architecture are certainly no strangers, but rarely does a scenario play out where a client finds an architect who can fully express the client’s life’s work through the design for a single-family home. Such is the case with the S-House in Omiya, in the Saitama Prefecture of Japan. The client is a professor of what he terms “network philosophy.” An acolyte of French philosopher Michel Serres, he studies the interconnections between humans and nature.

SEONDONG CULTURAL & WELFARE CENTER by UnSangDong Architects

SEONDONG CULTURAL & WELFARE CENTER

a project by UnSangDong Architects

Seoul, South Korea, completed 2012

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From the Architect:

The city is required the concept of urban regeneration which renews the abandoned and polluted environment. The current concept of urban regeneration is well used as the strategies of new town development. It has the meaning of creating rehabilitation and revival of urban environment, industry, economy, and the culture by providing new programs and physical architectural environments to the decaying existing cities. Rather than simple architectural esthetic controls, new composition of circulation system, which induces new transformation of environment, is required. It has been developed in the direction of cultural device and the community of governance concept to improve the quality of city dwellers’ life.

ROMAN VILLA by Marte.Marte Architekten

ROMAN VILLA

a project by Marte.Marte Architekten

Rankweil-Brederis, Austria, completed 2008

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This rusty metal tower was designed by Austrian studio Marte.Marte Architects to help tourists locate excavated Roman ruins on the outskirts of a town in western Austria. Stefan Marte of Marte.Marte Architects created the structure between the remains of two Roman villas at the location of an ancient traffic intersection in Brederis. Few traces of the original buildings remain, so the new installation provides the only landmark above ground level.

THE WALL OF NISHIHARA by SABAOARCH

THE WALL OF NISHIHARA

a project by SABAOARCH

Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, completed 2013

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Japanese studio Sabaoarch has built a concrete house with tiny windows on a narrow strip of land in Tokyo. The Wall of Nishihara occupies a sliver of sloping land between two streets in Shibuya, Tokyo, so Sabaoarch enclosed it in concrete walls, which are punctured with tiny windows to give the residents privacy but still bring in light. 

TEXTURED TOWER by Coll-Barreu Arquitectos

TEXTURED TOWER

a project by Coll-Barreu Arquitectos

Bilbao, Spain, completed 2012
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The sculptural Textured Tower is a project designed by the practice of Coll-Barreu Arquitectos in 2012 for fire training and it is located in Miribilla, Bilbao, Biscay, Spain, proving that a simple training space can become a ground for experimentation and discovery.

REFUGI LIEPTHAUS (CONCRETE CABIN) by Nickisch Sano Walder Architekten

REFUGI LIEPTHAUS (CONCRETE CABIN)

a project by Nickisch Sano Walder Architekten

Flims, Switzerland, completed 2013

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If you didn't know know better, you'd think the Refugi Liepthaus in the Alps was just another quaint log cabin from afar. But if you get close, you'll realize that those ridges on the walls are not logs but a beautiful brutalist exterior. Refugi Liepthaus is an award-winning house designed by Nickisch Sano Walder Architekten in Flims, Switzerland. The site actually used to be the home to a historic (presumably beyond repair) all-wood barn, but the architects replaced it with this all-concrete 40-square meter creation last year. Pouring concrete, after all, is usually cheaper than restoring historic wood structures.

CLICK CLACK HOTEL by Plan B Arquitectos

CLICK CLACK HOTEL

a project by Plan B Arquitectos

Bogota, Colombia, completed 2012

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If you’re looking for a sophisticated place to stay while visiting the city of Bogota (in Colombia), Click Clack Hotel might be just the friendliest and coolest hotel you may “stumble upon”. With a fresh interior and a stylish and imposing façade, Click Clack adds a touch of class to your trip. The striking design is the work of plan:B Arquitectos in collaboration with Perceptual Studio. Together, they figured out to connect the interior with the

KHOPOLI HOUSE by SPASM Design Architects

KHOPOLI HOUSE

a project by SPASM Design Architects

Khopoli, Maharashtra, India, completed 2013

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Local basalt stone mixed into the concrete used to construct this holiday home in India helps to connect it with its mountainous site. Mumbai firm SPASM Design Architects took its cue from the dark tones of the basalt which surrounds the site on a rocky hillside in the Maharashtra region.

"We chose to build the house as an accretion on this rocky basalt outcrop with the same inherent material transformed," the architects said, explaining how they mixed water, sand, cement and granular basalt to cast the

SHARIFI-HA HOUSE by Nextoffice

SHARIFI-HA HOUSE

a project by Nextoffice

Darrous, Tehran, Iran, completed 2013

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Ever want to just move your room to the other side of the house when the sun starts to shine in your window? Maybe it's early in the morning and you're trying to sleep, or maybe it's in the late afternoon, and you're starting to cook alive. Iranian architects Nextoffice built the Sharifi-Ha House in Tehran with a series of movable rooms, that change position as needed, to maximize natural light. Each of the three boxes rotates independently to

DRAPERS TOWER by Point 4 Space

DRAPERS TOWER

a project by Point 4 Space

Brașov, Romania, completed 2011

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Brasov is one of the Transylvanian cities built in the Middle Ages by German (Saxon) colonists. Most of its fortifications were demolished to make way for massive development in the 19th and the 20th centuries. In the last ten years the city council has commenced a program of gradual restoration and conversion of the remaining walls, towers and bastions.

The Drapers Bastion, converted by Point 4 architects, is part of this fortification system. Having been abandoned

CORRUGATED CONCRETE HOUSE by Cherem Arquitectos

CORRUGATED CONCRETE HOUSE

a project by Cherem Arquitectos

Mexico City, Mexico, completed 2014

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Mexican office Cherem Arquitectos designed this concrete house with a corrugated exterior for a family of four just outside Mexico City. House P was designed Cherem Arquitectos and collaborator Rodolfo Diaz for Mexican footballer Aarón Padilla and his family in an area surrounded by woods and hills.

"Their big dream was to use concrete," said the architects. "They approached us two years ago, asking for a

TIANZHOUSHAN TEA HOUSE by Archiplein

TIANZHOUSHAN TEA HOUSE

a project by Archiplein

Anhui, China, completed 2011

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The folded concrete walls of this lakeside visitor centre in China's Anhui Province were designed by architects Archiplein to mimic the uneven surfaces of the surrounding mountains. The two-storey building sits at the base of Jiǔhuá Shān, one of the five Sacred Mountains of China, and provides a restaurant and rest stop for the many pilgrims that visit the landmark each year. Architects Feng Yang, Leroux Marlène and Jacquier Francis of

ZENKONYU x TAMPING EARTH by Tadashi Saito + Atelier NAVE

ZENKONYU x TAMPING EARTH

a project by Tadashi Saito + Atelier NAVE

Kagawa, Japan, completed 2013
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From the architect:

This work is part of the Setouchi Triennale 2013. In Shiwaku Islands including Honjima, there were a large number of carpenters (over 400 master carpenters) from the late Edo era to the Meiji era. Shiwaku carpenters were the people who were a shipwright made use of the high technique and came to make house and Domiya. It is seemed that they widened a range of work to the place where not only the Setouchi coast but also a goods-carrying

SILOS 13 by vib architecture

SILOS 13

a project by vib architecture

Paris, France, Completed 2014

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French architecture firm VI.B Architecture has designed a cluster of giant concrete silos to house the headquarters for a cement distribution centre on the outskirts of Paris. Silos 13 was created by VI.B Architecture as a new base for French cement firm Calcia, situated in the Bruneseau Nord industrial neighborhood beside Paris' eastern ring road – one of Europe's busiest freeways. Passed by an average of 300,000 vehicles a day and the first building in

PHOENIX HOUSE by Sebastian Mariscal Studio

PHOENIX HOUSE

a project by Sebastian Mariscal Studio

Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, USA, completed 2012

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Concrete can wear many faces. In the wrong hands it goes cold and clinical, the stuff of a thousand Brutalist eyesores. But when made with skill, it becomes something else entirely, imbued with a tactile allure that's well suited for residential projects. This allure is largely responsible for the quiet, contemplative power of Phoenix House. It’s fitting that the owners, a married couple with three sons, felt drawn to this indestructible material. “We

BARRAKKA LIFT by Architecture Project

BARRAKKA LIFT

a project by Architecture Project

Lascaris Ditch, Valletta, Malta, completed 2013

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This 20-storey-high lift transports residents and visitors in the Maltese capital Valletta from the recently restored harbour to the top of the city's fortified walls. International practice Architecture Project designed the lift as part of the regeneration of Valletta's former port into a cruise ship terminal.

A lift was originally built on the site in 1905 to connect the port with the city, but became redundant and was dismantled in the 1980s. The new lift has a larger footprint to cater for the increased number of people arriving at