Woollahra Residence by Katon Redgen Mathieson

Located in Woollahra, Sydney, this existing free standing Victorian Italianate villa was re-designed and extended to accommodate a Sydney art dealer, and family. A white rendered modern pavilion has been added to the rear of the house, replacing a series of haphazard earlier additions. The house has been designed to function as a home, gallery, workplace and venue for large gatherings. The new interiors and architecture form a canvas for the changing art collections. The original four room Victorian plan, with central hall, iron lace detailed verandah and Italianate chimneys and parapets, have been retained. A large open kitchen and dining space dominates the new extension with a dramatic seven metre long fixed central table.

Woollahra Residence, Sydney, Australia by Katon Redgen Mathieson

Boros Residence by Jens Casper

In the Boros residence – a former Second World War air raid shelter built in 1942 in central Berlin – visitors can easily lose their way in the maze-like corridors of bare concrete.

Bullet holes from the Second World War testify the historical significance of the building. The heart of this hermetic concrete cube contains an exhibition of contemporary works from the private collection of ad agency founder and publisher, Christian Boros. In order to create a suitable space for the collection, architect Jens Casper deconstructed the 3,000 square meter bunker, which was once devoid of natural light, transforming it into a complex room arrangement. The glass superstructure of the penthouse is the polar opposite of the cube’s massiness.

There, Christian and his wife, Karen, live with their son amidst paintings by Elizabeth Peyton and a series of installations by groundbreaking artists such as Olafur Eliasson. It is a dream home that once seemed impossible to realize, but has now become an art manifesto for Berlin’s historical Mitte district, where change is the norm.

Boros Residence, by Jens Casper, for Karen and Christian Boros, Manager and Art Collector, Penthouse, Berlin-Mitte, via: Freunde von Freunden

Boros Collection, Edited by Boros Foundation, Photographs by Noshe, German, English, 2009. 198 pp., 68 color ills. 24 x 32 cm, hardcover, ISBN 9783775724784
Buy the book: Amazon

Beaver Street Reprise by Craig Steely

Beaver Street Reprise is a conceptually modern house that fits contextually into a Victorian neighborhood. It contains an apartment, an office, and a split-level living area that opens onto a deck with sod roof.

Beaver Street Reprise, San Francisco, California, by, Craig Steely

JKC1 House by Ong&Ong

Singapore-based practice Ong&Ong has recently completed JKC1, a single family residence in Bukit Timah, Singapore. Visitors enter through a series of elevated wooden platforms which lead to a swimming pool deck. A void within the stacked stone perimeter wall leads into the ground level dining and living area. Resting above the windowless solid enclosure, textured concrete bands beginning at the first level floor plates and roofline frame an upper level veranda which extends to overlook the front and back yards. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows border the bedrooms, providing privacy with moveable wooden screens while sliding doors allow direct access to the continuous balcony. On the first floor, a vegetated outdoor courtyard partitions with glass panels introduces streams of natural light to the surrounding interior corridors as well as the staircase from the dining and living areas. a spiral steel stair within the rock garden leads to a roof terrace with panoramic views into the canopies of nearby trees.

Jkc1 House by, Ong&Ong, via: designboom

Villa Veth by 123DV Architects

Between forest and meadows lies a varied landscape. High, dry, sandy dunes interspersed with heather, willow bushes and grasslands. An ideal setting if you like the outdoors, like the inhabitants of this villa in Hattem. The living area of this bungalow with woodland is orientated to the south. So lovely, that sun out on the terrace. The glass wall of the living area towards the spacious patio is designed transparent to minimize the boundary between inside and outside. From the inside of the house this provides a maximum experience of the garden and the rest of the surroundings. Because of the large canopy and floor heating, it is also nice to be on the terrace on autumn days.

From the entrance side the carport of the bungalow appears to be hovering. It is a simple architectural approach with a great visual effect. The house looks sleek and abstract on the outside, but has a warm and cozy interior. The furniture in the living room is all custom designed. The kitchen, storage space, fireplace, piano and audio equipment form an integral part of the wall unit.

Villa Veth, Hattem, The Netherlands, by 123DV Architects, Photography by Christiaan de Bruijne, via: contemporist

Private House by Strom Architects

The client was aiming for country house – ‘a dream in a wood’, a peaceful place to relax, regenerate, and think of new ideas. So the architects created with a linear design that has picked up on the building form – the ‘long cottage’ found along Iken Common, and one can see the design as an evolution of the longitudinal cottage. The site is located in Suffolk two miles inland from Aldeburgh, and lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site itself forms part of an overall land ownership of 2.5ha surrounded by agricultural land.

The current site has foundations, ruins and some low walls from a house that burned down eight years ago. There is also an existing outdoor pool. Immediately to the west of the pool and ruins, there is a small area of open grass that runs up to the edge of a beautiful copse of mature oak trees. The site is located on the edge of flood zone 2 and 3, and requires a raised floor level 1.5m above the old cottage. The existing site with the pool, its ruins and low walls has a very strong presence, and we wanted to keep this as an important part of the site.

The building sits above the ruins and the edge of the pool, as to respect the current site, but also to deal with the floor level that is required, due to the potential flood risk. The building is also set like this so that it can be read on its own, and thus touch the existing site lightly. The building is orientated towards the west-south-west, and sits on an angle above the existing ruins facing the best views as well as creating a clear juxtaposition of geometry to the ruins.

Private House, Suffolk, UK, by Strom Architects, Rendering © Peter Guthrie, via: ArchDaily

Pitched Roof House by Chenchow Little

The Pitched Roof House evolved from a strict interpretation of planning codes that require new houses to have pitched roofs. The new house reinterprets the traditional pitched room. Unlike a traditional pitched roof, the triangles not only pitch up, but also invert to form a faceted roof plane. The triangular geometry of the roof is continued down onto the facades of the house, and became the basis for articulating openings. The variability of the triangular geometry gave us the freedom to push and pull the building form as required to suit the brief of the client, the local town planning codes, the scale of the neighbouring roofs, and the requirement for solar access to the living rooms. The living rooms are located on the top floor to take advantage of the sculptural roof plane, the views across Sydney harbour, and sunlight. Bedrooms are located on the lower levels were outlook and solar access are compromised by neighbouring houses.

Pitched Roof House by Chenchow Little, Sydney, Australia, Photography by John Gollings, Via: archdaily

Cascading Creek House by Bercy Chen Studio

Cascading Creek House was conceived less as a house and more as an outgrowth of the limestone aquifers of the Central Texas geography. The roof is configured so as to create a natural basin for the collection of rainwater, not unlike the vernal pools found in the outcroppings of the Texas Hill Country. These basins harness additional natural flows through the use of photovoltaic and solar hot-water panels. The water,electricity and heat which are harvested on the roof tie into an extensive climate conditioning system which utilizes water source heat pumps and radiant loops to supply both the heating and cooling for the residence. The climate system is connected to geothermal ground loops as well as pools and water features thereby establishing a system of heat exchange which minimizes reliance on electricity or gas.

Beyond the technological, the form and siting of the house subtly addresses the social issues of American suburbia. The surprisingly low profile of the house in relation to the street offers a critical alternative to the morphology of massive suburban homes in Texas–one looks down upon the water-collecting roofs of the house upon entering from the street. In contrast to the unassuming face towards the street, the residence presents itself generously towards the wilderness below, embracing nature without overwhelming it.

The primary formal gesture of the project inserts two long native limestone walls to the sloping site, serving as spines for the public wing and private wing of the house. The walls and the wings they delineate shelter a domesticated landscape that serves as an extended living space oriented towards the creek below and protected from the torrents of water draining from the street above during sudden downpours characteristic of the area. The siting of the boundary walls and building elements was informed by the presence and preservation of three mature native oaks.

Against the constant datum of the imperceptibly sloping roof, the floor terraces along the contour of the land to define the interior into discrete spaces increasing in volume height away from the relative compression of the entry hall. Each wing of the house terminates with the roof cantilevered from a single column that frees up the exterior walls to be fully glazed, flooding the tall and open volume of the living room with daylight and offering generous views of the pool deck and the wooded silhouettes of the Texas Hill Country beyond.

Cascading Creek House, Texas, by Bercy Chen Studio

Mews 03 by Andy Martin Studio

Mews 03 is a single residence set in fashionable Notting Hill Gate. Andy Martin wanted this existing 2 levels modest mews house to be redeveloped into a 4 levels family home, and to be a private cocoon but open to the elements. An important aspect of this building is the way AMA have managed to capture the available light creatively, using glazed and wooden screens, and even natural vegetation screens giving all the spaces a unique atmosphere throughout the day and night.

One of the abutting walls is clad throughout with Douglas Fir giving one the impression that the building is some fixed back to neatly constructed barn. Andy Martin Studio are architects of strong powerful contrasts. The architecture not only lives with but is positively by its contradictions: elegance and texture, weight and weightlessness and, above all, light and dark.

Mews 03, London, by Andy Martin Studio, via: mocoloco.

House VK1 by Greg Wright Architects

House VK1, a single family dwelling by South African practice Greg Wright Architects is situated between the lion’s head cliffs and the sea in camps bay near cape town, South Africa. The common areas of the house are elevated to provide impressive ocean views. A wall comprised of large sliding glass doors may be opened entirely to lead to a veranda and pool. Inhabitants access the private rooms of the lower level via cantilevered concrete stairs. Wrapping a central courtyard, natural light permeates the ground floor from above. The material palette comprised of polished concrete floors, textured concrete, stainless steel with accents of natural gray stone and glass creates a canvas background for the dynamic activity occurring within.

House VK1 by, Greg Wright Architects, Photography by Adam Letch, via: designboom