Architects: LOHA Architects
Location: Mill Valley, California, USA
Principal in Charge: Lorcan O’Herlihy
Project Manager: Kuo-Huei Tsai
Project Team: Michael Poirier, Juan Diego Gerscovich, Su Yingzi
Structural Engineer: Paul Francheschi
Client: Tony and Rachel Sherman
Project year: 2005
Constructed Area: 386 sqm
Photographs: © Tim Griffith

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Architects: 3LHD
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Project team: Saša Begović, Marko Dabrović, Tatjana Grozdanić Begović, Silvije Novak, Josipa Knez, Paula Kukuljica
Project team Collaborators: Romana Ilić, Lucija Staničić
Collaborators: Mateo Biluš, , fizika zgrade / projekt detalja; Ivan Palijan, Palijan, projekt konstrukcije; Miroslav Janičijević, Bramini d.o.o., projekt strojarskih instalacija; Branko Čorko, IPZ-elektroinženjering 22, projekt elektroinstalacija; Vedran Vrabec, Avoka, projekt vodovoda i kanalizacije; Eugen Zeneral, Schrack Energietechnik, pametna kuća; Milivoj Kovačić, ELTEH, tehnička zaštita; Štefica Prosinečki, , konzultant troškova; Ines Hrdalo, , uređenje krajobraza
Main Contractor: KAMGRAD
Project year: 2005-2006
Construction year: 2006-2008
Site area: 746 sqm
Gross floor area: 480 sqm
Footprint: 175 sqm
Photographs: Damir Fabijanic

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This villa is located in plot #31 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: Slade Architecture
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009-2010
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox

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Adam Kalkin’s Push Button House 1 demonstrates how industrial products can repurposed as architectural elements, or as entire homes. The Push Button House was originally displayed at Art Basel Miami in 2005, and uses a standard shipping container as the structure of a home.

Kalkin’s concept uses hydraulic power to lift and lower the sides of the shipping container, vastly expanding the usable living space. His design incorporates bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchenette, and living area. Though not actually viable for use as a home, Kalkin’s Push Button House is one of many shipping container concepts that utilize an object that might otherwise lie dormant.

Seen at SwipeLife. More images after the break. read more »

Architects: Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects
Location: Montecito, CA, USA
Principal in Charge: Tom Kundig
Year: 2008
Photographs: Tim Bies/Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects

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© Takumi Ota

Architects: FORM/Kouichi Kimura Architects
Location: Shiga, Japan
Client: Private
Construction Year: 2009
Site Area: 215,35 sqm
Constructed Area: 151,71 sqm
Photographs: The copyright of all images belongs to Takumi Ota

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Project: Private house
Location: Chihuahua, Mexico
Architect: PRODUCTORA – Carlos Bedoya, Wonne Ickx, Victor Jaime, Abel Perles
Collaborators: Fernando Sánchez, Ross Adams, Jorge Cárdenas, Iván Villegas, Thorsten Englert
Area: 375m2
Year: 2008
Construction: Baraka
Structural engineering: José Ramón Castillo
Window Framing: Window Concept
Air conditioning: Corbik
Heating: Enrique Wide
Carpentry: Eduardo Morales
Kitchen Installation: Medel Rust
Garden Design: Rocio Amarante
Photography: Iwan Baan, for Abitare

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Portuguese practice Pitagoras Arquitectos sent us this great white concrete house, with some nice patios all over it.

You can see some drawings, more photographs and the architect’s description after the break.

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This villa is located in plot #16 of the ORDOS project.

Architects: OBRA Architects
Location: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China
Principals in Charge: Pablo Castro, Jennifer Lee
Project team: Shin Kook Kang, Atsushi Koizumi, Sara Kim, Patricia Bohrer, Ricardo Escutia, Soojeong Jo, Jiyoung Kim, Mingkyu Kim, Yixin Liu, Doreen Lam, Alvaro Mayoral, Selin Semaan, Paula Zapolski
Structural/Mechanical Engineering: ARUP NY / Mahadev Raman, Brian Markham, Rajesh Shah
Design year: 2008
Construction year: 2009-2010
Curator: Ai Weiwei, Beijing, China
Client: Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd, Inner Mongolia, China
Constructed Area: 1,000 sqm aprox

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Architects: superkül inc
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Principals: Andre D’Elia and Meg Graham
Project Architect: Drew Sinclair
Construction Manager: Boszko and Verity Inc
Structural Engineer: Robert E. Brown Associates
Mechanical Engineer: GPY + Associates Engineering Inc
Constructed Area: 75 sqm
Year: 2008
Photographs: Tom Arban Photography / Lorne Bridgman

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Architects: Vaillo + Irigaray / Antonio Vaillo + Juan Luis Irigaray
Location: Gorraiz, Navarra, Spain
Project manager: Ibón Ibarlucea Ochandiano, architect
Graphic design of facades: Alex Viladrich, ALDRICH
Riggers: José Ingacio Sola y Julián Damboriena
Structure: Gonzalo Díez
Contractor: GOSA S.L.
Project year: 1998
Finished year: 2004
Photographs: José Manuel Cutillas, Albert Font, Joan Mundó

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Architecture can tell us a lot about the places in which the projects are located. So to start comparing different architecture in different countries, we bring you previously featured houses in USA. Next week, houses in Latin America.

Openhouse / XTEN Architecture
The Openhouse is embedded into a narrow and sharply sloping property in the Hollywood Hills, a challenging site that led to the creation of a house that is both integrated into the landscape and open to the city below. Retaining walls are configured to extend the first floor living level into the hillside and to create a garden terrace for the second level. Steel beams set into the retaining walls perpendicular to the hillside are (read more…)

Monte Silo / Gigaplex Architects
Our charge was to design a house for a newly single man with two grown daughters from whom he expects multiple grandchildren. Earl, the client, is foremost a sound engineer, but also a screenwriter (of course), director and producer in the film business, with many big Hollywood pictures to his credit, and hence he has to be on the road for lengthy periods of time. He requested a home both cozy in scale (read more…)

Hill House / Johnston Marklee & Associates
Completed in October 2004, the Hill House was designed under challenging conditions generated by modern problems of building on a hillside. Located in Pacific Palisades, California, while the site for the house offers panoramic views from Rustic and Sullivan Canyons to Santa Monica Bay, the irregularly shaped lot is situated on an uneven, downhill slope. With the canonical Eames House nearby, the 3300 square foot (read more…)

Mount Baker Residense / Pb Elemental Architecture
Located in the Mount Baker neighborhood of Seattle, this dramatic home is perched on a hill, high above the street. The design captures the territorial views of the surrounding rooftops with floor to ceiling glass and roof top deck. The 3,600 sqft home includes four bedrooms, two and a half baths, and a large open living floor with ten foot-tall ceilings and a two car garage with a 400 sqft roof deck above (read more…)

EB1 Home / Replinger Hossner Architects
This contemporary modern house by Replinger Hossner Architects is up for sale in Seattle, WA. Amazing views and good interior spaces. I just got this on my mail and I thought any of our readers could be interested. More pictures here (read more…)

Architects: Paul McKean Architecture
Location: Hood River, Oregon, USA
Project team: Paul McKean, Amy Donohue
Client: Paul McKean, Amy Donohue
Project Year: 2007
Constructed area: 93 sqm
Photographs: Paul McKean

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Peruvian architect Juan Carlos Doblado shared with us another impresive project coming from South America. Two concrete volumes with great views to the Andes.

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The house designed by Prof. Peter Gabrijelcic sits on a narrow parcel of land among typical Slovene suburban structures. On one side, there is a chaotic settlement; on the other, we find the marshy plain of the Barje landscape park, and an intertwining of meadows, fields and ditches, with a magnificent mountain rising in the background. The space is dotted with various types of houses and tradesman’s workshops with their messy yards. When one’s back is turned to the settlement, one may enjoy views of pristine green nature.

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L.A. based practice Standard sent us this 167 sqm concrete and wood passive solar house on the top of a hillside in Los Angeles.

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Architects: Kirsten Gabriëls James Webb
Location: IJburg, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Project architect: Kirsten Gabriëls
Structural engineer: Strackee BV Bouwadviesbureau, Amsterdam
Services engineer: Wolf + Dikken Adviseurs, Wateringen
Artist façade panel: Yvonne Kroese
Contractor: Bouwbedrijf Stadswerk BV, Hoofddorp
Design year: 2006
Completion year: 2008
Constructed area: 285 sqm
Photographs: Marcel Van der Burg

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Wood can be a very good material when designing your future house. It can be cheap, energy efficient, and of course, look good. So to finish this week’s Round Up, we bring you previously featured wooden houses.

Herringbone Houses / Alison Brooks Architects
The Herringbone Houses are two 400sqm houses and integrated landscape located in a wooded back land site overlooking the South London Bowls Club for private developer Lyford Investments. Each open-plan house is composed of two continuous planes of herringbone timber and graphite render surfaces that form walls, floors, external decking and fences. These planes interlock and fold inward at the centre of the house (read more…)

CO2 Saver House / Peter Kuczia
Using untreated larch wood and black fibre cement panels to optimise solar energy gain, this lake house in Poland is a pretty good example of how to be sustainable and respectful with the environment. This sustainable house – like a chameleon – blends with its surrounding area on Laka Lake in south of Poland. Colourful planks within the timber façade reflect the tones of the rural landscape (read more…)

Holiday House on the Rigi / AFGH
Holiday house on the Rigi, Scheidegg. The building was arranged on the periphery of the property so that the distance to the neighbouring houses was as large as posssible and so that the option of constructing another building could be left open. The concrete cellar anchors the building in the sloping terrain and houses the entrance area and the technical servicing on top of which is the wooden volume (read more…)

Experimental home in Ijburg / FARO architecten bv
On the Steigereiland, near Amsterdam, Netherlands, Pieter Weijnen built his own experimental wooden home. The house is painted a vibrant blue, referring to the traditional dike houses of nearby Durgerdam. Spaciousness is the keyword in this design. The ground floor consists of a roomy live-in kitchen. Entering the home, the first thing you notice is the lounge hanging from the ceiling like a floating island (read more…)

Casa Kike / Gianni Botsford Architects
A few months ago i spotted this house with an amazing private library in Domus magazine, on an issue dedicated to contemporary libraries. It has a very detalied wood work. I love the bookshelves between the structure. the text from the architect, more pictures and drawings after the break. By coupling indigenous techniques GBA has created this intimate double pavilion for a writer in Costa Rica (read more…)

Our friends from MVRDV sent us their latest project with Living Architecture, the Balancing Barn, a cantilevered holiday home near the village of Thorington in Suffolk, England. Living Architecture, a British organization devoted to architecture as experience, has commissioned a series of outstanding holiday homes in the UK. MVRDV and co-architect Mole Architects from Cambridge will create a house sympathetic in spirit and materials to the exceptional natural site, which will be available for holiday rental from 2010.

More images and architect’s description, after the break. read more »

Architects: Luca Selva Architects
Location: Binningen, Switzerland
Project year: 2008
Collaborators: Barbara Andres, Roger Braccini
Site Manager: Sabin Achermann
Landscape Architects: August Künzel Landschaftsarchitekten, Basel
Structural Engineer: Walther Mory Maier, Basel
Photographs: Ruedi Walti

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