"Feeling at home" is more than just an expression—it is the sense of warmth and comfort that transforms a space into a true refuge. To achieve this, elements like color, texture, lighting, and materials play a crucial role in shaping an environment that fosters relaxation and well-being. Backed by research in environmental psychology and neuroscience, the connection between physical spaces and human behavior highlights how architecture can directly influence the atmosphere, turning chaos into tranquility.
Residential architecture remains one of the most active fields for unbuilt architectural exploration, offering a lens through which architects rethink how domestic space can respond to landscape, climate, and contemporary patterns of living. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected proposals bring together a range of residential projects that engage with houses, villas, and retreats as sites of withdrawal, mediation, and everyday inhabitation. Rather than treating the home as a fixed or isolated object, these projects approach it as a spatial framework that negotiates exposure, privacy, and connection to place.
On the southern edge of Vienna, a cluster of monumental terraces rises above the cityscape, their stepped balconies cascading with greenery and their rooftops crowned with swimming pools. This is the Wohnpark Alterlaa, one of the most ambitious social housing projects in postwar Europe. Designed by Austrian architect Harry Glück and built between 1973 and 1985, the complex was founded on a provocative principle: municipal housing should not only provide affordable shelter but also offer the pleasures and amenities usually reserved for the wealthy.
With more than 3,000 apartments housing nearly 9,000 residents, Alterlaa was conceived as a city within the city. Alongside its residential towers, it incorporates shops, schools, medical services, and cultural facilities, ensuring that daily life can unfold entirely within its boundaries. The project reflects a moment of optimism in Vienna's urban policy, when housing was understood as infrastructure for collective well-being rather than as a commodity.
Moscow-based architecture, urban design, and research practice Meganom is nearing completion of its residential skyscraper at 262 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. Designed for client Five Points Development, the project dates back to 2015 and brings together an international team that includes Norm Architects as interior architect, SLCE Architects as architect of record, and untitled architecture overseeing architectural supervision and project management. Rising 860 feet over 52 stories, the tower contains 26 residential units within approximately 140,000 square feet and draws conceptual inspiration from aeronautics, envisioning apartments as elevated "shelves" that frame expansive views of the city.
Across Latin America, renovation has become less about preservation alone and more about responding to changing ways of living. Rather than freezing buildings in time, many contemporary projects work with existing structures to adapt them to new domestic routines, social dynamics, and spatial needs. Through strategic changes in materials, composition, color, and light, these interventions reinterpret everyday spaces while maintaining a strong connection to their original context.
In this process, houses and apartments become sites of transformation where flow, continuity, and shared spaces are carefully reconsidered. Renovation operates as a precise architectural tool, one that prioritizes natural light, openness, and flexibility to support daily life as it evolves. Instead of imposing new forms, these projects repurpose what is already there, aligning spatial decisions with the habits and rituals of those who inhabit them.
This year's selection of Best Latin American Houses brings together both renovations and ground-up projects, covering reinterpretations of local construction techniques and innovative architectural responses. The works are set in a wide range of contexts, from dense urban environments to rural and coastal landscapes.
Timpaan, Blauwhoed and White Arkitekter, together with SeARCH, Space&Matter, Atlas Architects and DS Land Landschapsarchitecten, have been selected for the proposed development of The Erven, a timber-based neighbourhood planned for Hoofddorp in the Amsterdam metropolitan region. The winning proposal forms part of a major phase of the Lincolnpark area and outlines approximately 519 homes designed around four courtyards, or erven, inspired by the traditional Dutch farmstead.
In Vietnam, the tube house has almost become a vernacular form in densely populated cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. This typology originated from ancient façade taxes and as a strategic response to urban land scarcity and optimization of street frontage for commerce. Their traditional structure typically relies on the front façade for daylight and ventilation. People living there often face the challenge of designing in a space defined by the deep plots, limited street frontage, and close neighboring buildings, restricting natural light and airflow. To counter this fundamental lack of perimeter exposure, Vietnamese architects usually employ several strategies oriented towards internal environmental manipulation. This curated collection explores tube houses under 100 m2, where their small size increased the need for absolute spatial economy and the verticalization of function, which directly influenced design decisions across all projects.
Collective housing remains one of the most active areas for unbuilt architectural exploration, revealing how architects are rethinking domestic life, density, and shared living across different cultural and environmental contexts. In this curated Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected proposals investigate new forms of dwelling that span mobile units, vertical developments, adaptive reuse, and landscape-driven residential clusters. Rather than treating housing as a purely functional container, these projects position it as a social and spatial framework that shapes everyday life, community ties, and long-term urban resilience.
Across varied geographies, from Tirana and Athens to Monterrey, Chaloos, Roatán, Bhola, and the DRC, these proposals explore multiple approaches to collective living: transforming industrial shells into residential structures, extending existing masterplans through landscape integration, reimagining verticality in dense urban centers, and developing modular prototypes that can adapt to changing climates or patterns of mobility. Some projects prioritize ecological strategies and local materials, while others test new models for accessibility, community well-being, or incremental urban growth. Together, they reflect a broad spectrum of architectural responses to contemporary housing pressures.
Living by the beach has long been a defining aspiration—drawn by the promise of tempered nature, privacy, and immediate access to the water. Historically, beach houses tended to be rustic and pared back: partly because servicing remote sites and delivering materials was difficult, and partly because their charm lay in being closer to the elements—simpler, rougher, more direct.
Accordingly, many early beach houses were built in timber. Wood offered clear advantages: it was lightweight, adaptable, quick to work with, and could be erected with minimal heavy machinery. While timber weathers and fares poorly in salt-laden humidity, exterior-grade lumber carries a raw, natural character that reinforced the appeal of the beach-house ideal.
Founded in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2007 by Johanna Hurme and Sasa Radulovic, and shortly afterward joined by its third partner, Colin Neufeld, 5468796 Architecture was established as an architecture firm whose early work explored the current state of housing in North America. The Canadian studio operates as a collaborative group of approximately 20 designers, where they prioritize the collective value of ideas over individual authorship.
The Sax residential towers by MVRDV. Render. Image Courtesy of MVRDV
The City of Rotterdam, developers BPD and Synchroon, and architecture firm MVRDV have officially begun construction on The Sax, a major residential project located on Rotterdam's Wilhelminapier. Designed to contribute to the city's ongoing densification efforts, the development will deliver 916 apartments within two interconnected towers. Once completed, The Sax will make Wilhelminapier the most densely populated area in the Netherlands, making the project an example of compact urban growth. The design comprises two towers, combining a wide mix of housing types and shared amenities with strong connections to public transport and sustainable mobility solutions, including parking for 1,800 bicycles and a fully automated car garage. With its silver façade and undulating balconies, the building's form echoes the shape of a saxophone, reflecting the character of Rotterdam.
Montreal, the second largest city in Canada is home to a wide array of heritage residential architecture, most of it dating to the 19th and early 20th-century. These are particularly abundant in some of its central neighborhoods like the Plateau Mont-Royal. Interestingly, their preservation is not accidental; it is the result of decades of advocacy by influential figures who recognized the value of the city's built environment, such as Phyllis Lambert and Blanche Lemco Van Ginkel. Efforts like theirs were instrumental in landmark preservation battles that helped to ensure current municipal support. Today, the city has implemented a set of comprehensive heritage protection laws designed to safeguard the integrity of the city's historic neighborhoods.
Across geographies and generations, architects are rethinking the idea of home, balancing personal expression, contextual sensitivity, and material clarity. These contemporary residential proposals, submitted by the ArchDaily community, reveal how the house continues to evolve as both an architectural statement and an intimate landscape for living. From the sculptural and futuristic to the grounded and vernacular, they explore how built form balances between identity, environment, and lifestyle in an increasingly complex world.
Foster + Partners Gstaad House project in Switzerland. Render. Image Courtesy of Foster + Partners
Foster + Partners has received planning permission for a new timber residential building in Gstaad, Switzerland. Designed as a house in the Alpine resort town, the project combines residential use with exhibition, storage, and social spaces. According to the architects, it will be the first purpose-built facility in Gstaad to accommodate the specialised requirements of fine art, cars, fashion, and antique collections.
Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture recently revealed images of the AlUla Immersive Living project, a proposed dwelling envisioned to emerge from the desert landscape of Saudi Arabia. Its form is shaped by the site's light and wind, rooted in climate, and positioned between rock and dune. The design follows the concept of a shelter belonging as much to the desert as to its inhabitants, and behaving as a "living landscape." The structure is conceived with thick rammed-earth walls, contrasted by open platforms that frame the sky. It is presented as a statement of architecture intended "not to dominate but to host," providing refuge without severing connections, reflecting Lina Ghotmeh's position at the intersection of context, craft, and care.
Overprovision can be seen as an architecture strategy through the lens of resilience—making spaces adaptable to changes, reinterpretations, and future needs. However, could overprovision also offer a productive lens for rethinking spatial design? Are there parallels in architectural theory or practice that align with this concept, as explored by notable figures in the discourse on space?
This question becomes particularly relevant in residential design, especially in regions like Hong Kong or Tokyo, where the demand to maximize space is a cultural and practical norm. Designers are frequently tasked with "making use of every inch" for storage or function, reflecting a tendency among residents to accumulate belongings disproportionate to their living spaces.
