architecture

Big and bold

Kelly Behun is known for her minimalist interiors injected with unexpected gestures – be it a bolt of strong colour, a vintage chair or the even kookier one off piece. When charged with the job of this Park Avenue apartment she took it to the next level. Owned by an art collector this project was an adventure for both...

without a trace

A family home built in a former granite quarry hovers over the landscape, it is not founded traditionally, a steel load-distributing modular raft is bedded on existing granite blocks – remnants of former mining with a timber frame erected over the raft. The house located in Posázaví, Czech Republic sits on the edge of a rock above a lake, the dwelling preserves the surrounding grown trees...

connected living

What is it that draws us in to São Paulo architecture? For me it’s the large volumes of space that seem to always be on point, not too big, still cozy, warm and always open to the surroundings, bathed in natural night, natural ventilation with modern engineering and using natural materials mixed with stone and concreate. Jacobsen Architects...

experiencing nature

The Seashore Chapel serves the resort community of Hebei, China. It is the artificial space that is the closest to the ocean in the community. Apart from religious programs, many public and community events are planned in Seashore Chapel. Together with Seashore Library, they provide spiritual spaces at ocean front, where people can slow down their pace, experience the nature and examine their inner state. When...

Milan living

The Moscova house by Peter Russo for Italian firm Studio GUM is an apartment with a rectangular plan, placed on the top floor of a nineteenth-century building, situated in a street corridor connecting the ‘garden’ of the city of Milan, the Sempione Park, to “Chinatown”. The clients, a young couple with two children decided to return to live in Italy after...

descending down

Casa U is located in the suburbs of Mexico city on a steep hilly site overlooking the Valley of Mexico. Studio Materia questioned the typical sequence of a house, by placing the main entry via the roof which descends into the private and social spaces of the house. A large number of trees served for framing the house...

Monolithic massing

I’m not normally one for the paired back, you may have gathered by the interiors I post about week after week. There is on occasion however a building which sparks my love of pure form and massing. This 600 square metre house in Portugal is surrounded by a golf course and uses a series of planar forms to delineate space – the public vs private...

The Thong House

Situated in a new residential area of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, this multi-storied family residence is a reinterpretation of the local architectural vernacular, both in terms of composition and use of materials. Designed by the studio of Japanese, Vietnam-based architect Shurnri Nishizawa. Thong House has the form of a stack of cubes built around a main staircase, the...

Australian Contrast

With a clear vision of what they wanted to create, Sydney based Those Architects set about designing a modern addition to a 19th-century heritage listed home in the rural New South Wales town of Armidale. The key to this project was the architect’s desire to ensure the extension not only created a clear link between old and new...

Holding its own-New Zealand

Located in Thames New Zealand the site is 20 hectares of farmland on the Kauaeranga river, it stretches from high on the hillside to the river banks and includes a ridgeline which commands a panoramic view of the farmland below and the native bush on the opposite slopes of the valley. The clients are a couple, a director and camera operator in the film industry, their...