Most Beautiful Houses in the World: 2011

House without walls, Japan

The house without walls (Japan) has 240 sqm total floor area and is supported by a central core and several extremely thin steel columns. The absence of exterior walls on the ground floor allows the internal area to extend to the surrounding garden on 360 degrees.

Architecure: Tezuka Architects
Photographs: Katsuhisa Kida / FOTOTECA

This white home (USA) was the first house built in new entirely Modernist Dallas neighborhood. The site is irregularly-shaped and overlooks a waterway and public park. Covered porch leads to a double-height entry that is natural light illuminated from above. The space compresses before the next living double-height volume. The master bath, living space and dining space are arranged enfilade about a center space that leads through a double-height window to a park and sculpture garden.

Architecture and photography: Morrison Seifert Murphy

The floating house is situated near remote island surrounded by picturesque views of the Great Lakes in Canada. Sauna and boat dock are located on the first floor and a living room, kitchen, office and bedroom are on the second floor.

Architecture: MOS – Michael Meredith, Hilary Sample
Photography: Florian Holzherr

The owners of the beach house (Auckland, New Zealand) are returning to live in Waiheke Island after a long period in Asia. Perfect design and location make this home a nice place to take a rest for soul and mind.

Architecture: Daniel Marshall Architects
Photography: Ernie Shackles

The Openhouse (Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California) is embedded into a sharply sloping and narrow property in the Hollywood Hills, a site that led to the design of a house that is both open to the city below and integrated into the landscape. Retaining walls of the house are configured to design the second level`s garden terrace and to extend the living level on the first floor into the hillside.

Architecture: XTEN
Photos: Art Gray Photography

Amazing concrete house design is simple and clear. The circle roof openings spread the sunlight, creating abstract and pure atmosphere in the house. Central patio generates entrance through the staircase and connects the houses three stories. The house relates three exterior spaces: garden, roof terrace and plaza, allowing exteriors for a pretty big area.

Architecture: Eduardo Berlin Razmilic
Photography: Eduardo Berlin & Sebastian Sepulveda

The house with swimming pool on roof is inspired on the Astronomical Observatory Jantar Mantar, built in 1724 in Delhi. The vacation house is situated on the Pacific rocky coast and includes two bedrooms, kitchen and living room.

Design: Gabriel Orozco, Tatiana Bilbao, Carlos Leguizamo
Photography: Iwan Baan

Aesthetically, the solar passive house design (France) is very similar to a traditional house. Design of the facades is open to the southern sun, and is closed to the energy loss to the north. The structure of the house is assembled from prefabricated wooden panels.

Design: Karawitz Architecture
Photography: Karawitz and Herve Abbadie

Steep Slope House Design, Canada

Beautiful home in Whistler

In the Khyber Ridge House, 2005, NMinusOne created a dynamic environment to give a sense of motion and activity to a static construction. “It’s not the way a space looks but the way you experience space,” said Marcopoulos. The steep slope house design has a flat roof system that looks like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water—only it performs much better—and allows the snow to be the insulation in winter.

Drawings / Floor Plans
Renderings
About Studio (n-1)
About Yu Strandberg Engineering

Architecture: Studio (n-1) (Studio NminusOne)
Contractor: Michael McGillion
Consultants: Yu Strandberg Engineering + local engineer C.A. Boom Engineering Ltd.
Project: Khyber Ridge house
Client: Marc Morisset
Location: Whistler, BC, Canada
Year: 2005
Photography: Ari Marcopoulos, Frank Jones

Five levels steep slope house design (Canada) is distributed along a steep mountain slope, developing diverse relations to the surrounding views, the landscape and the internal program or functions of the house.

The Khyber Ridge - steep slope house was built for a professional snowboarder. The main strategy takes its concept from the close engagement of a shredder surface following the inclined line of a mountain slope; it is one of maximum design engagement with the building site. This unusual house is distributed along a steep mountain slope, developing various tactical relations to the surrounding landscape, the views and the functions of interior space or program of the architecture of the house.

The lower level of five levels, contains a guest house with embedded in the rock design for maximum privacy. The green roof blends in with the mountain landscape. In contrast the main living space is designed with a cantilevering roof and a suspended floor projecting out of the mountain slope. The cantilever is securely anchored by four steel beams 3 foot deep drilled directly into the rock body; the floor is suspended by four stainless steel rods, 1 inch diameter. With its glass enclosure design, the effect created is of a freely floating open platform, revealing when occupied the full impact of the surrounding mountains. One is literally suspended in space and surrounded by the foliage of trees. The upper level bedrooms retreat back along the contours of the mountain producing discreet relationships to the surrounding views. As the inhabitants navigate these spaces, they continuously weave in and out of the terrain.

In the winter, the surface of flat roof of the living level retains the snow. A thick layer of snow then acts as an additional insulating blanket and helps to keep the temperature on the roof close to 0 degrees Celsius. In the summer, the flat surface of the roof becomes a necessary space for outdoor living, leaving the rest of the nearest sloped land intact.

The House of Ruins is situated on the coast of the Baltic Sea in Latvia. It is a single family house built inside the ruins of a traditional 19th century Latvian barn. The architects have used the idea of contrast, cold wind from the Baltic sea is opposed with the warmth of the family, rough surface of the old stone is set against perfection of glass. The house provides quietness of the nature and modern life comfort.

Architecture: NRJA

Environmentally friendly and affordable building material - mixture of clay, straw and sand was used to build the walls of the beautiful cob cottage (Oregon, USA). The thermal mass of cob around the wood stove allows save a comfortable warm temperature inside the house for a long time.

Cob cottage design and photography: Artisan Builders Collective

This beautiful limestone home (Antilles islands (Caribbees), France) is situated on a thin, high peninsula of the St. Barthelemy island. The facades are sliding glass panels. This creates a seamless connection between the exterior spaces and the main living space.

Architecture: Barnes Coy Architects
Photography: Robert Moore Brown

Each floor of this beautiful green roof garden home has a separate garden, located on the landscaped roof of the lower floor. Thus achieved a feeling that each level represents a single-storey home, situated in a green garden.

Architecture: Guz Architects
Project: Meera Sky Garden House
Area: 852 кв.м.
Year: 2010
Photography: Patrick Bingham Hall

Luxury vacation house (Guaruja, Sao Paulo, Brazil) designed to be supported by five pillars, with living rooms/dining rooms/sitting rooms, balconies, en-suites bedrooms and a pool facing the beautiful sight of ocean beach. Preserved vegetation and terrain.

Architecture: Bernardes Jacobsen Architecture
Photography: Leonardo Finotti

The plot on which the corten steel and wood facade house (Leyden, Netherlands) is located, is rather narrow and limited to neighboring buildings. Therefore, to ensure effective inner space lighting with sunlight, inside the house was constructed the "canyon", whereby during the day, natural light penetrates into the inner rooms of the lower level.

Design: 24H > architecture
Photos: Boris Zeisser 24H

This beautiful office area of 3200 sq. m. is designed for 250 employees St. Joseph’s media company, which produces popular Canadian magazines.

Design: Teeple Architects
Photographs: Tom Arban

The architect of the avant-garde mind black and white cube house (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) compares it with "coconut", hard and black outside, delicious and white inside.

Architecture: Reza Aliabadi [rzlbd]
Photography: borXu Design

Villa Nyberg - round passive house is the first eco friendly home designed and built as type house in Sweden. This is the first attempt to make passive house technology available for all. The house is situated near a fur forest and the kitchen and living room open up towards the superior views of the beautiful lake. The architectural plan is designed in accordance with the movement of the sun over the day and the walls have round shape to eliminate the risk of heat losses through cold bridges. Passive houses are largely heated by the energy present in the building – household equipment and people generate a lot of energy. This well-insulated house has only 25 kWh/sqm of annual energy consumption for heating.

Design and photos: Kjellgren Kaminsky Architecture
Area: 156 sqm
Year: 2010

The Nightingale luxury house in West Hollywood (Los Angeles, California, USA) is a focus of luxury, situated in a picturesque area of surrounding hills. The house has five bedrooms, a cinema, swimming pool with stunning views of the city and outdoor fireplace for chilly evenings.

Architecture: Marc Canadell

The design of the one storey courtyard house (Sweden) is based on the atrium house typology popular in Denmark in the 60s and 70s years and has an outer gas concrete wall and an inner glazed facade. Living area is in the eastern wing; bathrooms and sleeping quarters are in the northern wing. Several lightwells allow sunlight to penetrate into the house.

Architecture: Johan Sundberg
Photography: Henrik Magnusson

The monumental appearance of the steel and glass pyramid fixed in the middle of the Cour Napoleon provides a focal point that compliments the design and scale of the Louvre. The scale of the large glass pyramid, which is designed to the proportions of the Pyramid of Giza, does not detract from the historical architecture of Louvre rather the juxtaposition of the modern construction and the French Renaissance style of Louvre creates a complimentary effect that increases beauty and each of the design’s details.

Architecture: I.M. Pei
Photography: Greg Kristo, Flavio Bragaia, Reji K. A

A beautiful airy design of the luxury oceanfront beach house (California, USA) makes it a very comfortable place to spend time. The main characteristics of the project, according to the author, are openness and clarity, which are designed to inspire, encourage spirit and feed mind and body.

Architecture: Richard Meier, Michael Palladino
Photographs: Scott Frances/Esto

The design of the facade of this rustic log cabin is an example of mimicry in architecture, in this case, imitation of a pile of logs. With built-in wheels, this house, which is a recording studio, can easily be moved to any convenient place.

Design: Piet Hein Eek

The little summer house (Gotland, Sweden) designed as simple as possible. In one space is placed everything you need: a place to sleep, a kitchen in the middle, there is a shower outside. Walls are made of lightweight concrete blocks, and a simple roof structure covered with corrugated steel sheet.

Architecture: DinellJohansson - Morten Johansson
Photography: Elisabeth Toll

The design of Villa Dali (Hague, Netherlands) reflected the client`s fascination with art of Salvador Dali.

Architecture: 123DV Architecture & Consult
Photography: Christiaan de Bruijne

This residential house is situated on the ocean coast in Mauntok, United States. Building the house was carried on wood frame technology erection of walls and used green roof.

Architecture: Maziar Behrooz

History of the Netherlands is closely related to influence of water on people`s life, who build dams to protect their land from water. In recent years, floating houses have become one of the solutions to contemporary housing needs. Channels with floating houses look familiar today in the Dutch cities and floating hotel or restaurant can be easily found. These individual modules are generally more similar to boats than homes.

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of floating homes, which have more features similar to land-based housing. Floating homes classified as real property and compete with land-based homes living space and comfort level.

Architecture: Architectenbureau Marlies Rohmer
Photography: Marcel van der Burg, Roos Aldershoff, Luuk, Kramer

WikiLeaks сomputer сenter (Stockholm, Sweden) is located at a depth of 30 meters in the rock bunker, which was used during the Cold War. On the area of 1200 sq. m. are two servers and equipment, providing independent power supply for operation of the center.

Architecture: Albert France-Lanord Architects
Photography: Ake E:son Lindman

Zen water house design (China) combines the use of natural materials with simplicity of forms. Stone, water and wood are designed to create a meditative sense of serenity, peace, and bring a contemplative attitude to the environment.

Architecture and photographs: Li Xiaodong Atelier

Floorplans

Architecture: Enproyecto Arquitectura
Project team: Sergio Garcia-Gasco Lominchar, Jorge Cortes, Borja Garcia

This small simple stone house (Spain) is situated on a hilltop, planted cherry trees, which offers a beautiful view of the surroundings. Design of this home is determined by local building codes that allow the construction of facilities for storing agricultural equipment, with area of no more than 25 sq m and an underground reservoir for water storage. The main space is occupied by living room and kitchen, bedroom is over them. Basement with natural daylight contains bathroom, studio and second bedroom.

Client is an industrial designer, so the industrial design minimalist house (Tokyo, Japan) is not only convenient and ergonomic place to live, but also reflects professional activities of the owner.

Architecture: Koji Tsutsui Architect & Associates
Photography: Masao Nishikawa

This luxury private villa includes a resort, a private museum and a guest house. Rooms are arranged around a large patio, forming a broad, full of light, organic space.

Architecture: Ciel Rouge Creation

Views to the desert sky and surrounding Arizona mountains naturally radiate through the glazed walls house. A large percentage of the building and construction materials are recycled content such as the concrete flooring, zinc siding and glass.

Architecture and photographs: Circle West Architects

Modern and simple design two story house is located in Ramat-Hasharon, Israel. The house is divided into two wings which connected with open staircases.

Architecture: Domb Architects
Photography: Amit Geron

This holiday and weekend house is situated on a small island near Auckland, New Zealand. The living-kitchen-dining space is an informal glazed pavilion and is placed between two cedar-clad private rooms blocks.

Architecture: Mitchell and Stout Architects
Photography: Patrick Reynolds

The modern concrete home situated on the slope oriented to the south not far from Madrid, Spain. Overhanging part of the facade on the front side of the house protects the inner space from the hot sun in summer and allow sunlight to fall inside during winter months.

Architecture: Inaqui Carnicero Alonso-Colmenares

Pirate Ship interior design has been selected a six-year client, among other options proposed: a spaceship, racing car and an old castle.

Design: Kuhl Design Build

Contemporary two bedrooms house (Victoria, Australia) situated on a narrow city allotment. The house was designed for an Art Gallery director and provide an extra study for visiting artists and private gallery.

Architects: Nervegna Reed Architecture
Photos: John Gollings

The single family residence in Hawaii (USA) includes main living space, media room, common areas and master suite. Focal and organizational feature is the exterior gallery corridor along a central axis.

Architecture: Belzberg Architects

In this luxury villa project in Mallorca (Spain) have been used such low energy, sustainable and innovative technologies as geothermal, passive cooling, photovoltaic, daylighting, super-insulated and solar water heating.

Architecture: tecDesign, Sebastian Knorr

The treehouse residence built on an inaccessible slope lot. This resource efficient and cost effective building designed to minimize long term site impact and use light and view to accentuate the experience of living in the treehouse.

Architecture: SHED

The artist studios situated on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada. The houses recycle their own waste and produce their own power and 100% off-the-grid.

Architectors: Saunders Architecture
Photos: Bent Rene´Synnevåg

This modern highland house in Pyrenees (Spain) stands out among the surrounding mountain scenery and a few buildings in the neighborhood. Location on the slope combines privacy, the opportunity to enjoy the spectacular views and breathe the fresh mountain air.

Architecture: Cadaval & Sola-Morales

The rustic natural stone Swiss house situated in rural mountain area of Switzerland, was designed to combine comfort and work on paintings of owner-artist.

Architecture: Lawrence Savioz
Photos: Thomas Jantscher

Contemporary design of this large single-family house creates an atmosphere of openness and support a visual link with the surrounding landscape through extensive glazing.

Architecture: Architrend Architecture
Photos: Umberto Agnello

The house consists of social area and private area, which include living rooms and bedrooms, respectively. The private patios are used to communicate underground rooms with the environment.

Architecture: Manuel Aires Mateus
Photos: FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra

The contrast between the dark surfaces of the ground floor and large windows, the white walls of the first floor and lava stone makes the construction of the contemporary minimalist villa design with indoor patio to be light and suspended. The living room has a glass central patio, natural light illuminated, with a green palm tree in the middle.

Architect: Architrend Architecture
Photos: Moreno Maggi

Minimalist style custom residential interior design decorating includes modern elements of art, assortment of wood types and custom pieces to attract the attention of visitors to all the right places.

Architects: Bodron + Fruit

Exterior curved walls of the Australian concrete house was designed for windblown sails facade feeling. The house looks more like a white sailboat, if we look at it from the pool. Large facade glazing allows a lot of natural light in.

Architects and photos: Tony Owen Partners

The modular frame prefab cottage consists of 2 modules separated and raised for privacy, space and light. An open rooftop deck establishes a direct connection with the outdoors and creates a sense of openness.

Architecture and photos: Garrison Architects