The project is a residence for a couple, doubling up as an office. The site is situated within a residential neighborhood, where the cost of land are among the highest in Tokyo, with the cluttered urban fabric typical to residential areas in downtown Tokyo. It is hard to say if the quality of living environment deserves the price of land.

Another attractive residence from Seattle based Adams Mohler Ghillino Architects, Livability on a tight urban lot is enhanced through creative, efficient and flexible use of space. The shed-roofed upper floor of the main house rests above an open ground floor living space while a detached accessory structure serves as garage, office, playspace or guest quarters.

The full length of the site was designed as an alternating series of indoor and outdoor rooms with a continuous cedar clad wall visually connecting the spaces. The relationship between inside and out is blurred through the use of slide/fold doors that open the full width of the living space to the exterior at both ends. With the doors open, the living room becomes a porch to the street allowing the owners to interact with neighbors and passersby while the dining room extends to a private terrace and garden.

Wedged into a tight lot along Lake Candlewood in New Fairfield, Connecticut, this new home’s form and structure was derived from observations of trees and an adaptation of local building techniques. The project began with studies of leaf canopies, accumulated ring structures, and the dappled light that filters through groups of trees. Multiple study models in several media (concrete, acrylic, wood, plaster), investigated how light flows through perforations in these various materials.

Della Valle + Bernheimer used these models to observe, secondarily, how certain materials would be suited to creating a stable, discrete, but minimal structure. During the formative process they were interested in designing a house that seemed in large part to float and protect, much like the tree canopies on the site shelter the ground beneath them.

All photographs by Richard Barnes

 

This  warm, attractive residence, well integrated its its rural settings. is one of the recipients of the AIA’s Housing Awards.

Approaching the rural site, a clearing briefly reveals the Port Townsend Residence in the distance, spanning the end of a long meadow framed by forest.


After winding through dense woods, the drive opens to the home’s entry, where wood screens obscure the distant views. The path to the house steps up and turns onto the breezeway deck, where the full nature of the site is finally revealed as the view focuses over the edge of a high bluff to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, with Protection Island and beyond.

A line of exposed steel structure and a series of wood columns extend the length of the slender building, supporting wood beams and rafters.

Photo Credit: © Nic Lehoux Photography

The project renovates a 3-storey house (650 sq. m) built in the 70’s in Athen's north suburbs. It needed to be totally redesigned to suit the needs of the owners; a couple with their 3 children owning a significant collection of Contemporary Art. The house situated on a steep site possessed a distinctive style from the seventies that is usually found in the suburbs of Athens.

© Doug Edmunds Studio

2010 AIA Housing Award Recipient, this house is the careful reinvention of an existing, ill-conceived suburban production home at the end of its life cycle. This project challenges the ordinary but environmentally irresponsible tabula rasa approach – tear down and build bigger – and offers a sensible alternative, illustrating how the bones of a dysfunctional building can be reclaimed as the framework for a contemporary, precisely detailed dwelling. The project is a case study for a resource-conscious suburban renewal in a time of economic and ecological distress.

One of the recipients of the AIA 2010 Housing Awards, this single-family house is situated along the Connecticut shoreline of Long Island Sound. It is conceived of as an extension of both its natural and social contexts. Building on the site is regulated not only by the implied aesthetic expectations of a neighborhood association, but also by town zoning regulations on height and yard setbacks, as well as FEMA regulations requiring structures to be raised above base flood zones.

Photograph â’¸ David Sundberg/Esto

 

The CG House rests on a generous 17,250 sq. ft. site adjacent to the Sierra Madre Mountains. While the site’s steep slope presented a number of design challenges, the dramatic views it afforded of the city of Monterrey provided the architect with a number of opportunities as well.

From the street, two massive oak tress rise to provide privacy and welcome shade to the swimming pool terrace above. Due to the sloping nature of the site, a massive, exposed concrete wall defines and encloses the swimming pool and garden areas of the house and sets the tone for the design of the house itself, which is clad in brown/black volcanic stone, IPE wood, white stucco and steel.

 

 

Photographs by Jorge Taboada