In one particularly humorous episode, the old television program Candid Camera tried to sell a house that had no toilets. (It was remarkable how many potential buyers didn't notice the defect.)
This master bath breaks the mold of the traditional lavatory: not only is it uniquely integral to the success of its adjacent bedroom, it also contends with challenging site conditions. One would hardly suspect all that is at play here, thanks to a meticulous execution by Chicago-based Studio Dwell Architects.
A world-class institution, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto houses an extensive collection of cultural artifacts and natural history curios, from decorative objects to dinosaur bones.
For the expansion of a 1970s-era kit house on the East End of Long Island in Southampton, New York, architect Paul Masi looked to the structure's muscular prefabricated components for design cues—a choice that ultimately informed the look and feel of the addition’s bold new kitchen, completed last year.
Site size: 3.5 acres Project size: 2,400 square feet Program: Bud and Colleen Konheim asked Specht Harpman Architects to design a light-filled, yet private modern cottage on a wooded site adjacent to the Saugatuck River in southwestern Connecticut. Location: The house is in a river valley, a steep 80-foot drop from the main road along the ridgeline. Solution: The architects immersed the concrete and glass house in the landscape so that a series of green rooftop terraces gently step down from the street to the river below. The house, T-shaped in plan, consists of two perpendicular rectilinear volumes: The first,
Project size: Covered space 2,260 square feet; Terrace 5,600 square feet Program: A family living in Taiwan wanted to give new life to a crumbling, redbrick farmhouse on their lush, tropical property. In 2009 they commissioned Finnish'based firm Casagrande Laboratory to design the project. Location: The property is located on a hilly site in Yangmingshan National Park outside Taipei, where jungle encroaches upon the house. Solution: Completed in 2013, the renovation and addition, dubbed 'Ultra-Ruin,' melds jungle, decay, and new construction. The new building envelops the old farmhouse in a horseshoe-shaped series of rooms, terraces, and porches, creating what the
Site size: 19,042 square feet Project size: 7,500 square feet Program: When the clients, Thom and Sarah McElroy, purchased a half-acre wedge-shaped lot overlooking the Pacific Ocean in coastal California, they asked Ehrlich Architects to design a contemporary house for indoor-outdoor living. The clients, who swim or surf daily, wanted panoramic views of the water, sustainable materials requiring little maintenance in the salty air, and a design that adhered to a strict 11-foot height limit set to preserve views throughout the gated community. Solution: The house, a series of rectangular volumes united by a flat roof, is organized around a
Project Size: 1,290 square feet Program: Architect Johan Selbing and landscape architect Anouk Vogel conceived the Mirror House in 2006 as a winning entry in a competition to design experimental single-family houses for a new housing development. The brief for the competition, titled De Eenvoud ('simplicity'), called for designs with a strong relationship to the site. After winning the competition, the designers then had to find a client themselves, and construction began in 2012. Location: The house is located in a clearing in the Noorderplassen-West forest outside Almere, a city east of Amsterdam known for experimental residential projects. Solution: The