Renzo Piano never wanted to build a house. With a portfolio of museums, towers, and other award-winning buildings across the world, his mind was elsewhere.
A Stairway to the Treetops: A chameleonlike house'which changes with the seasons and throughout the day'provides a perch for total immersion in the surrounding woods.
With his design for the Atrium House, 36-year-old architect Fran Silvestre takes a fresh look at 20th-century Modernist formulas, from the courtyard houses of Mies van der Rohe of the 1920s and '30s to the Case Study Houses in Los Angeles of the 1950s and '60s.
No hotel tower or gritty boardwalk impedes the dramatic sunset over the wide, windswept beach of Mar Azul, a remote and laid-back vacation town a few hours from Buenos Aires on Argentina's South Atlantic coast. 'Blue Sea' may be something of a misnomer, as the water is brown and turbid, but the rugged landscape is no less lovely for it.
A Slice of Life for a Modern Family: In sharp contrast to the client's previous Western-style dwelling, this open, loftlike house encourages togetherness, a quality of life still prized by the Japanese.
Visitors to the hilltop neighborhood of Travessa do Patroc'nio in Lisbon come screeching to a halt (even if on foot) when they first glimpse a three-story house whose walls pulsate with lush vegetation.