Huts

A hut is located in a small Alpine village part of the Triglav national park, a community with very strict rules on construction and architectural design. The client bought the site and a project with construction permit. The request of the client was to modify the project within the borders and volumes of an existing project. Basically, the main task was to give the hut a new look, create a new veranda around the house and position the openings towards the views and increasing its sustainability. The given volume of the house is 6x11 meters with 42 degree pitched roof. Also the other external dimensions and material types remained from the existing project. Additional elements such as wooden columns raised hanging terrace and façade pa... More

The house is located in the centre of a garden. Each single room is oriented to one of the trees. The living room faces the apple tree, the master bedroom, the cherry tree, the bathroom faces the peach tree, the guest room, the silver spruce and the children’s room, the walnut. Each room has its unique view and atmosphere. The building is resting like a lizard in a sun-lit meadow. The inspiration for the proposal of this house is in fact a chameleon. Eyes (windows) unrestrictedly observe the surroundings. The skin (facade), consisting of a semi-gloss coat, partly reflects the colours of the garden and the sky. The geometry of the walls creates two different types of spaces within one plot: "The house spaces" and "the garden spac... More

The Eco Houses grew from a double conceptual root. On the one hand, ensuring the profitability of Pedras Salgadas Park as a tourist hotel project made the option between rehabilitating the existing hotel or building a new one a project that was as slow as it was costly. On the other hand, the organicity of the park itself actually suggests implementing these bungalows, which are small in comparison with a conventional hotel and much easier to conceal in the existing tree cover. The main characteristic is their modular nature. This fundamental detail continuously transforms the experience of those who lodge there. Any of the houses – consisting of a hall, bathroom, sitting room and bedroom – allows for multiple layouts, so that it was possib... More

A summer house for a young family. The site on the Swedish island Gotland in the Baltic Sea is surrounded by open fields to the north and low forest in the south.Local building traditions are important in this region, as well as for the architect and client. The slim volume invites light into the house and makes nature alwayspresent. A tarred pine roof adds character to the sheer volume and spans the private bedrooms and bathroom, the indoor and outdoor living room and the guest room. In time, after a number of tar treatments the roof and the façade will have the same colour. Walls, floors, ceilings and kitchen are made of local pine.The outdoor living room is designed for the unstable Swedish summer climate with rain, wind and sun. Exterio... More

This hill top house is a concrete expression of Armidale ’s unique meetingof rural life and culture, “agri-culture”, a town with a university and many other cultural institutions. The clients seamlessly combine their flourishing agribusiness with their white collar occupations. Gentlemen farming. Their modern “Homestead” is located at the peak of the property overseeing the health of the cattle in the valley below. The 1000 meter of altitude are felt outside with cold winter fog covering the valley, whilst inside the house is a refuge enhanced by strongly integrated passive solar design principles. The sheds and barns are located remotely. Keeping nature intact, the grassy slopes of the hill continue all the wayup under th... More

Locals call the granite and shale cliff overlooking Montana’s Flathead Lake “TheMatterhorn”. It is a place to observe the natural world: the lake, the surroundingponderosa pine forest, and especially the eagles and ospreys that nest nearby.Together, the water, cliff, and trees form a classic picture of the expansive AmericanWest, and it is clear why Montana is still known as North America’s great destination. Within this context, the cabin’s diaphanous volume is set on six steel piers that aredelicately anchored to concrete blocks set into the slope. Screened walls enclose aliving area, which has an open floor plan and wood slat floors that extend outside.Amenities are sparse but not neglected: a small kitchen, bathroom, and shower allow... More

Focusing on sculptural cliffs and friendly hillside woods, Hideg-ház is an unusual object in the landscape of the outskirts of Kőszeg, a charming historical town in Hungary. The site had been used as a quarry a few cenutries ago so the exposed rock face was one of the strongest elements of the environment. In order to get enough direct sunlight all-year-long and to stay close to the sculptural cliffs, the building had been placed about 10 meters above the road that runs along the bottom of the valley. "An abstract footprint of a family's lifestyle – perhaps these are the best words to describe the floor plan" architect Attila Béres says. The wooden cabin is floating a few steps above the natural terrain. The two parts are tie... More

The starting point for this project was to provide a direct relationship with the dramatic archipelago landscape, and to create a simple platform which would offer several diverse readings of the relationship between space and nature. The archipelago house was conceived as a light-weight construction in wood and glass. Located in Stockholm’s outer archipelago, this summer house was built within the specific conditions prevailing on the island. Without any car-connections, all materials had to be brought by boat from the mainland. Wood was chosen throughout the design in order to provide simplicity of construction and to minimize difficulties with heavy transportation. The horizontal character of the black-stained exterior relates to t... More

Along the South coast of Victoria near Inverloch, the geography turns away from the prevailing wind. The house forms a protected garden from which peripheral vision of the sea and sky is permitted by tapered facades. The owners request : ‘Full outlook to and shelter from the coastal vistas in all directions and to be part of the landscape. An unobtrusive unembellished “best practice” home of how to blend in and live together with a magnificent natural environment.’ The design looks at the core idea of shelter in an exposed environment, and that shelter may contain all the necessary activities of domestic life in an uncompromised way but that the activities are enhanced by participating in the whole and each yields to the other t... More

Located in Valle de Guadalupe «Mexico’s Wine Country», Baja California,Endémico Resguardo Silvestre is a set of twenty independent rooms of twenty square meters each, operated by Grupo Habita, a Design Hotels member; established within a surface of 99 hectares, part of the Encuentro Guadalupe development, which includes a winery as well as a residential area. One of the principal premises was not to interfere directly the land, as part of the philosophy of the project is to respect nature in every possible way. The availability of steel by our client leads to the design of the clean structure with this material, which elevates the skeleton of the room, to avoid contact with the soil. The employment of corten steel to cover it, which over... More

The project Summer House in Southern Burgenland (Austria) describes a sharp-edged cubature which fits into its surroundings through its simplicity and homogeneous appearance. Martin Weiß In being used as a summer house, and by virtue of the installation of a wine cellar with production surfaces at a later date, the building’s design is oriented by the cubature of the Kellerstöckel(wine house) typical of the Southern Burgenland region. Martin Weiß   The cellar contains rooms for wine storage and production; the aboveground rooms are for residential use. The cellar has been executed in a ferroconcrete massive construction. The ground floor and first floor were constructed as a pure wood construction. H... More

The city of Holmestrand is divided by a characteristic 120m vertical cliff, separating urban functions at the lower sea side from the housing estate on the upper level. Holmestrand is under constant transformation being a part of suburban Oslo and important for commuting and regional business. The Norwegian State Railways are currently building new tracks to the city with a new elevator shaft between upper and lower levels, thereby improving the connection further. The single family house is situated on the edge of this prominent cliff edge overlooking Holmestrand and the fjords. The site has a spectacular 180 degree view towards the sea to the east and an open cultural landscape to the west. The challenge in sites like this is usually... More

This three-bedroom house is located on a spectacular site in the south Coast of Big Sur; it pays homage to the natural beauty and power of this California landscape. The overall design strategy is one of imbedding the building in the land, creating a structure that is inseparable from its context. The design reinterprets the organic architectural vocabulary of Big Sur houses built in the 50’s and 60’s. The site offers plunging views a 250’ foot drop to the Pacific Ocean both along the bluff and the western exposure. The house--a long thin volume -- conforms and deforms to the natural contours of the land and the geometries of the bluff. The main body of the house is composed of two rectangular boxes connected by an all glass room; a one... More

Collaboration with Paul Rolfe Architects. Cloudy Bay Shack establishes the connection between the image on the wine label and the direct experience of the vineyard. We shaped the building to gain vistas along the vineyards to the Richmond Ranges, whose silhouette adorns each bottle. An entry sequence has been established to deliberately dramatise the ‘Cloudy Bay’ view. On arrival, visitors face two weathered steel walls, resembling someone holding their arms out to welcome an old friend. When the door is opened, a warm timber interior is revealed and the view is obscured by a series of concertina timber panels. As guests enter, the view is revealed by degrees until they walk down three steps to the entertaining level where the full vi... More