This Art Warehouse building was designed by A31 Architecture for painter and sculptor Alexandros Liapis. A part of the landscape was incorporated in the open-space sculpture gallery, hosting the artist’s creations. The new structure is a shell comprised of fair-faced reinforced concrete, completed in three separate phases. The dome, a timeless and interregional architectural coronation element spanning from antiquity to Modernism, interacts with the intimate space of the artist’s house, the “cell”. The new structure is located in the North-South axis, while the orthogonal plan view is divided into 3 zones: Firstly, the cantilever with the balcony in the South, where the entrance is situated, secondly, the artist’s workspace and finally the attic in the North which serves as a storage space. A straight staircase connects the two levels, while the cantilevered concrete steps can serve as exhibition stands for the artist’s work. – A31 Architecture

This project was more an idea about acceleration, free form and functionality within a circular tower, as well as using the elements: earth, air, light. A funnel shape is placed in the middle of the building, bringing light into the tower. It is also used as site for art installations. This idea of space within a space gives the possibility of communication within different stories.

Color transferred itself from the material. The main color is green, coming from glass. To set a counter point we used orange for all moveable furniture. Within day and night the building transfers naturally. Besides all formal features, a highly elaborated energy system is being used. The artistic concept of ISA STEIN also included the design of the water basin and the light sculpture in the entrance hall, as well as all the backlit image panels within the different floors. [ISA STEIN Studio]

This impressive EDDI’s House was designed by Japan architects Edward Suzuki Associates. The concept of design is “Going to go out,” meaning that the house has a terrace outside in the middle of each house to each room and looked out. In addition, the balcony is placed above and adjacent to the terrace overlooking the center was such that the combination of space open to create an interface “between right outside and the inside which acts a filter, buffer, or a cushion between two zones. This way the design so that homes do not have to depend on contextual conditions in which should be located. A house with central core that is designed to allow as much natural sunlight not only directly but also cross ventilation to provide maximum energy efficiency. Eddie House now has six basic types of plans with sixty-nine variations to accommodate site conditions and characteristics were different. – Edward Suzuki Associates

The Concrete House II is the latest project by Spain based architecture studio A-Cero Architects, built in the capital city of Spain, Madrid. The building seems to be hidden between concrete walls and vegetable ramps that extend up to the roof. They are dyed in dark gray and contain, between them, vegetation areas that seem to climb towards the sky. The house´s façade show a spectacular organic view of the whole house and so even the hard concrete shows its most kind face.

The back front of the house is totally opened towards the garden where the lounge, dining room, library, study and bedrooms are. In this façade the wide windows, the volumes set and the projections (made of concrete too enhance. These elements cover the several house´s porches. The large window of the main lounge hides itself automatically in order to make this stay completely opened to the exterior areas. This project respond to the ecological aspect shown at the façade and the roof have the main ecological roles because they are covered with low consume vegetation. Furthermore on the house´s roof has been implemented a renewable energy system made of wide surfaces with solar tubular collectors who allow that the energy autonomy of the house. – A-cero Architects

Boston-based architect Moshe Safdie presents the great modern architectural design of Marina Bay Sands, 10 million square-foot urban district anchors the Singapore waterfront, creates a gateway to Singapore, and provides a dynamic setting for a vibrant public life. This building is a high-density, mixed-use integrated resort that brings together a 2,561-room hotel, convention center, shopping and dining, theaters, museum, and a casino across the water from Singapore’s Central Business District. Safdie designed an urban structure that weaves together the components of a complex program into a dynamic urban crossroads and public meeting place. Inspired by great ancient cities that were ordered around a vital public thoroughfare, Marina Bay Sands is organized around two principal axes that traverse the district and give it a sense of orientation placing emphasis on the pedestrian street as the focus of civic life.

This new urban place integrates the waterfront promenade, a 74,000 square meter (800,000 square-foot) multi-level retail arcade, and the iconic museum on the promontory. Located along the network of public paths are also two theaters with a combined capacity of 4,000 seats, a casino, a 120,000 square meter (1.3 million square-foot) convention and exhibition center, and an adjustable public event plaza that can accommodate 10,000 people. Combining indoor and outdoor spaces and providing a platform for a wide array of activities, this vibrant, 21st-century cardo maximus, or grand arcade, also connects to the subway and other transportation.

A series of layered gardens provide ample green space throughout Marina Bay Sands, extending the tropical garden landscape from Marina City Park towards the Bayfront. The landscape network reinforces urban connections with the resort’s surroundings and every level of the district has green space that is accessible to the public. Generous pedestrian streets open to tropical plantings and water views. Half of the roofs of the hotel, convention center, shopping mall, and casino complex are planted with trees and gardens. – Photos by Safdie Architects

Australian Architecture Firm Bark Architects presents beautiful beach house in Marcus Beach Melbourne. This house celebrates a natural, coastal setting providing its occupants with an inextricable relationship to the landscape and sensitive surrounding environment. The dwelling explores lightness, filtering natural breezes, layers of transparency and integrating indoor / outdoor spaces within dynamic patterns of light and shadow, being a simple frame to enable a contemporary sustainable lifestyle to unfold. The house is open and light and possesses simple sustainable design principles to passively defend the occupants from the elements. Windows and doors are strategically positioned to capture the prevailing breezes whilst roof overhangs are generous protecting the house from direct summer sunlight. Air conditioning has not been installed in the Marcus Beach House nor is it desired.

The roof over the Master Bedroom pavilion rises to the north providing a band of high level, operable, clerestory glazing capturing daylight and allowing any warm air to escape, setting up an effective ‘stack effect’ natural cooling process. As the heart of the house, the covered double height outdoor room is actively used all year round as dappled sunlight is filtered through a timber batten screen hung below the roof structure. Indoor and outdoor realms are connected through an interlocking series of alcoves and nooks like a low edge deck seat and reading nook pop-out located off the stair landing. The courtyard and Morton Bay Ash are a focal point in which almost all rooms within the dwelling enjoy a connection.

The pavilions sit lightly on the site and are linked by a transparent bridge in an arrangement that opens all the spaces to the light, breeze and garden views of the north. The garden is protected by a perimeter wall wrapped in endemic vines providing an acoustic ‘green’ buffer to a nearby busy road. On approach from the street, the sloping terrain naturally guides an axial timber boardwalk under a simple timber pergola structure arriving in the courtyard opposite the Morton Bay Ash. The main pavilion to the west accommodates living spaces focused around a double height deck space overlooking the swimming pool and northern garden. The Master Bedroom suite is accessed via a polycarbonate clad stair tower that is by day a contemplative space and by night, a lantern. The Morton Bay Ash casts shadows onto the polycarbonate further animating the edges of the courtyard and bringing the landscape inside the house. – Photos by Christopher Frederick Jones

The Gebhartstrasse Apartment located in Liebefeld Switzerland, designed by Halle 58 Architects. The boat-shaped ground plan of the new wooden house was determined by the shape of the property. The ground plan and elevation show the layout: Three apartments of equal size entirely built in wood, accessible via the concrete staircase, are perched slightly above the level of the site. The concentration of sanitation and technology services into a compact core, plus a load-bearing façade frees up the interior design of the apartments, permitting a loftloke spatial scheme. The building was able to fulfill Minergie-P-Eco standard thanks to minimal thermal bridges, large windows to the southwest, sufficient thermal mass, good daylight utilization and consistent use of ecological materials. – Photo by Christine Blaser

The Colman Triplex House has views of downtown Seattle across a park that lies both to the east and north. To allow each dwelling to inhabit a specific portion of the site, the sloping topography was reshaped into two distinct levels. Within a primary box-like form the design team responded to budget and strict land use limitations on building height and lot coverage to configure three separate dwellings that each provides direct and visual access to landscape and exterior space. The organization of the dwellings are free to rotate or flip as each flat responds directly to different program requirements and varying visual and physical landscape connections available at each level of the structure. Instead of constructing apartment flats based on an organizational typology reliant on a series of stacked bearing walls, an internal structural steel frame is used to provide interior bearing.

The frame is secondary to the spatial organization and connections of each dwelling and is therefore concealed within the non-load bearing walls. Through operations of subtraction, larger scale spatial relationships are made between interior and exterior spaces. These operations create both apertures, openings that provide daylight and visual connections between inside and out, and porches, or habitable covered exterior space. Derived through both activity and environmental criteria, these apertures and porches are used to control sunlight and rain while filling the spaces with daylight. A broad horizontal array of windows connects the upper dwelling’s main living space to the sky and distant view. A private interior light-well brings daylight and a private landscape into the master bathroom. Entry porches, similar to the historical fabric of neighborhood, both buffer and connect the adjacent park to the open living spaces. – Workshop Architecture|Design

This modern house was designed by Greece architect Nikos Koukourakis with natural light to travel through every space of the house, reducing the amount of energy needed to illuminate the house. The building dominates with its clean-cut lines, while its volume is split, without being dissolved, from the rich perimetric openings giving to it an airy sense via to their exposure to natural light. The big glass surfaces leave a permanently open dialogue with outside, without creating the least sense of isolation in the interior of the house. This house used green concept, such facade insulation system and lighting fixtures are using LED technology. – Nikos Koukourakis

This apartment designed by Jeroen Schipper Architecten, consists of two apartment towers, each with fourteen apartments, in the ‘Vijfhoek’ neighbourhood in Deventer. The levelled dike, in part along the Gooikersdijk, forms an old green ribbon structure of mature oaks and beech trees. The building is largely covered in laminated Robinia wooden slats. The large window frames of the sun lounges in the southern facade are constructed of slim galvanized steel profiles fitted with single glass. The house floor plan is dominated by a large living area across the entire nave width of 7,5 metres on the south side. In the adjacent zone for the exterior rooms the duo nave floor plan has been replaced by a trio nave floor plan, creating sun lounges of double height and width and balconies located eccentrically. In part thanks to the sheer diversity of house types each tower will appear as a single colossal house and not as a series of uniform apartments stacked on top of another. – Jeroen Schipper Architecten