10+ Rustic Hand Built Little Cabins We Adore

Mar 17, 2015

1Kevins Tiny House

A very unique tiny home that includes a large sliding panel in the front and plenty of rustic charm throughout. Check it out.

2Rustic Guest Cabin Makeover

This Socal barn was reborn as a classy rustic cabin.

3Topanga Cabin

A simple cabin built for weekend getaways and surfing trips. Check it out.

4Pocket Shelter

Situated outside Asheville, NC you’ll find this gorgeous tiny house on wheels built by Aaron Maret. Check it out.

5Humble Abode

This tiny house was built entirely from salvaged materials and shows off incredible detail. Check it out.

6Japanese Forest Home

Perhaps one of our favorites is this secret getaway, built entirely by hand using locally milled wood. Check it out.

7Sauvie Island Cabin

This 300sf cabin located on a farm is available for rent and guests are treated to fresh milk, eggs, and homemade bread, not to mention an amazing setting. Check it out.

8Timberclad Surfer Cabin

When two brothers wanted to build a special retreat for their families, they ended up with this clifftop cabin. They worked with WMR Architects to design a low-impact home on a budget. Check it out.

9Freecycled Cabin On Puget Sound

Olson Kundig is not stranger to eco-friendly designs with a big wow factor, and this cabin built using mostly salvaged material is no exception. Check it out.

10Wheelhaus Caboose

This stylish “park model” RV remains in its own class, and with a perfect combination of rustic elegance and modern finishes. Check it out.

This Dome-Shaped Solar Home Floats on Water And Is 98% Recyclable

Mar 17, 2015

A fully recyclable home that has the potential for self-sufficiency, environmental and functional adaptability, and out of this world curb appeal was the dream that eventually gave way to the Waternest 100. Designed by London-based EcoFloLife in collaboration with Giancarlo Zema Design Group, this dome-shaped structure can be configured as an office, home, restaurant or exhibition space and is entirely powered by solar panels that are smartly integrated into the convex roof.

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The generous 1,000 square foot allow for a multitude of interior uses while never feeling cramped or starved for space. This particular model of a housing application has a kitchen, living and dining areas, two bedrooms and a full bath. A simplified version of the design could even be mass-produced and deployed as relief shelters. When the life-span of the home comes to an end, the materials used for construction are 98% recyclable, making the home as fundamentally eco-friendly as it looks.

Garden of Eden? This Church’s Interiors Are Covered In Grass

Mar 17, 2015

In an effort to rejuvenate the interiors of this ancient Italian-style Church in London, artist and composer Graeme Miller has collaborated with Ackroyd & Harvey to carpet its interiors with living grass. Greenery covers the walls, floors and ceilings of the awe-inspiring space, resulting in a surreal experience that speaks to the sanctity of life and the preciousness of our relationship to faith.

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The converted church was in complete disrepair prior to the planting and cultivation of the grass. In addition to making unique use of a once decrepit ruin, Miller and company created the installation as an experiment in human experience. They explain, “We were curious about how the architectural space, the atmosphere, and the perceptions of people entering it, would be affected by the application of our materials.”

Incredible Sunken Rooftop Garden Brings Life Into A Former Caviar Warehouse

Mar 16, 2015

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An unassuming warehouse in the heart of Manhattan conceals a very special secret. A portion of the rooftop deck in this loft apartment is dropped into the middle of the living room, providing the interiors with an abundance of natural light and lush garden views. Architect Andrew Franz converted the top floor of the once dank caviar warehouse, converting salvaged materials such as using existing walnut roof joists as new stair treads.

all images © albert vecerka, ESTO / courtesy of andrew franz architect PLLC

5 Incredible Buildings That Can’t Seem To Sit Still

Mar 16, 2015

1Sliding House by DRMM

Photos © Alex de Rijke / GIF by Gasoline Station

In a stroke of architectural imagination and mechanical ingenuity, this seemingly ordinary home pulls itself apart revealing a secondary structure and creating a covered indoor/outdoor space. The 20-ton outer wood shell moves along two tracks via electric motors and can be stopped at different locations to configure varying degrees of opacity.

2Shapeshifting Sharifi-Ha House by Nextoffice

Each of the three floors of this home in Tehran, Iran have rotating volumes that open the spaces to views and light. With the simple push of a button, the spaces swing out and cantilever over the street below. The concept balances the desire for natural light and the regional necessity of protection and privacy.

3M-Velope Transformer House

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This tiny temporary structure made of hinged wood-slatted walls has the ability to completely open itself up creating a much larger covered footprint. While not technically a home, the structure presents a conceptual prototype that can be applied to adaptive facades in larger scale applications.

4Eskenazi Hospital, Indianapolis by Urbana Architecture

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Las Angeles based firm Urbana Architecture has designed an adaptive facade that transforms user experience based on proximity, position and pace of movement, pointing to a much larger shift in urban transformation. The facade is fixed with thousands of tiny bi-chromatic metal fins that rotate on vertical rods, resulting in a dynamic skin that is constantly changing

5Cafe-Restaurant OPEN, by de Architekten Cie

Each of the glazed vertical sections of this sea-side restaurant in Amsterdam hinges in accordion-like fashion, creating an undulating facade that appears to be flowing with the ocean breeze.

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Images © Rob Hoekstra

And For My Next Trick, I’ll Make This House Disappear!

Mar 15, 2015

You may remember seeing magicians like David Copperfield staging wild magic tricks that included making huge buildings and objects disappear. As it turns out, certain architects also use optical illusions to perform similar feats.

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In a feat of architectural wizardry, Reform Architekt has designed a home that appears to be floating, unsupported, over the forest floor. At a glance, one would think that the house consists of a minimal white box perched in the trees themselves. Take a trip around the perimeter, however, and discover that the structure has a large base that utilizes highly polished mirrors to mask itself in the surrounding vegetation. It’s a playful optical illusion that speaks in a very literal way to architecture’s place in nature, as if to say that we should build, but we should build in a way to appear as if we haven’t built at all.

Massive Urban Tree House Cleans The Air With Its Living Green Walls

Mar 13, 2015

Picture an apartment complex in your minds eye. Chances are you’re imagining an uninspired pattern of brick and balconies anywhere from five to forty stories tall. Now forget whatever you pictured and take a peek at this magnificent structure, known as “Verde”.

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In the world of architecture, apartment complexes don’t get much attention, but that’s not the case for this incredible structure in Turin, Italy. There you’ll find this fantastical apartment complex that utilizes living walls, breathing walls to protect its residents from the hustle and bustle of its surrounding urban environment. To be inside of the building is to feel as if you’ve just stepped into the jowels of a lush forest. Even the steel structure is modeled in a way that resembles the sprawling branches of a tree. Verde 25, designed by Luciano Pia, has an undulating facade that holds 150 trees and absorbs 200,000 liters of CO2 per hour.

Step Inside This Offgrid Cabin And Enter Another Dimension Of Design

Mar 12, 2015

wood-tunnel-house-1 — The entryway to the "Tuba Cube" was made using pine shavings.

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If you happened upon this little cabin while trekking through the woods, at first you might think it was some sort of portal to another dimension. Located in Bergen, Norway, this interesting abode is the result of a design-build workshop at the School of Architecture. Their aim was to build a unique all-wood cabin using a mixture of techniques borrowed from places like Japan and Norway. While the front door looks like it might be moving at warp speed, the interior shows off a relaxing atmosphere of pure Nordic inspired simplicity.

10+ Stylish Prefab Homes That Won’t Break The Bank

Mar 12, 2015

While we love seeing all the upscale prefabs marketed as sustainable and low-cost solutions, they often seem overpriced, which flies in the face of the sustainable values that guide their vision. These are ten of the most affordable and versatile prefab homes that prove you don’t need a deep bank account to get a stylish home.

11Rocio Romeros

His LV series home fits into the modern/contemporary prefab style and comes in at a low base price of $21,000.

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Moving Walls Bring A Radical Change To This Small Home

Mar 11, 2015

As the downsizing trend expands and more people take to living in tiny or small homes, the need for smart organization and versatility in these spaces becomes more evident. Figuring out ways to make an object work two shifts becomes an important part of the design. PKMN Architecture’s “All I Own House” demonstrates an interesting solution that involves walls that move in order to increase the usability of a small space.

Yolanda R. Pila inherited her grandmother’s rather small single story home, and reached out to PKMN for some help. The result was a project that “materializes the interior of a house through its inhabitant personal belongings.” – or in layman’s terms, a house that moves as needed.

The design isn’t very complicated, and involves a single main space with a kitchen and bathroom on either side. The walls now move, and contain certain helpful integrations like a folding murphy bed and a prep table that pops out. There’s also a blackboard Pila can use during meetings when working at home.