Luis Fernández-Galiano   We live explosive times. On the one hand, the residential boom has acquired a new economic and urban protagonism: the real estate bubble is the driving force of growth, and the formless extension of construction the main feature of contemporary plann

Javier San Martín   Representation of the domestic: in a field so close it is not easy to reach the expressive level of artists like Bonnard or Vuillard, those 19th century painters who dealt with the theme of domestic bliss in their quiet interiors, or that of Matisse

Beatriz Colomina   The entire facade of a typical suburban house has been removed and replaced by a full sheet of transparent glass. Midway back and parallel to the front glass facade, a mirror divides the house in two areas. The front section is revealed to the public

Mark Robbins   Households was undertaken during the seasons of fall and winter of 2002-2003, as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard. It documents over 40 households in New York (New York), Boston (Massachusetts), Washington (DC), Nas

Shigeru Ban   Japan   The Izu Peninsula, an extension of land one hundred kilometers to the south of Tokyo, enjoys a gentle climate and a unique natural environment. The foothills of the revered Mount Fuji constitute to the north the encounter with the rest of the Japanes

Alberto Morell   Spain   The natural park of the upper basin of the Manzanares river is the largest protected space in the Community of Madrid. By joining its territory to that of mount El Pardo, it generates a green area that connects the capital with the sierra of Guadarra

Francesco & Britta Buzzi   Switzerland   There where the boundaries of the city start to blur, on one of the typical peripheries of the Ticino region, in southern Switzerland, a family house tries to emerge from the landscape by way of strong volumetric shifts. Just like a rock from the nea

Périphériques Architects, Emmanuelle & David Martin-Trottin   France   In the Marshy lands of the French region of the Marne, amidst a wooded vegetation of apple, cherry and pine trees, this green metallic house feeds on the landscape with the purpose of making itself invisible. The long plot, with a strong slope of fif

Adjaye Associates   United Kingdom   This dwellng and studio for London-based artists Sue Webster and Tim Noble occupy the remains of an old public house in East London. The design is based on two strategies: the use of the walls of the old building and the construction of a new volume

Tony Fretton   United Kingdom   The once small town of Chelsea, on the outskirts of London, has welcomed kings ministers since the middle ages during their periods of retreat. The waters of the Thames, which served in the past as their principal means of transportation (the river w

Masaki Endoh, Mashiro Ikeda   Japan   A wide range of artifacts give shape to the city of Tokyo, from freeways crossing the city center to high-rise parking lots, shops under the railway lines or towers that house karaokes. In this urban jungle, the dwellings tend to search for their pla

Waro Kishi   Japan   An average city (unknown) somewhere in western Japan houses the new residence-studio of a famous Japanese artist, whose name is not mentioned here for privacy reasons. Amidst the neighboring constructions – two-story single family housing units hapha

Fernando Romero, LCM   Mexico   Mexico is one of the countries where beachfronts can be of private property .The coastal area of the state of Guerrero is scattered with luxury houses that enjoy such privilege and so look out to the sea, with no obstacles to impede a direct relation

Adhoc msl   Spain   The large dry plain of Campo de Cartagena has turned, little by little, into a vast irrigated land. The traditional landscape that surrounds the house, a plain covered by a thin crust of limestone, already showed signs of change in the very first sta

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   A small detour from the road that links the centers of Olot and Gerona, at the height of Montagut, goes up by the foothills of the mountain until it reaches a haphazard series of constructions. Among these – in most cases recently built single-family

Bellemo & Cat   Australia   The permanently stormy sea of southwest Victoria and a precipitous slope compose the natural scenario that a couple has chosen to build its holiday residence. Wye River, an area scattered with holiday homes that is two hours from Melbourne, has a har

David Chipperfield Architects   Spain   The houses of the village of Corrubedo contain the pounding of the waves of the Atlantic just a few meters from the water, using stone as their natural foundation. As an extension in height of the precipitous Galician coast, the houses, of different

Frediani [arquitectura]   Spain   The presence of the historic center of Lles de Cerdaña, as well as that of the other three urban centers of this town in the Catalan Pyrenees, goes back to the 10th century. Both its Romanesc layout and its medieval architecture are protected today b

Wim Cuyvers   Belgium   In the middenstraat of Gits, one of the roadson the edge of this town in Flemish Belgium, neighbors still use exposed brick in pale shades and sloping tile roofs to build their homes, most of them relatively recent. Taking up a rectangular plot, the

Florian Nagler Architekten   Germany   Traditional houses with pitched roofs and white parging on walls dot the hills of Gleissenberg. In an indistinct neighborhood of this town to the south of Germany, between the boundaries of the forest of Bavaria and that of Böhmer, a family made up

Sean Godsell   Australia   Partially submerged in one of the sand dunes of Mornington Peninsula, south of Melbourne, a simple wood box makes its way through the dense vegetation to house the summer residence of a couple. As part of a research into the similarities between the

Kengo Kuma   Japan   A residential quarter in the center of Tokyo, with strict regulations affecting the height of the building and the fire-safety requirements, is the place where a mother and her son, owners of a narrow plot of barely one hundred and fifty square meter

NAT architecten   Netherlands   The polder landscape of Breezand extends as far as the eye can see in the surroundings of this small neighborhood in the north of Holland near the coast. The country estates cover an area that is dotted with traditional farms and large cheaply built

Oliver Schwarz   Switzerland   Facing lake constance, in the small Swiss town of Ermatingen, an aluminum house is the last building on the western edge of this municipality. The plot, a portion of sloping ground, descends between the landscape of vineyards that surrounds the lake