Luis Fernández-Galiano   The global house is amniotic. We float with our eyes closed in the saline liquid of intimacy seeking shelter from the roar of the world, and the domestic project is shaped by self-absorbed isolation. We have searched for houses in five continents, an

Paul Goldberger   In the late nineteen-fifties, J. Irwin Miller, the chairman of the Cummins Engine Company, decided to liven up Columbus, Indiana, where his company was based, by commissioning work from famous architects – I. M. Pei, Kevin Roche and Robert Venturi, a

Emilio Ambasz   Spain   The extraordinary landscape of the Sevillian sierra claims the attention of the few constructions that go up in it. The house of spiritual retreat, which emerges as a watchtower to enjoy 270 degrees of views over the region, was conceived however wit

Tadao Ando   Japan   It was a magazine for men that paired the client with the studio in the case of this singlefamily house built in the Japanese city of Kobe. The invitation asked readers to submit a brief outline of their ideal home on a postcard. If aside from this t

Alfredo Arribas   Spain   The maresme region comprises a group of 30 towns on a strip of land that goes from the city of Barcelona to the south and all the way to Lloret del Mar to the north, spreading over the hillsides of the coastal sierra and descending to a seaside sprin

Barclay & Crousse Arquitectos   Peru   In Peru, desert and ocean become one along the hundreds of kilometers which constitute its Pacific coastline. The extreme temperatures and the arid environment are counteracted by the presence of the ocean, so the weather conditions turn it into an i

Titus Bernhard   Germany   The construction of a dwelling for a couple in Stadtbergen, a suburban community outside Augsburg, encountered significant resistance from the neighbors. Even though the house is similar to the surrounding buildings as far as volumetric occupation an

Robert Brown   Australia   North of Sydney, the peninsula of Palm Beach welcomes a large number of tourists from the city who are attracted by the extensive beaches. Opposite the coastline lies the small community of Great Mackeral Beach, which is reached by a ferry that cross

Gabriël Fagan   South Africa   At approximately one hundred kilometers north of Cape Town, on the African west coast, is Langebaan Lagoon, a small sheltered inlet dotted by white low-lying summer houses which compose a typically Mediterranean landscape. Seeking the afternoon light

Vicente Guallart   Spain   When it comes to building by the sea, keeping the views of the horizon as clear as possible becomes the main concern on defining the spatial organization. In Comarruga, a coastal site of Tarragona that belongs to the municipality of El Vendrell, a pr

Oskar Leo Kaufmann   Austria   The blurred boundaries of the residential periphery of Dornbirn, an Austrian town close to lake Constanza, are characterized by pitched-roof houses whose facades are dotted with small windows. Adapted to the local weather, the image of these constru

KHR-AS Arkitekter   Denmark   The changing light, barren hills and wide open skies of Struer, north of the peninsula of Jutland, attracted the attention of a local painter who decided to establish his residence here at the end of the thirties decade, on one of the hillsides which

Mathias Kloz   Argentina   The site chosen to build a single-family residence in an old neighborhood of Buenos Aires is actually a narrow and elongated portion of one of the ravines of the Atlantic coast. The plot has a luxuriant vegetation, though its presence is concentrated

Studio MK27   Brazil   In the southernmost point of Rio de Janeiro, the ocean cuts out the coastline precipitously, outlining a large number of bays, islands and capes which attract visitors from the nearby city of São Paulo and from the capital, Rio. Only fifteen kilomete

Qingyun Ma   China   The Qingling mountains form the backdrop to an extensive territory, where the landscape of distant and precipitous mountain tops is transformed into a river bed. The range overlooks Jade Valley and an almost endless plateau, and it is here that this

Aires Mateus   Portugal   The industrial buildings and old wine warehouses of the region of Azeitão (south of Lisbon) have gradually changed their function as the production methods have become more specialized. In Brejos, a small town just a few kilometers from the city, an

John Pawson   United States   Telluride, in the state of Colorado, is covered in snow during most of the year. The local houses, orderly arranged around the orthogonal grid that the founders of this mining town devised in the nineteenth century, stubbornly reproduce the archetypa

Javier Peña   Spain   The Cartagena countryside is a flat, barren, and dry area. The sea gets lost in the distance and the sun remains as the only point of reference when it comes to building here, something that the rural architectures which fill the plain have always ke

Thomas Phifer   United States   Aspencertown site, in New York’s Columbia County, is the place chosen by a retired couple to build their holiday residence. The owners wanted to enjoy the sights of their impressive lot, a prairie of over five hectares in which the presence of trees

Christian Pottgiesser   France   In the Paris of Hausmann, the chances of finding an available plot are scarce, and when fortune strikes, the requirements established by the building regulations are many. In the case of the extension of a small palace on Rue Galvani, the legal presc

Kazuyo Sejima & Associates   Japan   The plum trees of a corner plot in the neighborhood of Setagaya have bloomed year after year in this dense residential district on the outskirts of Tokyo. Given the scarce amount of land available and how much the neighbors had grown fond of the tree

Eduardo Souto de Moura   Portugal   Very close to the frontier with Spain, the Portuguese municipality of Ponte de Lima is the holiday destination of a large number of families who spend weekends or longer periods there. On the outskirts of this tourist site, named after its Roman brid

Han Tümertekin   Turkey   Two brothers chose the small village of Büykhüsun, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, to build their second residence, a house in which to spend weekends and holidays. The site, within a tightly knit farming community of no more than 500 inhabitants, is

bayer | uhrig Architekten   Germany   Few houses in the German town of Ramstein, in the southwest area of the country, depart from the canons established by traditional architecture: white compact volumes, regularly placed windows, sloping roofs of red tile and, adjacent or attached to e

Vicens & Ramos   Spain   With a number as the only sign of identity, a trapezoidal plot in a residential area of the Madrid municipality of Pozuelo, west of the capital, is the site chosen to build this house of over 2,000 square meters in extension. The terrain descends alm

Riken Yamamoto   Japan   The japanese company SUS Corporation is a manufacturer of aluminum-made precision machinery as well as office and home furniture. Its main headquarters are on the outskirts of Yosu City, a small city of Kyushu, the southernmost of the large islands t