Builiding: Dolomitenblick

Architect: Plasma Studio

Location: Sesto, Italy

Why we like it:

Situated on a hillside in the Dolomites, the striking residence was designed to host six families on holiday. Divided into individual apartments, Dolomitenblick features an incision down the middle that defines the building while creating functional living spaces. Covered balconies catch the southern sun while also providing visitors with panoramic views. Borrowing color palettes from nearby farmhouses, the building uses materials that will change over time (including copper and larch wood), further blending the house into its country setting. See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Building: The Ma: Andalucia’s Museum of Memory
Architect: Alberto Campo Baeza
Location: Granada, Spain

Why We Liked This:

Metaphors and architecture can be, well, heavy-handed. Most of the time, the combination produces bad results consisting of overly literal formal devices that are to buildings what “get it” is to a terrible joke. Still, sometimes it works; such is the case with Alberto Campo Baeza’s Museum of Memory, a heroically (neo-)modernist gesture plunked down along the perimeter of picturesque Granada. The vertical concrete slab, perforated with small square windows, looms over a low-lying podium structure pierced by a central circular void. This “courtyard” contains an intertwined set of spiraling ramps. Yes, memory equals time which is manifested as spiral of matter and events. We get it. But move beyond that, and you’ll find a stunning architectural space. The visual drama fostered therein is a dynamic foil to the platonic purity of the architecture. See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Building: Lake Como Boathouse [Moto Guzzi]
Architect: ACT Romegialli
Location: Mandello Lario, Lake Como, Italy
Why We Liked This:

You know when an Italian motorcycle manufacturer commissions a private boathouse, it’s gonna be pretty slick! Nestled along the shores  of Lake Como — a favorite summer spot among the rich and famous since antiquity — this retreat, built by ACT Romegialli for Moto Guzzi, doesn’t disappoint. The complex is divided into two distinct gabled volumes—one pavilion for storing the rowing shells and oars, and the other for athletic training and multipurpose events. The pavilions are low-slung to preserve the stunning views across the lake and to accommodate the length of rowing shells, which can extend past 60 feet! In classic Italian fashion, the brilliance of the boathouse is in the simplicity of the design. A single ribbon window extends the length of the public pavilion,  framing the  expansive vista. Ash-colored hardwood floors reflect light throughout the interior space, contrasted by the deep shadow lines produced by the deep revels along the ceiling. Throughout the complex, ACT Romegialli’s attention to detail and materiality is clearly apparent, from the formed concrete tympanums to the additional exterior cladding of creeping vines. See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Photos © Marcello Mariana Photography

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Building: AIBS
Architect: AABE
Location: Spain
Why We Liked This:

Ah, infinity pools, the best click bait you’ll find on the architectural webisphere. The image above is near perfect in how it depicts how “infinity” that infinity pool is. The house, a white cubic volume perched on the edge of a cliff, floats on a walls of glass and over a small patio. The pool extends beyond the two by a good 7 feet, reaching out towards the ocean below. The living spaces are oriented towards the water, while an exterior staircase linking the road to the house forms a kind of courtyard populated by a single olive tree.  stone wall hugs the ensemble on its side, mediating the ruggedness of the landscape with the purism of the architecture. See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Building: Casa O
Architect: 01ARQ
Location: Colina, Chile
Why We Liked This:

Another pool house for ya. This one, though, is couched in a valley in the Chilean Andes, with the smooth, finished concrete of the house and the pool’s cerulean sheen playing nicely off the rugged terrain. The house consists of two long volumes: a concrete base, the corner of which is demarcated by pilotis, themselves wrapped in a retractable glazed wall (the architects call it a “pool mirror”); the upper volume, encased in an ajustable wooden screen is positioned a third of the way onto the concrete shell and extends past the line of columns to suggest the drama of a larger cantilever. A central stairwell connects the interiors to a roof terrace that puts you in the middle of the landscape, while funneling out hot air in the summer months. See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Building: Costa Esmeralda House
Architect: BAK Arquitectos
Location: Pinimar, Argentina
Why We Liked This:

We won’t ever hide our obsession for concrete. We love it, and so should you. People say that concrete can’t make a good house (one imagines the refrain: “Brutalism doesn’t fare well at any scale, let alone at the scale of the house”), but this project (and others) is evidence to the contrary. BAK Arquitectos have an affinity for concrete, and, as their portfolio can attest, nearly all of the projects— mostly residential structures —apply the stuff to great effect. The frame of the Costa Esmeralda House is entirely cast in beton brut, which is left untreated, or at least, uncovered on all the exterior and interior surfaces. The L-shaped plan comprises two wings, one for living and communal spaces, the other for private rooms. They are connected by enjoined patios and sculptural concrete stairs and footbridges. Wood louvers on the southern ribbon window and the colorful fixtures inside play nicely off the ubiquitous grey, while the sandy site impart the house with a strange surreality that’s rather fitting.  See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Building: Nest and Cave House
Architect: Idis Turato / Turato Architecture
Location: Opatija, Croatia
Why We Liked This:

Cantilever. Pool. Views. All the right ingredients for a building of the day. The Nest and Cave house in the Opatija Riviera matches the spectacular sea views with striking, if reductive, forms. A 17-meter long structure, cladded in textured concrete, opens onto the shimmering swimming pool and the crest of the sloping hill. A second white volume is anchored overhead and projects far over the lawn, creating a deep shadowed patio space. Here, the architects say, is the “quintessential tension of a Mediterranean house: the battle of the sun and the shadow”. See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Building: Florida Beach House
Architect: iredale pedersen hook architects
Location: Florida Beach, Australia
Why We Liked This:

The Florida Beach House is not, contrary to what you might initially think, in Florida, but in Australia. (In Florida Beach, Australia, duh.) The name aside, the handsome house comprises a glass pavilion containing the living space; this tidy volume is tucked underneath a stylized, angular canopy whose zigzag profile references a design by Jorn Utzon. The north and south facades are deeply inset from the edge of the overhang, creating bands of deck space on either side. The house’s sculptural silhouette mimics the sand dunes of the beach in the foreground and can be spotted from quite a distance on the ocean. See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Building: Torus House
Architect: Vo Trong Nghia Architects
Location: Dong Trieu, Quang Ninh province, Vietnam
Why We Liked This:

Vo Tron Nghia is an up-and-comer. His portfolio includes several diverse projects, each taking on different formal and material expressions. His firm’s “Torus House”, a coiled stone house hidden behind a screen of greenery, is no different. The structure loops in on itself, topped by a continuous lawn of grass that along with the central oval courtyard, planted with shrubbery and trees, gives the residence an intimate exchange with nature. Compared with the exterior’s play of rough, weathered stone and verdant grasses, the inside is much more refined: nearly every surface is treated with  a dark polished wood, like that of erstwhile ocean liners (at least the luxury cabins, that is). See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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Building: House M Meran
Architect: monovolume architecture + design
Location: Meran, Italy
Why We Liked This:

At first glance, this looks like just another pool house, and to a certain extent, that’s what it is. But the architects went to great lengths to make their design rise above that. The container of the house consists of large glass expanses that frame the hillside all around. Floating opaque floor planes, though quite thick, are gently balanced along the top of the curtain walls, making for slight unease due to the house’s top-heaviness. The reflectivity of the whole plays well off the poolscape, which seems to emerge seamless from the interior of the house. See more of this project in the Architizer database here.

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