Promenade Residence, Queensland

The Promenade Residence is a modern waterfront home designed by BGD Architects in Queensland, Australia.

BGD Architects:

“Situated on an exclusive residential street, this home was designed for a family of four with the brief to achieve ideal spaces for work, rest and play. The internal planning required a clever balance to achieve a house of private spaces with maximised outlooks to the Surfers Paradise skyline. Corten steel screens wrap the first floor bedrooms providing a veil for the bedroom spaces within.

The approach to the house, presents a structured and grounded design, balanced by the delicate screen pattern and soft landscaping. At night, the house transforms to a glowing lantern. Entry via the side arbour gradually opens upon a generous internal courtyard which looks through the main living area, framing the city skyline.

A major design feature was the inclusion of a luxury two storey space to the waterfront edge with custom double storey sliding doors. This enables views to be brought right into the heart of the house and across the internal courtyard to the street front rooms.

Each layer of glazing and the waterfront screens can be pulled back almost out of sight to allow the house to breath effortlessly all day long. Louvered glazing has been utilised throughout the home to promote cross ventilation via natural breezes.”

Bodrum House, Turkey

Bodrum House is part of a large residential project in Yalikavak, Turkey that is set to offer five prototype houses. It is the first completed prototype house and it is located on a dramatically steep hill boasting stunning views of the surrounding natural topography, village and sea. Designed by Richard Meier & Partners, Bodrum House features a seamless white exterior, a garage and a guesthouse.

On the ground floor, each house will contain a living room, kitchen, dining room and a bathroom. The main living area also leads out onto a terrace with a swimming pool. Located on the upper floor will be three bedrooms, an entertainment/ media room and a laundry room. There will also be a basement level for guest bedrooms.

Source: ArchDaily

Mill Valley Residence, California

Mill Valley Residence by CCS Architecture:

“This 5,000-square-foot house in Mill Valley was designed as a home for an empty-nester couple. The site was the inspiration and the guiding element for the architecture: vast views of Mt. Tamalpais, intimate connections to groves of redwood trees, and a steep incline. Given its location, stepping up the hillside and squeezed between redwoods, the home is stratified into three levels.The lower floor is built into the hillside, while the upper two are open to daylight and views.

The first floor includes the garage, entry, painting studio, gallery, and guest quarters. The entry is a two-story space with a staircase leading up to the second floor—the main living level–which connects to the outside with views in many directions. This double-height space, the spatial core of the house, has a large bay of windows focused on a grove of redwood trees just 10 feet away. The top floor contains two bedrooms, a home office, and a ramped bridge that leads to anupper yard and pool.

Natural copper is the primary exterior material, wrapping the second floor of the house to emphasize the location of the main living spaces. Walls below the second level are exposed concrete; those above are cement plaster. The interior evokes the feeling of a gallery in the country, with white walls, expanses of glass, and wide-plank oak floors.”

Cassell Street House, Melbourne

The Cassell Street House designed by b.e architecture is a three floor home with a basement, ground floor and first floor. Completed in 2012, the project boasts a facade made of two-toned travertine which emits a rich grey and textured colour.

“Being sited on a corner block, the first floor form in particular is highly visible from the street with all sides visible to the passer by. A bespoke material treatment was thus considered an appropriate urban gesture. The complex travertine façade is made up of 10 different sized slabs of stone laid in bands sourced from opposite sides of the same quarry producing two distinct colours. The banding quality of the stone façade is referential of Byzantine buildings in a reference to the owner’s heritage. The deep apertures formed in the travertine walls of the first floor façade make the building read as a singular and massive stone edifice and in doing so shade and shelter the western windows as well as protecting the occupant from the nearby major road.” - b.e architecture

“By contrast, downstairs is characterised by expansive glazing, opening the living areas to the secluded garden space which surrounds the building. A visitor enters from the street into the heart of the building adjacent a curving staircase rising three floors from basement garage to the upstairs bedrooms. The curving staircase contrasts with the rectilinear form of the exterior and is used as a separation device to define the ground floor living areas into two distinct zones: The day/summer areas facing north and overlooking a pool and outdoor eating area; the night/winter areas facing south and east into the more sheltered back yard.” - b.e architecture

Briones House, Mexico

Located in Xalapa, Mexico, this contemporary concrete home by RP Arquitectos is a two-story structure with high ceilings and an open plan interior.

“A playful equilibrium of white concrete in the interior as well as exterior develops the program of the house. You are welcomed, in the main foyer, with a two-story height ceiling which lets you appreciate the fullness and voids at play, that bathed by the natural light indicate the different paths in the house. A crystal bridge which takes you to the intimate area of the house, is the element that unifies the public area with the private. The same two-story height ceiling repeats itself in the formal dining and living areas generating different ambient of lights and shadows which let you appreciate and enjoy the natural landscape of the zone threw the glass windows. The main elevation is practically blind, only small perforations let you peep out for the arrival of visitors, maintaining a guarded intimacy to the house. On the contrary, the rear facade opens up to the landscape creating a dialog between the exterior and interior, practically, with all the spaces of the house.” - by RP Arquitectos

Source: Home Dsgn

L71 House, Bangkok

Located in Bangkok, Thailand, this contemporary four-bedroom, four-bathroom residence was designed by Office AT in 2010. The house is 650sqm and sits on a long and narrow shaped site. As well as the bedrooms and bathrooms, there is also a living room, dining room, kitchen and a family room. The living room was extended to cover and shade the swimming pool and terrace outside.

The mass structures that combine to make the house are split up to enable more natural light and ventilation. The roof of the house is a double roof which protects the house from harsh weather - the lower roof is made of concrete and the upper roof consists of a metal sheet. The main materials used to build the house were tinted glass, wood and painted plastered brick walls.

Source: Home Dsgn | Photography: Wilson Tungthunya