Tucked away in a private bay on Waiheke Island, a stone's throw from Auckland city, this residence designed by Daniel Marshall a few years ago, sits quietly on the hillside overlooking the water. Marshall explains that 'the concept evolved from the idea of a family group camping, creating space between the functional nodes. This was particularly important in allowing space for the boats and water to move through the valley to the bay below. This space was utilised to give physical separation to the guest house as well as a garage.'

Utilising materials complementary to the surrounding landscape, it was designed to integrate seamlessly into its surrounding, leaving a subtle blue print on the land. The stone used on the walls was sourced locally, with the windows tinted to limit reflection. The owners can enjoy the view from many vantage points within the home, or sit outside in the private courtyard which is framed by a Nikau grove, warmed by an outdoor fire.

54 years ago, the owner of this house, visited Orcas Island for the first time and decided she would live there. 40 years late, she purchased a piece of forested land on a hillside populated with Madrone trees, firs, beech, moss and rocks. When she employed Gary Gladwish of his self-titled architecture firm, the brief was an open, simple and low maintenance design that blends seamlessly with its surrounding environment. The result utilised some of the owner's favourite materials including old wood recycled from a 100 year old barn demolished in eastern Washington, rusty steel as well as moss and rocks salvaged from the building site. Large doors slide away to open the house to the expansive views, creating a living room in the woods. The entry garden bisects the house creating two zones while it carries the site into the house and the eye out to the view. The 800 square foot art studio and storage areas are left raw to facilitate converting them to additional bedrooms at a later date.

Photography credit: Will Austin

With a glass facade, the H House by Wiel Arets Architects stands out against a snowy backdrop. Its owners, both trained as landscape architects, ensure that the exterior surrounds of this home are as meticulous as the interior. The interior, predominantly marked by a imposing staircase, embraces a neutral colour scheme, in keeping with its minimalist scheme. The team at Wiel Arets built the H House with no structural walls, keeping the public spaces in the home, open to one another.

This unusual looking weekend house is the work of Japanese architect Takao Shiotsuka. Designed to utilise both garden and sea aspects, the house is unusually deep, shaped in a wedge, with its widest point closest to the sea. They explained that they planned the first floor as a place to enjoy the garden. The entire house, cloaked in a white colour scheme, even utilises white in the outdoor areas with white gravel illuminating the garden floor. The second floor, utilises large glass windows at either end of its long cylindrical space. The indoor partition wall is also glass, so that from any point of the second floor, you can view the sea. They explain, 'the first floor enjoys the yard, the second floor enjoys the sea [and that] the two spaces [are] divided clearly'.

In Germany, the Dusseldorf loft with a whopping floor area of 600 square metres, embraces the owners' passion for architecture. AABE architects' Bruno Epricum was entrusted with designing this warehouse conversion. With brick throughout, the loft is a large cavernous space that houses the owners' penchant for furniture and art. The reconversion of this loft was monitored closely due to the building's heritage; it was one of the few buildings that miraculously avoided damage during the many bombings of World War II. They explain their design below:

A vast white space devoid of any accessories houses the sleeping accommodation in the conversion; the rotating door appears to be floating in the air. An enormous living room is arranged between the pilasters that are displayed with pride. The artist’s design highlights the existing brickwork that supports the flagstone roof; here again the wear inflicted over time is openly displayed. The architecture unpretentiously magnifies the materials. The kitchen is arranged in the exterior deambulatory. The bedroom is housed in a “white box” that has been perfected with the utmost care. It is encircled by a “night patio” illuminated using zenithal light that sweeps across the surrounding brickwork. 

Designed twenty years ago, and like any successful piece of modernism, the Casa Azul house still finds itself at the forefront of design today. Designed by AABE architecture, this 250 square metre property in Spain is sculptural in form, and makes a solid mark on the landscape. AABE explain their design to us:

As a tense curtain on the landscape; a long and narrow hall surrounds the service’s rooms ends in a square plan accepting the living rooms. In its centre, a water plan and a roof light mark the junction of the two axes of compositions, they organize the different areas under a blue concrete slab. The dark grey concrete floor is installed in different levels in order to organize the functions and to form support of the furniture inserted in the architecture. A particular care was brought in the preservation of the duality of atmosphere: the shadow of the forest for the fire place, the sunny swimming pool looking to the sea view.

Charles and Ray Eames nurtured a design imagination that knew few boundaries. Between them, the design duo produced not just some, but a vast majority of the most famous design furniture pieces in the world. So it can be said that if you were to look for its center — its heart — you may well have found it in the living room of their landmark Pacific Palisades house. 

Inside its 17-foot-high ceiling, with panels of glass opening to the courtyard of eucalyptus outside, houses a vast range of objects that have been collected over a lifetime. After the Eameses died — Charles in 1978, Ray 10 years later, to this day — the room, like the house, has been left largely untouched. Magazines have been left out for reading; the fresh flowers had been changed out — the entire scene still kept tidy by a caretaker whom the Eames’ hired more than three decades ago.

That frozen-in-time tranquility of the Eames’ home has finally been shattered- albeit respectfully. Movers and conservators from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art have descended upon the Eames House and cataloged the living room's contents — 1,864 items — and transported them to the museum as an installation of a full-scale replica of the Eames living room. The room is a key component of the exhibition "California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way.’

When the "Living in a Modern Way" exhibition closes next spring, the contents of the Eames living room will be delivered back to the house in the Palisades - but their inspiration, no doubt, will have been taken back to an entire new generation of homes. 

You can view a time-lapse video of the room being dismantled below.

Authentic Eames furniture can be found locally at Matisse.

Story by Louisa Penney

This house on a cliff by Petra Gipp Arkitektur and Katarina Lundeburg is situated on the top of a cape, overlooking a bay from high up on a cliff. They explain their design:

Two distinct volumes take hold of each other to create the conditions for the life that is led here. One of the volumes contains elemental cells for sleeping, which have a direct connection to the outside via a separate entrance. There is also a large bedroom with an adjacent terrace and a bathroom, which is open to the sky. The other one of the two volumes houses a generous living room and a kitchen, where the public aspects of dwelling take place. The kitchen presents a degree of simplicity and abstraction, which aesthetically as well as functionally brings it into the same realm as the living room. The spacious living room blurs the boundary between inside and outside. Part of the volume forms an outside space with nothing but a roof as protection from the elements, this part transitions into the large terraces. The clients envisioned terraces to bring the house and the cliff together in a whole.

Set on the beach front of Piha, this idyllic and secluded beach escape ‘Pohutukawa Beach House’ is the perfect city getaway. Nestled amongst a site that was once 90% covered in mature Pohutukawa trees, the house was designed in a way that minimised their destruction, in turn, maximising the use of the wood that was taken down during the construction process. Designed by Herbst Architects, the result is a modern and intimate structure that re-connects its inhabitants with nature, placing them in direct contact with both life on the beach and under the trees.

Laced with wood and floor-to-ceiling glass, the coastal environment is the central focus of the design with bedrooms and garage housed in two towers, with a loosely defined public space that links both sections. Warm woods were used on the walls and furniture with a complementary color scheme of oranges, tans, and browns to keep the interiors cohesive with the exterior architecture while the mid-century furnishings provide a relaxing and comfortable interior that makes for the perfect weekend escape.

Cunningham Architect’s House on Cedar Hill, is a magnificent example of contemporary minimalism. Located in Dallas, Texas, the house is situated alongside a native stacked-stone wall that runs 181 feet long and stands 21 feet high. The main living quarters are long and low, nestled amongst the dense brush surrounding. This is contrasted by the observation tower, located at the Northern end of the building which gives the residents the ultimate view of the stunning scenery, including several thousand acres of protected native bush and the distant cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. Utilising their natural surroundings, the architects have used many Texas woods such as native pigmented stucco. Copper, slate and glass materials are also used to complete the home. Architects have made sure that the home does not detract from its habitat, blending in with the native environment through its natural stone exterior. The building exploits the outdoors; many windows allowing the residents to feel a part of nature within the comfort of their own home. This 6,700 square foot home was the rightful recipient of the 2008 Dallas AIA Design Award.

Story by Sarah McKenzie