As a lover and seller of art, the owner of this home demanded a sculptural element for their home. They were able to realise their dream with the help of architect Humberto Hermeto. Situated in Nova Lima, Brazil, the home operates as both a residence and an art gallery where the owners conduct business from. The strength of this home lies in its simplicity: a concrete facade is utilised on both the exterior and interior for continuity, and the colour palette is neutral throughout. Outside, the city and mountains serve as an incredible backdrop which can be viewed from all vantage points within the home, or whilst relaxing by the large patio and pool.

Set on a long narrow site on the edge of the Santa Monica Canyon, the Carrillo residence takes advantage of the Californian climate and views. Designed by Ehrlich Architects, the house is equipped with a glass living room so that one is able to see right through the space from courtyard to courtyard. The informal courtyard at the front of the house was constructed with safety in mind for the owners' two young children whilst two pivet doors allow the living room to open out directly to the outdoors - enabling the interior and exterior to become one. A custom wood ceiling and custom stained concrete allow for a sense of visual continuity; stone slabs mark the interior with marble bench tops lining the bathrooms.

Eight years ago when the Manhattan gallery owner Greg Wooten bought a plot of land in the wilder reaches of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, he had in mind a simple, box-like structure that would sit lightly in its rural surroundings and provide a stylish yet neutral backdrop for his collection of mid-century-modern furniture. Many more years and much more money than envisaged down the line, he has ended up with a complex building that, while fulfilling all the original criteria, is also an experimental piece of architecture. With its curtain glass wall and trio of tall white towers, it seems to hover just above the hillside like a cross between a 1950s spaceship and a state-of-the-art submarine. 'If I’d known how all-consuming the process would be, I probably wouldn’t have gone ahead,’ admits Wooten, who commissioned the same architect, William Massie, to design his Tribeca gallery, Mondo Cane. 'But now it is finally finished I am delighted and wouldn’t want to change a thing.’

What Wooten and Massie had in common was a passion for the Case Study houses, built in Los Angeles between 1948 and 1964 and designed to bring modernism to the masses. For all their innovative use of materials such as glass, concrete, plywood and steel, these houses often had a close relationship with their natural surroundings. And it was the desire to bring the outside in that inspired a key feature of Wooten’s house: the wall of windows that wraps itself right round the building and floods the open-plan interior with light. Its construction – the panes of glass held between beams formed from strips of amber acrylic and plywood edged in steel – has, says Wooten, 'never been done before and will probably never be attempted again!’

Located in upstate New York with sweeping views of the Catskill mountains the Rotman house project had architect and client in agreement from the start on the design of the house.  A 240-square-metre, bar-shaped building clad in red cedar, with all rooms facing the view. The open living-dining-kitchen area — the more public space — acts as a buffer between the home office and guest room near the entry and the master bedroom at the far end of the house. (Closets lining the hallway that connects the spaces provide ample storage.) Three-metre ceilings give the interior a graciousness that belies its small size, and the limited palette of materials — concrete for the floors, wood for the ceilings, dry-stacked local stone for the fireplace wall and Corian for the cabinets — makes the rooms feel even more spacious.

This house isn’t just another pretty facade. It’s energy-efficient, too, using both geothermal power and an array of solar panels that Mann cleverly concealed behind the roof parapet. These features, and the fact that the house is used mainly on weekends, allow it to run mostly off the power grid.

For more information on the architects go here.

Located in the Portugal Northwest border, the Vila Nova de Cerveira house by Demm Architecture was constructed for weekend use for its owners. Built as one long rectangle, its simplicity, enhanced by extensive use of concrete and glass, has good indoor-outdoor flow. The main living area leads out to an infinity pool, and the gardens, which are simply landscaped enables a simple concrete staircase to standout as a feature design feature.

A six-bedroom penthouse at London's latest development One Hyde Park has just sold for a record breaking £140 million (the equivalent of $306 million NZD), making it the most expensive piece of real estate in the world in terms of current listings and sales. What does £140 million buy you? 24 hour room service, spas, squash courts, private wine tasting facilities, protection from security guards (who are SAS trained) and the UK elite special forces unit. And your neighbours will all be able to afford the minimum £20 million dollar starting point for apartments nearby.

At this point the identity of the buyer is under wraps, but there is speculation that it could belong to an oil sheikh. The spacious apartment spans two floors, boasts bullet-proof windows, a panic room and is of course, situated at one of the most prestigious addresses in London - One Hyde Park.

Selected by the American Institute of Architects as San Francisco's top 25 buildings. We concur.

Over the years we've seen many a creative masterpiece that's been born from ideas doodled upon a classic cocktail napkin, and after stumbling across a similar idea from the US; we at Design Folio have decided to launch a competition based around the genius of these embryonic sketched ideas. Our inaugural Cocktail Napkin Sketch Contest is open to all those with a design leaning. Send us the machinations of your creative doodles and our extremely qualified team of judges will choose a winner. Up for grabs is a case of the superb award winning Man O' War Merlot Cabernet 2008 to help toast your success, along with the enviable chance to become an artistic hero amongst your design piers. We'll be sure to publish the best, the most interesting, the most creative, and the ugly, right here on the website.

Email us your scanned images along with a brief synopsis to us here by Tuesday 31st August.

Photography by Mario Gagliardi

The Brion-Vega cemetery was designed by renowned 20th Century architect Carlo Scarpa. Scarpa developed the geometrical concrete composition over a 10 year period, finally completing the cemetery in 1978. Located in San Vito d'Altivole, Italy, it was built as an extension to the family's existing cemetery and is the resting place of the Brion family members and the architect himself - Carlo Scarpa.

Scarpa described once described the cemetery - "I would like to explain the Tomba Brion...I consider this work, if you permit me, to be rather good and which will get better over time. I have tried to put some poetic imagination into it, though not in order to create poetic architecture but to make a certain kind of architecture that could emanate a sense of formal poetry....The place for the dead is a garden....I wanted to show some ways in which you could approach death in a social and civic way; and further what meaning there was in death, in the ephemerality of life—other than these shoe-boxes."

Situated in the Swiss village of Vals, and built in the mountain, this house is difficult to spot from afar, which makes for a perfect gateway. The unusual architecture plan comes from SeARCH and Christian Muller Architects, and includes all the facilities a common house has, such as a guest room, an entertainment area, and includes special features such as  underground pathways. The entrance is a wide oval opening that you are lead to by a traditional stone pathway.