The Leaf House engages it surroundings and forms part of the landscape: its roof blending into the vegetation; its base shaping the terrain.

The design is characterised by oversailing roof shells that resemble fallen leaves, held loosely together by a structure of twisted steel beams that bring dynamic forces inside.

The interior is enclosed with thin veil of moulded glass that activates views and reflections. Private rooms are tucked below into a sandstone podium fused to the terrain.

roof shells sketch

structure sketch

glass wall sketch

podium deck sketch

podium sketch

podium plan

deck plan

structure plan

inverted ceiling plan

roof plan

Photos by Hugh Rutherford

About Undercurrent Architects

Undercurrent Architects work to push the boundary of conventional architecture, bringing an audacious attitude and pioneering techniques to bespoke design. The London-based office specialises in constrained urban sites, brownfield regeneration projects and exceptional architecture. Currently operating on projects worldwide, with associates in Switzerland, Spain and Australia. -from Undercurrent Architects

Via archdaily. Visit Undercurrent Architects website for more details about their Leaf House design idea.

This site was subdivided from the original property which contained an existing house designed and lived in by the Government Architect John Campbell in the early 1900’s. It is historically listed and we were therefore keen for the new house to be lower and more subservient in its appearance to the original house while at the same time relating to it formally.

There were many restrictions on the property. The site was tight and relatively steep, the combined properties could not exceed the 50% inner residential site coverage and the new house was required to fit within all sunlight recession planes.

The resultant dwelling fully utilizes its site. Space for the bedrooms and garaging was excavated below, forming a base to the lighter living spaces above. The roof is clad in zinc and is cut and folded cleanly to focus views out to the harbour and diagonally to the trees, while at the same time providing a sense of enclosure and privacy. – from Parsonson Architects

Awards

NZIA Local Award for Architecture 2007
NZIA New Zealand Award 2008

Visit Parsonson Architects website for more details about their Salamanca House design idea.

This house is in a new subdivision in Seatoun. It is anchored to the site with heavy monolithic walls, with a relationship to the battlements of the reserve land nearby. The main body of the house rests on these walls and cantilevers out towards the view.

The ‘T’ shaped plan allows the kitchen and living areas to open out to two different sides of the house. This enables the owners to follow the sun during the day or shelter from the wind. – from Parsonson Architects

Outside swimming pool view

Kitchen

Visit Parsonson Architects website for more details about their Seatoun House design idea.

On approach a rurally influenced corrugated iron wall runs away and turns 90 degrees to contain the arrival space. The main roof glides over this leading into the house.

The house sits long and low in this large and multi-layered landscape. The dark corrugated iron walls blend with the dark lines of Macrocarpa shelter planting in the distance. The definition between inside and outside is blurred by the continuity of floors and terraces and the roofs hovering or gliding lightly across the plan. -from Parsonson Architects

Awards

NZIA Local Award 2005
NZIA New Zealand Award 2006

About Parsonson Architects

Parsonson Architects was established in 1987. The practice has focused primarily on individual houses and aims to produce work with a high level of sensitivity and discipline, engaging the spirit of each owner and site. More recently projects have included apartment buildings, retail fit outs in North America and Europe and competition entries across a variety of building types and project scales.

Visit Parsonson Architects website for more details about this Martinborough House.

The cube exterior of the home Final Wooden House

Architects: Sou Fujimoto Architects
Site Area: 89,3 sqm
Constructed Area: 15,13 sqm

the use of wooden beams creates a push and pull of the space which is open to the outdoors

the wood construction creates nooks in which one can rest and enjoy the serenity of their surroundings

Sou Fujimoto

Qualifications
First Class Licensed Architect

Education
University of Tokyo, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture (Bachelor), 1990 – 1994

Experience
Sou Fujimoto Architects, Tokyo, 2000 (established) – Present

Awards
2008 Japanese Institute of Architecture Grand Prize (Children’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation), 2008
2007 KENNETH F. BROWN ARCHITECTURE DESIGN AWARD Honorable Mention (Children’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation), 2007
AR Awards 2006 “Grand Prize” (Children’s Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation), 2006
AR Awards 2006 “Highly Commended” (7/2 house), 2006
“Gold Prize” in House Competition by Tokyo Society of Architects and Building Engineers, 2006
“1st Prize” in Wooden House Competition in Kumamoto, 2005
AR Awards 2005 “Highly Commended” (Dormitory for Mentally Disabled in Date), 2005
AR Awards 2005 “Honourable Mention” (T house), 2005
JIA New Face Award 2004, 2004
“1st Prize” in International Design Competition for the Environment Art Forum for Annaka, 2003
Winning “SD Review 2003″, 2003
“Honorable Mention” in Design Competition for the Ora Town Hall, 2002
Winning “SD Review 2002 SD Prize”, 2002
Winning “SD Review 2001″, 2001
Winning “SD Review 2000 Maki Prize”, 2000
“2nd Prize in Design Competition for the Aomori Art Museum, 2000
Winning “SD Review 1997 SD Prize”, 1997
Winning “SD Review 1995″, 1995

Visit Sou Fujimoto Architects website for more details about this wooden house design idea.

Paetawa House Living Room

Paetawa House Bathroom

Paetawa House floor plan

This small one bedroom house is located at Pekapeka Beach, a small seaside settlement an hours drive north of Wellington City. It rests on gently undulating dune lands, facing northwest, looking across the road and lower dunes out to the Tasman Sea and Kapiti Island to the west.

It is intended for the house to both relate to the horizontality of this landscape and also be at odds with it, as if it had been left there, or washed up.

The exterior is composed of a rhythm of painted fibre cement panels. Elements of wall, roof beam, roof layers and brise soleil are expressed separately, with light entering in places in between. There is a sense of horizontal and vertical layering, and metaphorically a sense of dislocation or decomposition of parts, as if a creature or construction had been left high and dry above the tide. – from Parsonson Architects

Awards:

NZIA New Zealand Award 2005
NZIA Local Award 2004
NZIA Colour Award 2005
Metropolitan Glass Awards Finalist 2004
Home & Entertainment Home of the Year Finalist 2004

Visit Parsonson Architects website for more details about their Paetawa House design idea.

Northland House Living Room overlooking Wellington Harbour

Northland House Bedroom

The house sits on a high ridgeline overlooking Wellington Harbour with orientation in two directions, east to the harbour and hills beyond and west to the afternoon sun.

From the road the house peers austerely over the protective courtyard wall, while the inside spaces feel very open and connected to the outside. We were interested in the idea of floating above a landscape, which represented to us a sense of freedom, lightness and appropriateness to this location. Patterns of surface materials are loosely influenced by the tapestry of land viewed from the sky. Some in shifting layers with non-parallel surfaces subtly distorting perspectives.

Flooring and decking change in material and texture as they run level from the west courtyard, through the living room and out to the west deck. The roof glides over, unimpeded, like a shadow, perforated at the edges with louvres. Large solid and glazed doors slide to open or close the spaces. The wings of the plan focus the views either east or west and close off the house to the neighbours to the north and south. – from Parsonson Architects

Awards:
NZIA Local Award 2004
NZIA New Zealand Award 2005
NZIA New Zealand Supreme Award 2005

Visit Parsonson Architects website for more details about their Northland House.

Architects: Nimmrichter cda
Location: Dietlikon, Switzerland
Project Team: Rolf Carl Nimmrichter, Dennis Clayton Matthiesen
Site management: Knecht Baumangement, Schlieren
Timber construction: Hector Egger, Langenthal
Interior: Teo Jakob Colombo, Zurich
Project Year: 2007-2008

House S Swimming Pool

House S Living Room

House S Bedroom

House S Bathroom

House S Kitchen

Photos by Bruno Helbling, Zurich

Visit Nimmrichter cda website and Archdaily for more details about this house design idea.

Architects: Widjedal Racki Bergerhoff
Location: Ingarö-Evlinge east of Stockholm, Sweden
Type of building: Private villa
Size of building: Villa 250 sqm + studio 50 sqm
Year completed: 2007

Casa Barone Living Room

Casa Barone Kitchen

Casa Barone Bedroom

Casa Barone Bathroom

Floor plan

An existing summer house on a steep continues slope was the starting point for this project. The old house sat in the middle of the property leaving only unusable narrow and highly sloping ground around it. A main issue was therefore to regain the property and to create flat areas with good sun conditions for outdoor activities. We placed the building on the northern property boarder leaving most of the property unexploited facing south. The biggest part of the building is dug into the slope, creating a large horizontal platform in ground level. Half of this platform is taken up by the upper floor of the building; the other half remains an open outdoor terrace in direct connection to the kitchen inside. Next to the kitchen is the living area, which, from its elevated position, faces the water view as well as the upper half of two large oak trees.

The studio, or rather a place for inspiration and creation of precious art for this Italian painter and his Swedish wife, makes an abrupt change to its traditional Swedish pitched roof neighbours. The building glitters as a golden shrine penetrated with large black windows as it sits in the rocky slope in between sculptural pine trees. – from Widjedal Racki Bergerhoff

Visit Widjedal Racki Bergerhoff website for more details about this private villa Casa Barone.

Parsonson Architects have used simple modular construction techniques combined with a very simple form. The plan is a rectangle and is divided into 3 parts, the solid bedroom forms at each end support a floating roof over the living space in between.

This layout allows the living room to face both east to hills and west to the sea. It allows sun into the house throughout the day, for passive solar heating of the concrete slab and creates a sheltered outside space on the east side that still keeps a strong connection to the western sea views.

Pekapeka House living room

Pekapeka House bedroom

Pekapeka House kitchen

Pekapeka House bathroom

Pekapeka House floor plan

Architects: Parsonson Architects
Location: Pekapeka Beach, New Zealand
Project Team: Gerald Parsonson, Tim Lovell
Structural Engineer: Spencer Holmes Consulting Engineers
Builder: Northface Construction
Project Area: 156 sqm

via Parsonson Architects and archdaily