Architect Daniel Martí i Pérez of DMP Arquitectura collaborated with designers Jurgen Van Weereld and Karin Giesberts to produce this small prefab house in the province of Alicante, Spain. Not only did they design it but they built it themselves, using it as a prototype to test and refine their ideas about how to build economical yet stylish prefabricated housing.
This small cabin sits on an arid hillside in Casablanca, a grape growing region of central Chile about an hour’s drive northwest of Santiago. It has expansive views of the valleys and ravines below. The clients wanted an unpretentious refuge that would be efficient to build and to use.
This small house in the Hollywood Hills was designed in 1959 by legendary modernist architect Richard Neutra. The home has either been very well maintained through the years or lovingly restored, appearing like a time capsule from the 50′s. It contains signature Neutra elements such as a wall of glass, low-slung built-in furniture and a large open masonry fireplace. Neutra had a reputation for paying close attention to his clients’ requirements and for producing very practical designs that combined aesthetic appeal with function and comfort.
The street side, sitting only a few steps from the roadway, is mostly closed with just a window for the kitchen and a line of clerestory windows that bring natural light into the home’s two bathrooms. The other side, with a view of the Hollywood Hills, is largely glass with a floor-to-ceiling glass wall running the entire length of the main living space. A large roof overhang provides shade for those south-facing windows. A similar roof cantilever at the front forms an open carport just off the street.
This small cabin in a rural area of central Chile uses little energy and has a low carbon footprint. AATA Arquitectos designed the cabin, opting for a two level floor plan to minimize the site impact. The cabin takes the shape of a cube that is 5.4 m (17’9″) on each side.
This distinctive modern dwelling is a small modular home manufactured in Britain by Boutique Modern Ltd. They produce modular buildings that are designed with sustainability and energy-efficiency in mind. One design element that makes the Edge stand out is its exterior framework of galvanized structural steel. Boutique Modern says it was inspired by Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Farnsworth House. The steel framework gives the building the needed strength to be delivered from the factory and lifted into place, and to be relocated again if necessary. Unlike the glass-walled Farnsworth House, the Edge’s framework is filled in with a combination of solid walls interspersed with sections of floor-to-ceiling glass. The oak siding, galvanized steel and glass complement each other quite nicely for a pleasing overall appearance.
This small house in Tokyo is wedged onto a thin strip of land between the street and a steep forested hillside. The narrow lot offered no real choice as to where to place the dwelling. The architects from Studio NOA dug the house into the toe of the hill, holding back the slope with a large retaining wall that also forms the back wall of the house. The footprint of the house tapers and has a slight bend as it conforms to the shape of the lot.
A mews is a narrow street or lane that originally provided access to the stables and carriage houses of the well-to-do residential areas of cities. Over time, many of those former stables have been converted into homes, known as mews houses. Today’s small house is a newly built mews house, placed in the backyard of a large semi-detached Victorian home in Dublin, Ireland.
This small house is located near Mar Azul, a coastal village south of Buenos Aires. It was placed among a grove of pine trees, with holes incorporated into the deck and roof overhang to accommodate the existing trees. The goal for BAK Arquitectos was to design a low-cost and low-maintenance summer house.
