Located in a calm residential area in Tokyo, the house is an intimate, introverted, closed house with courtyard and an outward looking, open glasshouse above. A tall wall of frosted glass on the principal façade brings sunlight into the entrance hall.

Architects: Shinichi Ogawa & Associates
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Program: Residence
Structural System: Reinforced concrete, steel frame
Site Area: 177.72 sqm
Building Area: 88.75 sqm
Total floor Space: 154.60 sqm
Project Year: 2010
Photographs: Courtesy of Shinichi Ogawa & Associates

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Displayed during the 2012 Light Festival in Ghent, Belgium, Luminarie De Cagna is an 28 meters high structure built with 55,000 LED lights consumes only 20Kwatt/h of electricity.

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Located on Teshima Island, Japan, White Dormitory is a renovation project by Japanese designer Koichi Futatsumata of Case-Real. The bones of the initial house were carefully preserved, allowing to insert new elements without disturbing the surrounding landscape of the village.

Though deteriorated traditional Japanese style roof was replaced, the basic form and color of the original was adopted to the new one only using different materials, you hardly notice the change from the outside. On the other hand, all the furnishings and functional features of dormitory as well as a courtyard are reconstructed using various white materials such as woods, stones, and plasters with different expressions and tones. In Japan, white is not only a symbol of new beginning, but the sacred color representing purity, innocence, and peace.
[Photos by Hiroshi Mizusaki]

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Designed by Rui Grazina, this 330 sq m detached house is located in the north-western Portuguese city of Barcelos. The house has two storeys on the eastern side and one on the western side due to the topography of the site.

“The plot has an area of 3300-square-meters, part of which located in a green protection area. The house has 300-square-meters, and a gross building area of 290-square-meters. The house footprint is designed based on the articulation between the existing alignments and the new proposed access road, which enables both car and foot access. Given the context, our objective was to turn the living spaces to east, considering this is where the most interesting visual points are, and to make rooms face south due to the quality of sun exposure, privacy and relationship with the existing topography. On this side of the building the existing ground level is higher, enabling a connection and continuity between interior and exterior.

Due to the steep topography of the site, the house has two storeys on the eastern side, and just one on the western side. This means that on the western side there is a relevant part of the structure buried. This is achieved structurally by the use of a load bearing concrete frame, enabling the creation of the undergroud parking space. On top of this concrete structure sits a light steel frame system, completed with an exterior insulation finishing system. The interiors are mainly built with the use of dry-lining systems, and solid woods and/or lacquered woods, for flooring and fitted furniture.”
[Photos by Nelson Garrido]

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These are the works of paper architect/artist Ingrid Siliakus. The architecture models are meticulously cut out from paper.

“…Working with paper forces me to be humble, since this medium has a character of its own that asks for cooperation. It is a challenge to find this cooperation with each separate paper brand I work with. Working with paper the way I do, namely by means of cutting and folding creating paper sculptures, asks of me to work with meditative precision. Paper architecture does not bare haste, it is its enemy; one moment of loss of concentration, can lead to failure of a piece…’ ‘…I experience an ultimate satisfaction at the critic moment when the paper, with a silenced sigh, surrenders and becomes a blade-sharp crease. The sound of the paper, which guides this surrendering, to me is incomparable…”

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