From the street, this Edwardian house might seem unassuming, undeserving of a second glance.  From the back, however, the addition to the Trojan House by Jackson Clements Burrows, where three children's bedrooms are cantilevered above a large living space, is anything but ordinary.

The entire addition is wrapped in a seamless wooden skin that conceals any obvious openings. Windows, covered by shutters that follow the pattern of the façade, reveal nothing of the interior space. 

Incidentally the inside is just as remarkable as the outside. A thermal chimney and a breezeway hallway allow for passive cooling in the warmer months as each room was designed to allow for cross ventilation.  Additionally a rain screen provides extra shade from the hot summer sun, and also insulates the inside in the winter by forming a space for warm air. 

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Casa no Gerês, designed by Porto-based Correia/Ragazzi Aquitectos, has received its fair share of international awards and exposure, but we cannot help but show it off one more time. This is the first project by Graça Correia and her new Italian partner, Roberto Ragazzi. It is a bold statement that hides nothing.

This is also a house that is easy to love from certain perspectives and from others; it looks quite unsuitable for its surroundings. From some angles, the house seems like an accident, some kind of a mishap with transportation containers and building materials. One part of the building is buried inside the hill while another sticks out over the river. It appears about to teeter off the hill at any moment, just waiting to land in its final resting place in the river.

The owners, Micé and Eduardo Pinto Ferreira, have been Correia's clients for more than a decade, and gave her carte blanche to create their dream house on the 5,000 square-meter site by the Cávado river - as long as no trees were cut and the 60 square-meter house (maximum allowed footprint for the site) was made of concrete. The house is located in Peneda-Gerês National Park, along the Spanish border in northern Portugal, so the environment and its inviolability were crucial and the rules strict.

But looking out from the inside, the awesome beauty of the home becomes apparent. The simplicity of the structure, the openness of the views and the calm balance of the elements seems to speak the same language as the bleak surroundings. Nature has a way of being beautiful even when it is not, and this house knows that secret.

The warmth and proper scale of the building become even clearer when the illuminated house is viewed at night. It may look like it landed from some other planet, but it appears to be right at home now. - Tuija Seipell

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Paris-based Agence Jouin Manku took on its first large-scale integrated architectural and interior design commission in 2003, when YTL Design Group from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, invited it to design the residence of a Malaysian power family.

Completed in the latter part of 2008, the residence is the ultimate expression of the taste, influence and industrial-scale capabilities of the prominent family whose entrepreneurial activities have shaped Kuala Lumpur's skyline.

Three generations of the family inhabit the 3,000 square-meter residence designed to accommodate both private and public functions.

The building includes nine bedrooms, two family rooms, a family kitchen and a private dining area, a family library, a game room, a study, a public reception area, a formal dining room, a ballroom, chapel, 21 bathrooms, a swimming pool, two guest suites plus indoor private and guest parking.

The initial sketches exploring the owners' usage requirements reveal resemblances to the boring stacked-boxes look still so ubiquitous in residential architecture. And while traces of the "heaped trailers" syndrome remain in the finished building, this is not the Jetsons, neither are we looking at EPCOT, Tomorrowland or the 1964 New York World's Fair.

We are in the lush vegetation of a posh Kuala Lumpur residential area, and in spite of the boxiness of the structure, an elegant circular softness manages to permeate the sightlines and key details of the building, making it an agreeable part of its landscape.

Inside, prominent examples of this curvilinear elegance include the amazing staircases resembling the inside of a shell when viewed from above, and the round ballroom chandelier of 13,000 custom-designed undulating petals of unglazed cast porcelain biscuit.

The curved walls both inside and out have a functional purpose of providing privacy and enclosing each function gently in its own space. The overall sweeping feel inside the spaces invites the viewer in and creates soft, arching vistas.

The concept consists of three layers: the base for public functions, the ring for guests and the private house for the family.

The inside of the magnificent residence is gorgeous with its high ceilings, large windows and abundance of light. White color and natural wood are dominant elements but they allow the view from the vast, mostly retractable, windows to remain the main visual attraction.

The residence is also a wonderful study of contrasts between inside and outside, private and public, traditional and ultra modern, man-made and natural.

YTL Design Group of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was the architect of record. The Agence Jouin Manku design team included Patrick Jouin, Sanjit Manku, Yann Brossier (architect), Richard Perron (designer). Officina del Paesaggio from Lugano, Switzerland was in charge of the landscape design, and L'Observatoire, New York, USA handled the lighting. - Tuija Seipell

Images: Roland Halbe

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It seems as though a wooden boat washed up on shore amidst a neighborhood of typical Aussie beach houses just south of Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsula.  From the street the house's irregular form reveals nothing of what unfolds once within the property.

At a closer look, the façade consists solely of a mailbox. According to the design team at McBride Charles Ryan the openness of a holiday house in a beach community renders the front door arbitrary. You stop in for the weekend - your friends stop over for a Sunday afternoon drink.  

The architects valued the existing scale of Blairgowrie - the house is certainly not an obstruction built within the community. Instead, it's modest irregularity opens up into an impressive four-bedroom beach verandah. Bold blacks and whites sit on top of the stained hardwood floors, which run the length of the house.

A dramatic red support structure, the most striking interior feature, draws the divide between inside and out. According to the architects, the support shelves are where beach memories will be stored - a place where all the stuff you see every day will sit as you and your family grow.  - Andrew J Wiener

Photography - John Gollings

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Casa Monte na Comporta in Grândola, Portugal is a house that sits in its surroundings as if it had always been there yet it also manages to look completely fresh, cool, new and spectacular.

The house's undulating shape echoes the gently sloping sand dunes, and its hard and angular surface planes contrast beautifully with the rounded shapes of the surrounding trees.

It has a bunker-like feel but it really does not look like a bomb-shelter because the exterior is broken into smaller sections with varying materials. The sky, the trees and the water in the pool provide all the color. Tactile texture is everywhere, inside and out. Light and shadow become the main players. The entire dwelling exudes organic calm.

Although it seems so, this house was not built into existing dunes. The exact opposite happened. Luis Pereira Miguel and team at Lisbon-based Pereira Miguel Arquitectos, built the dunes so that they could situate the house under them.

Pereira Miguel is a multi-disciplinary firm - architecture and interiors, commercial and residential - that works with various collaborators in Portugal and around the world. The seamless conversation between nature and house, surroundings and building is a theme visible in many of the firm's projects but none as distinctively as in the Dune House.

The two crescent-shaped Barchan dunes that the architects created hide the house under a road. Eventually, it will look like the sand, the house and the wind have coexisted here forever. In a hundred years, it may look like some secret hub of notorious infiltrators or perhaps it will look more like a dwelling of friendly earthlings. Already the house shows a delicious hint of ancient cave and that aspect is going to get better and better after years of wind and weather action.

If you were able to look at the footprint of the house from the sky (and you are not, because it is partly under the sand), you'd realize that it consists of four slightly angled "arms," almost like a wonky letter X with each section housing a separate function.

From each section, the view and feel are different from the others. With the constant action of the forces of nature, the view will also shift year by year, season by season, inviting contemplation and creating harmony.

Completed in late 2008, Casa Monte na Comporta in Grândola is, not surprisingly, drawing attention. It will be featured on Portuguese cable television this month and it will most likely be popping up in many design and architecture magazines in the coming months. That someone (other than me) is lucky enough to live in this house is almost too much to bear. - Tuija Seipell



Photography by ultimasreportagens.com

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The boxy and containery appearance of residential buildings currently attracting accolades and attention is starting to get boring. However, simplicity, clarity and openness are qualities that continue to appeal.

While this is yet another house of stacked boxes, we cannot help but admire the vacation residence clinging dramatically to the sloping hill up in the trees of the Laurentian mountains of Quebec, Canada.

Locals, used to a more traditional ski chalet in this popular ski resort area, refer to the building as the cube, a name choice requiring no imagination. When the Montreal-based architectural firm Saucier + Perrotte won the Canadian Architect magazine's Award of Excellence for this project in 2004, the magazine called the entry the Lac Superieur Residence in Lac Superieur, Mont-Tremblant.

Whatever the moniker, the house stuns with its elegant lines, stylish use of materials and lack of unnecessary distractions.

As it should be, the building's real redeeming features reveal themselves inside. The views from the floor-to-ceiling windows provide all the visual stimulus you'll need, and at the same time, demand a streamlined approach to everything else in the interior.

The boxy-cubey theme continues inside as do the color scheme and the lack of distracting materials. The residence is divided into three functional areas- sleeping quarters on the top floor, middle and entry floor for living and the lowest level for play.

Although the building looks like a disorganized corner of a stylish container-port it exudes a solitary, silent grace that allows the distinctive, four seasons of the mountain to provide the main attraction.

The building meets the criteria for a log cabin as described in the area's design guidelines for recreational development yet, fortunately, fails to resemble a Tyrolean mini castle. - Tuija Seipell

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We love a fine wine, especially when it can be ingested in as thoughtful an environment as this one. Welcome to Merus, a "designer" winery like no other. Located in the Napa Valley in California, Merus looks more like a Michelin-starred restaurant than your average cellar-door retail outlet. Exposed beams are the only nod to the past in this interior design strategy, which is thoroughly modern with a hint of Californian warmth.

Amsterdam-based Uxus Design is the architecture and design firm behind the winery which will open in early 09. With more than a few inspiring, high profile projects under its belt, Uxus is one of the Netherlands' hottest design studios - with an office to match, - which we got to experience first hand during our trip to Amsterdam last week.

It's been a busy year for Uxus, who have unveiled a number of other great retail design projects recently including the new Heineken 'concept' bars which will open in airports across the globe and one of Europe's coolest McDonald's play areas in Amsterdam. They were also behind the Buccella Wines bottle design, which we featured last week. - Bill Tikos

See also Design Wine

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Dupli Casa, a private residence by the Neckar river, near the old town of Marbach in South- Western Germany, is a wonderful example of connection and fluidity. It connects the inside with the outside, up with down, air with ground and - most cleverly - past with present and even future.

From the outside, the three-storey concrete villa looks like a bit like some sort of a fiberglass motorboat job gone funny, yet it also manages to look immensely appealing and intriguing. From some angles, the structure appears to be standing upside down - the lower exterior rim spilling onto the lawn and forming a part of a roof structure, if the building were to stand the other way around. It could have been blown there by the wind; it could be a StarWarsian vehicle frozen in place; it could be just taking off to outer space.

The outdoor swimming pool and the white surface surrounding it seem like a perfect reflection of the house, almost as if the house had been face down on the ground, and when it was lifted off the ground, the process had left an imprint of a swimming pool on the ground and the large window opening in the house.

The views from the inside are amazing, especially from the vast ground-level openings that again, give the sensation of flying, being airborne, weightlessness. Everything is fluid, flowing and smooth.

All of this is very much in keeping with the main inspiration for the house. The new residence follows the footprint of the previous dwelling and its numerous extensions. The idea was to let the "family archaeology" continue in the new building. It's a house that remembers its beginnings in 1984 yet projects boldly into the  future.

Dupli Casa is the work of Jürgen Mayer H., founder and principal of his cross-disciplinary studio. J. Mayer H. Architekten in Berlin. Other team members include Georg Schmidthals, Thorsten Blatter and Simon Takasak, plus Uli Wiesler's architecture studio based in Stuttgart. - Tuija Seipell

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Shuhei Endo's steel, wood and glass structure, Bubbletecture H, inflates ominously out of the Japanese landscape. The visitor center, built in a valley between Osaka and Hiroshima, was planned in three sections housing a theater/lecture hall, a bookshop/galley and a workshop. 

Endo's design aesthetic throughout his career has focused on numerous experiments with steel and the seemingly limitless possibilities the material has in the built environment.  He continually sets out to prove that architecture can possess diversity while simultaneously following the rules of geometry, and Bubbletecture H is certainly not an exception.

Endo has a phenomenal ability to place anything he designs within nature. The visitor center is a structural geometry of bubbles from afar.  But close up, the surface appears to mimic the faceted planes on the surface of a diamond.  A minimal number of windows prevent this building from glimmering in its valley.  Instead, Endo subdued his design with rusted steel and occasional moss surfaces to sit within the surrounding forest - additionally meeting his client's desire to educate the people living in the Hyogo prefecture, as well as anyone else who visit on global environmental concerns.  

Drawn from concepts found in traditional Japanese vernacular architecture, the superstructure was prefabricated from local Japanese cedar. Prefabrication minimizes both economic and environmental impacts - less material to transport shorter distances instantly reduces carbon emissions released from the onset of the project.

And like a cliff temple, the supporting structure clings to the earth only where necessary - the building is over 10,000 square feet in size, but it is connected to only sixteen deeply buried five-foot wide beams - and that's all that goes in the ground.

The concept for the design of Bubbletecture H thoroughly examines nature's cyclical systems.  Circulation through the three functional sections of the building is apparent in the rational built form connecting these spaces across the landscape.  Another set of systems cycle and collect rainwater that falls on the building's surface and reuse it for irrigation.  And perhaps the most significant systemic process, the life cycle of the entire site, has been acknowledged, as green technology oozes from practically every surface.  Endo's exhibition dedicated to environmental studies hopes to heighten people's awareness in their surroundings - and by raising awareness improved care is imminent for the valley and its environs. - Andrew J Wiener

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Norihiko Dan - born in 1956 in the Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan - is the designer of the beautiful Munetsugu Hall, completed in 2007 in Naka Ward, Nagoya, Japan. It is a privately-funded concert hall that continues the age-old but almost-dead tradition of wealthy arts patrons initiating and financing the creation of art spaces. Fluid, white wall shapes are the distinctive feature of Munetsugu Hall's main performance space. The walls bring to mind artistic sweep marks left by a gigantic builder who in his boredom doodled in his mortar tray with a massive trowel and then let the shapes solidify.

Norihiko Dan has won several architecture awards in Japan and Taiwan including the Distinguished Architect Award of the Japanese Institute of Architecture and the ARCADIA Award Gold Medal in 2007. His work has been part of exhibitions in Japan, Taiwan, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Italy and the UK. In addition to being a respected architect and educator, Norihiko Dan is also an architecture historian and writes novels and screenplays.

Munetsugu Hall's generous benefactor is Tokuji Munetsugu who with his wife Naomi made a fortune in the restaurants business. Their company Ichibanya Co. Ltd. (based in Aichi, Japan) operates more than 1,000 curry and pasta restaurants under the names Curry House CoCo Ichibanya and Pasta de Coco. Munetsugu spent two billion yen to build the 310-seat concert hall. He has also set up a nonprofit organization to support welfare, sports and arts activities. - Tuija Seipell

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We are on a hunt for supremely cool houses, from beach homes, country homes and city pads to holiday houses and ski retreats, we want to know where the coolest houses are for our upcoming book. We are looking for the most unique houses from Sao Paulo to Sydney. Slightly cool, standard-issue luxury won't do it.

The houses we want must think like Zaha Hadid who said "I like architecture to have someraw, vital, earthy quality." So, if you are an architect of such a house, please submit your project for consideration or if you a photographer who has photographed such a house, please get in touch -

bill@thecoolhunter.net

bill@thecoolhunter.net

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Golf and drab are synonyms, right? And the mere mention of Golf and Country Club makes you run. Away. Fast. Golf may indeed have a bit of an image problem but that did not deter the Zürich-based Smolenicky & Partner Architektur when they were retained to work on the expansion of the venerable Sempachersee Golf Club located near Lucerne in Switzerland.

In addition to the new club house-restaurant building and the new maintenance building, both of which Smolenicky designed, the expansion included a second 18-hole golf course. All of this has made Golf Club Sempachersee the largest golf club in Switzerland and, quite likely, the club with the coolest club house.

In their approach to the club house, Smolenicky sought to manifest two things: what they call the "country character of the golfing culture of the Sempachersee course" and the course's worldly sophistication. They took their design cues from "the rural warmth of a timber barn and the clear lines of a Maserati sports car." The resulting building, the sleek and minimalist interior, and the magnificent 180-degree panoramic views of the Sempachersee lake and the Alps might just be reasons enough to give golf another chance. Or, at the very least, rethink what a golfing environment could look like. By Tuija Seipell

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Humlegård House is the stark-looking, year-round residence of a former Finnish TV documentary producer. He moved to this house, located in the town of Fiskars, 78 kilometers west of Helsinki, from a central-Helsinki heritage apartment. Many aspects of Humlegård, especially its placement to respond to the forces of nature, resemble the owner's childhood  home, a large country manor in central Finland.

Designed by Kimmo Friman of Friman Laaksonen Architects of Helsinki, Humlegård House is situated on a small, flat hill so that the north-south line runs diagonally through the building. This is the traditional way of placing a building so that it functions optimally as an energy efficient and comfortable dwelling in the harsh, Finnish climate. Protection from the wind and maximum use of sunlight are primary considerations, and the placement of rooms is as much dependent on how much the room needs heat and daylight as it is on how the residents use each space.

The floor plan resembles the layout of a traditional peasant farmhouse, split lengthwise into two. The house consists of three multi-function areas: two large living rooms linked by a loft with a bathroom and walk-in closet below.

In a typically Finnish fashion, the building appears simple, stark and utilitarian yet exudes a harmonious and stylish form & function sensibility. The owner and architect selected each building material carefully, opting for traditional, natural materials. "I did not want materials of which we did not have decades of experience," said the owner. Horizontal spruce board - left untreated for maximum structure breathability -- is the main feature of the interior.

The spruce-clad outer facade weathers into a beautiful gray color that matches the stark surroundings. The east-facing facade is clad with galvanized corrugated-steel that protects the wall from rain and sun and also reflects excessive sun away in the summer. The placement of windows was determined by the requirements of the interior spaces. A separate, tiny log sauna, also designed by Friman, was built later east of the main building. By Tuija Seipell

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Antwerp, Belgium-based one-year-old sculp(IT) is a partnership of two architects, Pieter Peerlings and Silvia Mertens. They have recently completed a clever office, residence and studio for themselves in what they call "Antwerp's narrowest house" located in Anwerp's former red-light district. They took a 2.4-meter (7 feet 10 inches) wide space between two buildings, erected a steel skeleton in it and installed four wooden floors, one each for work, dining, relaxing and sleeping, plus a bath tub on the roof.

A one-piece staircase connects the floors. The walls are all glass, allowing light in and creating a feel of space. In a nod to the area's "exhibitionist" past, each "window" to the street has a black frame emphasizing the showcase or display aspect. The multi-color lighting scheme completes the seedy notion. By Tuija Seipell

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There's a new planet in the solar system and it's called Luxury. Actually, it is here on earth, on a little-known island called Nurai, located northeast of Abu Dhabi city.

The 130,000-square-meter island is about to be transformed into an achingly glamorous and luxurious resort and exclusive private residential estate, comprised of one boutique luxury hotel resort with 60 suites, 31 beachfront estates and 36 water villas.

The mammoth project is a collaboration between New York based Studio Dror, led by Dror Benshetrit, that has designed the residences, and the Paris-based firm AW2 are responsible for the design of the hotel.

The sheer scale of the project is awe-inspiring. The incredible multi-storey water villas alone will span 515 square meters each, and comprise three bedrooms, four bathrooms, a private rooftop garden with spa pool, private infinity pool, multiple decks, outdoor barbeque area, gourmet kitchen and concealed service quarters. No doubt, Tom & Katie are making their reservations already.

As for the private Seaside residences (which are sure to be snapped up by Saudi Princes and oil sheiks because they will probably be the only ones who can afford them), the five-bedroom, six bathroom estates span between 3,000 and 6,050 square meters.

Each Seaside estate will include a private beach and garden, rooftop garden with spa pool, infinity swimming pool, indoor reflecting pools, concealed service quarters, entertainment patios, outdoor dining areas, chef and show kitchens, and outdoor showers.

The resort is due to open in 2010 and the prices for the residences start at €20 million. By Lisa Evans

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Some of us think that our far off ancestors lived in the trees - and during our childhood, when our thoughts and memories are most pure, we yearn to climb trees growing in our gardens, in our parks, in our cities. As we get older, the urge to climb trees subsides as we ride elevators up to our offices in the sky and look out across the cities where we live. Yet occasionally, as we're sealed up tight in our artificially climatic spaces, we long for a breath of fresh air.

At a German company called baumraum an architect, a landscape architect, an arbologist, and a craftsman design modern, natural and solidly constructed treehouses. Each treehouse project is assessed individually. The team takes into consideration the condition of the environment and of the tree, with the size and features the clients desire.  

baumraum offers a range of wood-types as well as options for insulated walls. Treespaces can be outfitted with sitting and sleeping benches, storage spaces, a mini-kitchen, heating, glass windows, lighting, as well as a sound system for multimedia. Every piece is prefabricated in a workshop, and then brought together on site.

Sound like something you've been wanting? The baumraum team offers free consultation where they can talk you through every option available as you put together your dream treehouse.  The treehouses can span multiple levels and sit among several trees. Treehouses are mostly secured with ropes, thereby minimizing the impact of stress to the tree or trees on which the house is placed. And if a tree is particularly weak, or even if a treehouse is wanted where there is no suitable tree, stilts are used to guarantee people everywhere can once again climb trees. By Andrew J Wiener

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We do our best to seek out exceptional design from all corners of the globe, and on Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands off the north west coast of Africa, we found an extraordinary architectural example in timber, glass and concrete.  The House in Tenerife was built into the cliffs nearly 1000 ft. above a black sand beach. 

The entrance to the house leads to the upper tier of the double-height living room. And descending the concrete staircase, the minimalist interior becomes second nature against the surrounding backdrop - where the blues of the sky and the sea appear vertically in formation.  Before long, the sensory experiences from the natural world envelope the built form, and the house's relevance in its surroundings are revealed. 

The layout places living areas of the home on the shorter end of the L-shaped form, while both bedrooms and bathrooms sit along the longer side. Both living and sleeping spaces open out to a wooden deck and pool that spills into nature. 

The heaviness of the concrete double-story living room allows glass panels to sit effortlessly on the deck. The room's only furniture, le Corbuiser's chaise and Mies' Barcelona chair face out, away from a small fireplace that meets a wall of two-storey shelving.

The sleeping spaces both open to the deck and pool as well. Each has its own bathroom - and from the master, the owners can sleep and bathe in the same space looking out at the same view, as the sink and the concrete tub sit at the foot of the bed. 

The house even contains a basement where a home gym looks through a glass wall into the side of the pool.  We couldn't really think of anything else we would want from a home on a Spanish island - except great wine storage, we'd be doing plenty of entertaining. By Andrew J Wiener.

Pics by Roland Halbe

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The design brief for the James-Robertson House set upon a steep slope at Great Mackerel Beach overlooking the bay was to provide the owners with a permanent residence that separates living, sleeping and guest spaces in three pavilion-like glass, steel and copper structures. 

The Sydney-based team of Casey Brown Architecture abides by principles of lying built form atop of the natural environment, and their house perched above the blue waters of the bay is no exception to the practice. For the James-Robertson House, the architects, who also live on the hillside, employed their local knowledge of climate and topography in the relationship between the natural and the tectonic. 

After crossing the bay by ferry, visitors and the very few local residents arrive at Great Mackerel Beach via a pier that jets out from the shore. The homes on the hillside sit at the edge of the Ku-ring-gai National Park - a vast expansive protected area just north of Sydney - and no road access means no cars at all - the dream of many urbanists worldwide. 

The structure of the house is comprised of three double-storey pavilions that are anchored down into the rock formations yet seem to hang off the steep hill. The climate-sensitive design allows the vast open areas to capture sea breezes from the South Pacific Ocean just out beyond the Bay. Sunlight is effortlessly filtered through folding hoods, mechanical blinds and eaves and long overhangs. The entire steel structure was painted black, which helps the house fade into its natural environment. Along with the structural materials, the architects placed a copper roof above and used local timber and stone.

The two pavilions below house a guest room and bathroom on the lower level, while the main kitchen, dining and living areas are accessed via an exterior stone stairway. The upper pavilion sits 165 feet above the lower, and can only be accessed by riding aboard a very steep inclinator. The pavilion contains the laundry area below, and the master bedroom and bathroom were placed on the highest point for the most expansive views of the surrounding landscape. By Andrew J Wiener

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The owner couple of this beautiful pre-fabricated cabin on the shores of Lake Simcoe in Ontario, Canada, has been coming to their large recreational property for a quarter-century. But the big property in a great recreational location translated into lots of overnight guests and no privacy for the owners.

They felt they needed a "getaway," a place at their own property where they could capture the peace and serenity of the surrounding four-season nature without disturbing any of the existing trees or structures. They needed a place that remembers what the Simcoe cottage-country is all about.

The brilliant, award-winning solution by Toronto-based Taylor Smyth Architects is the one-room Sunset Cabin, a real cabin with a decidedly contemporary feel. The wonderful cabin has won several architectural and design awards and met the clients' needs perfectly.

It is a one-room (190 square feet in size), self-contained box that was built by furniture craftsmen in four weeks in a Toronto parking lot and installed on site in 10 days.

Three of the exterior walls are floor-to-ceiling glass and of those, two are encased in horizontal cedar-screens for privacy, shade and light effects inside. One of the cedar screens has a large opening providing a direct view of the sunset from the built-in bed. The rest of the screen has random smaller gaps to allow various vignettes of the surrounding nature and to create fantastic light patterns inside. The slats are positioned so that there is no direct view in from the outside, but at the same time, it the inside feels almost wall-less.

The untreated cedar of the outer structure will turn silvery grey over time, helping the cabin blend in with its natural surroundings. In addition, the roof, visible from the existing main building, is a green roof planted with native plants of the area, further ensuring that the building mixes in with the landscape rather than sticks out in it.

All interior surfaces are unpainted birch veneer plywood, including the built-in storage cabinets. Doors at both ends of the cabin allow for cross ventilation. The interior floor extends outside to form a deck where the rustic feel continues with the screened-off outdoor shower.

The owners are apparently spending more time at their property than ever before. They enjoy the cabin year-round, heating it by a wood-burning stove and, if needed, electric heaters. Most likely, they are not inviting guests to share the space, so we can join in only by admiring the images. By Tuija Seipell