House of the Week 145: Manhattan Beach House

This near 3,000 ft² home designed by design-build practice Walker Workshop sits on a tight infill lot on Manhattan Beach. The massing of the house responds to the local zoning, views to San Gabriel Mountains and the programmatic needs of the clients. The exterior finish of cement plaster and cedar siding flow to inside of the central stair and circulation space.

House of the Week 144: Prospect

This private residence and studio is located on a triangular 7,200 ft² site in La Jolla, California and was designed by architect and developer Jonathan Segal for himself and his family. The ground level has large glazed openings that allow the interior of the house to freely flow to the manicured landscape. The volume of the upper floor is a large stucco box with Corten steel details and has minimal fenestration, some with deep recesses, to restrict views from the outside in. The house is fully divorced from the grid with electricity provided by an array of solar panels mounted on the roof of the house.

House of the Week 143: Mop House

images © nelson garrido

The Mop house is a 1300m² single family residence in Al-Nuzha,Kuwait designed by AGi architects. At a cost of €1.2 million, the house is composed of two curved wall volumes that sweep and overlap mimicking the motions of a mop, twisting and revealing to form an open air courtyard. More via

House of the Week 142: Corallo House

(c)Paz Architects

The Corallo House in Santa Rosalia, Guatemala city, Guatemala designed by Paz Architects is a three level concrete residence completed in 2011. Located in a dense hillside forest the penetrates the home, merging nature into the daily activities of the users. The glass façades reinforce the connection to the landscape. The main structural element is fair-faced concrete that bears the texture of the formwork, creating a dialogue between the man-made and the natural.

House of the Week 141: Lakeshore View House

(c)Amir Sultan

The Lakeshore View House is one of a number of residences built along the Sentosa Cove in Singapore, facing the sea with the mountains in the background. The 720m² house by Aamer Architects is designed in a simple yet contemporary language that bonds and coexist with the natural surrounding context - a truly modern tropical aesthetic. The open spaces which encourage natural ventilation alleviating the humid climate whilst offering residents vistas across the water.

House of the Week 140: Two Hulls House

Designed by architects MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple for a young family of four, the programme of the coastal home in Port Mouton, Nova Scotia, Canada is divided into a ‘day pavilion' and a ‘night pavilion.' The architectural expression is defined by two ship-like rectangular volumes that cantilever above the shoreline and concrete seawall. Internally the spaces are simple concrete floors, naturally finished timber and white plaster walls and like most projects from the architect's oeuvre stresses place, craft, and community.

House of the Week 139: House in Mallorca

photography by José Hevia

Herreros architects transformed an existing vernacular structure - a refuge for shepherds in the Spanish countryside of Mallorca, into a 130m² vacation home. The design sits on the original footprint and the facade of the shorter elevations replicate the innocence original stone construction. The other facades and interior take a decidedly contemporary aesthetic with a palette of industrial materials.

House of the Week 138: Mt Martha House

Mt Martha modern house was designed by Australia’s Graham Jones Design. The modern house is finished in local timber and stone on the facade and the interiors. Indoors feature tall ceilings and expansive windows

House of the Week 136: Palms Residence

Images by David Lena

Located on a narrow, urban lot in Venice, California, this private residence was designed by Marmol Radziner. The home closes itself from the exterior with a series of screening techniques, including landscaping, fencing, and cedar louvered panels. The interior opens up with a small courtyard space incorporating covered decks giving the structure a sense of privacy. The millwork is finished in custom walnut, floors in the more public areas feature concrete, with the more personal spaces on the first floor in sustainably harvested hickory.

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House of the Week 135: Cliff House

Photography by Tim Bies

The residence on a cliffside lot in Gig Harbour, Washington was designed by Architect Scott Allen while a still named principal at Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen. The programme of the house is inverted as one descends stairs to the water interspersed by a series of decks, terraces, and bridges that create spaces for living and entertaining. The palette of materials were selected for their abilities to withstand this marine environment, including copper, concrete and cedar.

House of the Week 134: Villa Shoestring

Located on Gibbs Beach, on the West Coast of Barbados this single-family beach house is framed by the vegetation on site and the sea. The residence designed by Architects Cubed (Linda Moore & Shawna Beechley) with landscape by Talma Mill Studios is a modern interpretation of the Chattel - a timber vernacular house native to Barbados.

Photography: Bob Kiss

House of the Week 133: Cove Way

Located on Sentosa Island in Singapore the residence named by its siting along Cove Way, was designed by architects Bedmar & Shi. Two thick, heavy and rough stone walls define and ground the front entrance of the house under the dappled shadows created by the large over-hanging timber trellised canopy.

Recalling somewhat the stone walled buildings in his native Argentina, Ernesto Bedmar is able with this project to redefine and modernize his tropical language and spatial organization while still echoing traditions of craft of the region.

The sequence of circulation of the house, punctuated by full story voids, gradually reveal space after space, with dramatic transitions of light and shadow, and enclosure and release - opening the entire "sourthern" facade framing views of the marina.