White Cube Vacation Home

Published January 28, 2012 at 12:07 am - No Comments

For White Cube Vacation Home the architect, Jose Kos, makes use of one of the most industrial of solutions to zip it up when not in use – the roll up industry-sized garage door. Several huge rollup doors completely seal up the home like a gigantic warehouse. Its answer the question, How to design a luxurious and large vacation home – that only gets use for a few months each year? It needs to be securely locked up when not in use.

White Cube Vacation Home

Sited near the city of Rio de Janeiro, the White Cube Vacation Home sits on a hillside sculpted into flat lawns so the family’s children can play games. It is a perfect white cube, at 10 meters by 10 meters by 10 meters, perfectly proportioned. When the White Cube Vacation Home is in use, there is no hint of the stark rollup garage doors.

It is simply a large and elegant architectural home set on a generous rolling flat lawn designed for the games of children. The transitional space shaded by a concrete pergola expands the dwelling spaces through the huge windows out to a sheltered two story porch area. Interior fittings are unadorned industrial steel to match the fold up doors.

Tiered Lodge, a three-tiered woodland summerhouse

Published January 28, 2012 at 12:03 am - No Comments

Completed by Tokyo architects Naoi, Tiered Lodge is a three-tiered woodland summerhouse at Japanese holiday spot Nasu Kogen. The split-level house contains a kitchen and dining room on its lower floor, a living room on the middle level and a mezzanine loft and bedroom above.

Large parts of the facade slide open to help cool the house during the warm summer months. Residents enter the Tiered Lodge house across a decked balcony and seating area, which leads straight into the lower floor dining room.

Here’s some more text about Tiered Lodge from the architects:

For this Tiered Lodge project, we were commissioned to build a second home for a husband-and-wife couple and their young son. The client requested a simple space that would allow him to take a step back from the daily demands of his busy schedule and help to rejuvenate his body and mind.

The site is located in Nasu Kogen, a well-known summer resort area in Japan that lies at an altitude of 1,000m. Dense groves of deciduous trees can be found nearby, making the area a popular retreat during the sweltering summer months. In the winter, however, temperatures drop below freezing point, and snowfall of up to 80cm has been recorded.