Open Up 3

Source: Fernando Guerra – FG+SG archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

Casa Madalena, 4400-431 Madalena, Portugal, 2008 designed by Carlos Castanheira

The central volume predominates in relation to the other two, being a two storey volume expressing the living and dining rooms with their double height ceilings. The geometrical dissimilarity between the volumes accentuates their differences. The connections between them are made by volumes with similar geometries. -- ArchDaily

Source: Derek Swalwell archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

McCrae Residence, Collingwood, Australia, 2011 designed by Wolveridge Architects

Walking through the hallway to the living area, the generous courtyard opens up on the right hand side, providing light for the surrounding rooms and a private terrace for the inhabitants. The protected courtyard enables the rear lounge library to remain connected with the view beyond and provide an alternative outdoor location during inclement weather. -- ArchDaily

Source: Brad Feinknopf archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park Nature Center, 1415 Darby Creek Drive, Galloway, Ohio, USA, 2012 designed by DesignGroup

The building recedes into the landscape, allowing the visitor to focus on the building’s surroundings, rather than the building itself. From the north, only the high roof of the building’s porch and main lobby is visible. -- ArchDaily

Source: AR Design Studio archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

4 Views, Winchester, Hampshire, UK, 2013 designed by AR Design Studio

The form of the replacement house is defined by four interlocking boxes, the negative space at their centre forms a ‘Zen’ garden, with a single olive tree at its heart. -- ArchDaily

Source: Tamara Uribe Photography archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

PL2 House, Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, 2013 designed by Seijo Peon Arquitectos y Asociados

The house’s main access is across the terrace, following the diagonal main axis that crosses the site and from this one are unfold the main spaces; this axis also works as division between the service spaces and the served ones. -- ArchDaily

Source: Joana França archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

D&P Residence, Brasília – Distrito Federal, Brasil, 2013 designed by Atelier Paralelo

This oblique tear articulates different functions that require natural lighting and ventilation, which is opposed to the necessary privacy and light control in bedrooms. Thus, it lights the couple’s closet, lights and ventilates the daughter’s suite and the office. -- ArchDaily

Source: Adrià Goula archdaily.com

Plan, Source: atchdaily.com

House in Front of a Stream, 17244 Cassà de la Selva, Girona, Spain designed by 05 AM Arquitectura

The whole house is in developed in the ground floor level, and is defined by two volumes that are adapted to the irregular shape of the plot, one of them is parallel to neighbour limit, and the other one is perpendicular to the street, being a little turned respect the other one, defining between them a protected space, sunny, saved from the vision from the public spaces, and open to the green plants of the stream. -- ArchDaily

Source: Joana França archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

Popsonics House, Altiplano Leste - Paranoá, Brasília - DF, Brazil, 2014 designed by LAB606

The house is set in a privileged location with a bustling topography that allows the overview of its roof from different parts of the surroundings.  From this context the roof was conceived as if it were a fifth façade that contrasts plastically and chromatically with the hills and the landscape in which the home is located. -- ArchDaily

Open Up 2

Source: Kaj Lergaard archdaily.com

Sinus House, Denmark, 2007 designed by CEBRA

The concave cuttings in the long side of the wing house function as large reflectors of light, and irrespective of the position of the sun in relation to the house they secure that daylight is being let into the house – either directly through the large glass areas or reflected by the white surfaces opposite the glass areas. Even when the sunlight falls longitudinally on the façade the home will be filled with warm light. -- ArchDaily

Source: Yiannis Hadjiaslanis archdaily.com

Hill House, Athens, Greece, 2008 designed by PAAN Architects

Parts of the volume are subtracted creating voids that define in between spaces, blur the limits and create new relations. In vs. out, enclosed vs. open, intimate vs. public vs. private, high vs. low, light vs. dark. -- ArchDaily

Source: Takumi Ota archdaily.com

Kiritoushi House, Oamishirasato city, Japan, 2011 designed by SUGAWARADAISUKE

The exterior is finished as a simple box, allowing the residence to blend in easily with the rest of the surroundings. -- ArchDaily

Source: Filip Dujardin archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

House VDV, Destelbergen, Belgium, 2013 designed by Graux & Baeyens Architects

The volume, consisting of one level with a pitched roof, alludes to familiar archetypes such as the rural homestead or barn. But at the same time the volume is broken up by large glass facades, so that the relationship is established with the surrounding trees and the listed castle wall. -- ArchDaily

Source: Fernando Alda archdaily.com

Plan, Source: archdaily.com

Four Programs Pavilion, Los Vilos, Los Vilos, Coquimbo Region, Chile, 2014 designed by Felipe Assadi + Francisca Pulido

The commission was for a pavilion bordering a tennis court that could handle four programs in the following order: sauna, gymnasium, baths, and lodgings for a caretaker. 

....synthesized the problem of the interrelationship of the programs by making three sections in the building and then slightly shifting the sectioned parts, thereby generating entrances into each part and relating their interiors with the landscape into which they were inserted. The result, in spite of the sectioning, is still a single piece, able to “remember” its original state, before the cuts were made. -- ArchDaily

Open Up

Source: greatbuildings.com

Lang Music Building, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, USA, 1973 designed by Mitchell/Giurgola Associates

The most remarkable characteristic of the auditorium space, however, is the large glass wall behind the stage, offering a view of the surrounding wooded landscape. This unusual design element for a recital hall, which are usually windowless spaces, was an attempt by Giurgola to further integrate the building with the landscape and maximize the potential that such a beautiful landscape offered. This glass wall, which was reduced in size during discussions with the College about the design, was one of the most controversial elements of the building, provoking concerns that it would not be acoustically sound or that it was a prioritization of aesthetic desires over Quaker-like functionalism. -- "Preserving the Work of Mitchell/Giurgola Associates" by Brendan R. Beier, University of Pennsylvania, P. 60

Source: epsteinjoslin.com

Seiji Ozawa Hall for The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood, Massachusetts, USA, 1994 designed by Epstein Joslin Architects

A 1200 seat interior concert hall with doors at the rear, opens to allow a 2000 seat lawn audience to see the performance. The hall is the main stage of the Tanglewood Music Center, a summer fellowship program for pre-professional musicians. It is also the setting for performances by world-renowned recitalists and chamber groups. The hall can also be acoustically isolated for use as a professional recording studio. -- architect's web site

Source: rcmf.org

Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, Massachusetts, USA, 2010 designed by Epstein Joslin Architects

A 335-seat Concert Hall with Lobby and upper floor Reception Room, inserted within the rebuilt and expanded historic Haskins Building on the main street of Rockport, MA, is the new home of the Rockport Chamber Music Festival. The worn exterior of the mercantile edifice has been returned to its 1845 Second Empire splendor to enhance the charm of its historic village setting. The interior has been completely reconfigured as a world-class performance venue that integrates the beauty of the ocean setting on which it adjoins. The oceanfront façade has been reshaped to open all public rooms to the harbor and add a new joyful and scaled face to the Town’s harbor edge. -- architect's web site

The official web site of Rockport Music

Source: Tamas Bujnovszky archdaily.com

Franciscan Chapel, Kisfakos, Nagykanizsa, Hungary designed by SAGRA

The proportional mass of the building and its roofs’ contour has drawn themselves in the landscape, closing the space of the courtyard bordered by the buildings of the farm. Each opening of the building is framing one of the misterious creatures of nature, shaping space and time each steps. Being inside and outside can be experienced at the same time. -- ArchDaily