Stories On Design // Room With a View.

This Story probably doesn’t need much of an introduction, but I will still give you one anyway. Because, as you know, I love a good yarn. No, but seriously – today’s post is a gentle reminder that the dreaded end of year is fast approaching, and for many of us this means busier times than ever. Room With a View is here to provide us with a virtual escape from the everyday – a little window into calmer realities and possibilities.

From the architectural standpoint, Room With a View talks about spaces that embrace their context wholeheartedly – the site, the location (not difficult when you’ve got views like that, huh?), the climate, vernacular architecture and more. What I love about all these examples is the demonstration of many different ways in which the views and the nature can be embraced within interiors and architecture. From arresting floor to ceiling frameless glass panels, large-scale windows that frame and capture the view like oversized impressionist paintings, to deliberately smaller “polaroid size” openings and everything in between. Yes, it’s time to kick back, relax and dream with us in your very own Room With a View. Do you have a favourite? I personally find it so hard to choose…

P.S. Some of you may recall this super old post about Architectural Voyeurism, which in many ways is the opposite of what we are talking about today…

See More ‘Stories on Design’ Curated by Yellowtrace.

Photography © Juan Rodriguez.

BS Residence by Vincent Van Duysen // A project to convert a farm into a house, for a family with two children, was developed respecting the tradition of Flemish rural architecture with a very contemporary approach to the plan. The contemporary living spaces in between the volumes, are only separated from the outside by large windows framing vistas of the landscape or the southern court. The brick volumes evoke a feeling of rural raum plan architecture because of their massive character, yet create direct open relationships between the spaces and accentuate beautiful sight-lines through wide openings between the volumes.

Photography by Gustav Willeit.

House at Mill Creek by Pedevilla Architects // Tasked with designing a “small but prestigious residence” in an Alpine village, Italian studio Pedevilla Architects planned an asymmetric house with a chalky-white exterior. A strict palette of gneiss stone, bronze and elm wood was employed throughout these spaces, set against pale walls. Every window is square, although not every one is the same size. According to Oberlerchner, they were positioned to frame different landmarks around the building.

Photography © Milo Keller.

Community Shelter by frundgallina // Implanted between two historic stone buildings, in an exceptional place, the new building is characterised by a volume inserted into the ground and emerging at both ends at different altitudes. The volumetric impact on this remarkable site is reduced. It boils down to the appearance on the surface of two precise and mineral shapes, abstract marks and isolated contextual scale.

Photography by Daniel Glasser & Philippe Garcia.

Villa E by Studio Ko in Morocco // Sitting at the peak of a hill in the Moroccan mountain ranges, Villa E rises up from the landscape, like a form extruded from the earth. Obviously blessed with some knock out views, the designers have exercised control and restraint. Contemplative, inward looking spaces are interspersed between open spaces that make use of controlled, framed views of the surrounds. So in the moments when the long range views of the site are revealed, they pack some serious punch.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photography © Hannes Henz.

Lago Maggiore Villa by Wespi de Meuron Romeo Architetti // A simply cut monolith in washed concrete, which is docked directly to the road, rises from the natural topography of the slope. Two cars are parked almost directly on the roof. The visitor is guided down along a linear alleyway to the entrance door. Across the courtyard one enters the house on the top floor and will be received by the kitchen with a long dining table and an open fireplace.

Already when entering, the room open itself to the landscape, the “Lago Maggiore” and the mountains. Means wide openings to the court and to the outside, exterior and Interior, landscape and architecture forms a unity. The inside participates to the court, like the court participates to the landscape, offering spectacular views. This house just isn’t fair.

Images courtesy of JSA.

The Juvet Landscape Hotel by Jensen & Skodvin Architects // This incredible hotel consists of nine detached rooms that are sited separately, each with a unique perspective on the rugged landscape. The result is small “cubes” on stilts, with glass walls that offer each space a striking view of the valley, the river, the courtyard or the dramatic gorge below. Insane in the membrane.

Photography © Thomas Jantscher.

Gaudin House by Savoiz Fabrizzi Architectes // Nestled on the Swiss hillside of Anzère, architects Laurent Savioz and Claude Fabrizzi, co-founders of Savioz Fabrizzi Architectes, transformed a 1870’s barn into contemporary mountain house. The main outer intervention to the barn is the opening of a large glass banner window facing the valley, offering sunshine, light and an exceptional panorama of the alps.

Photography © Jong Oh Kim.

Hyunam (A Black Cottage) – The House That Remains Still In The Nature by IROJE Architects + Planners // The site is located in the centre of the mountain area in Gunui, Korea where nothing but the mountain and the sky can be seen. The houses faces the west, giving one a chance to see the sun going down over the reservoir, providing warmth in the winter season along the sun path. The harmony between the slopes, the gardens and the house are a trigger for meditation, just as the client had hoped for. Who needs a TV with a view like this!

Photography © Marcello Mariana.

Luxury Indoor Swimming Pool by act_romegialli // ‘La Piscina del Roccolo’ designed by act_romegialli architecture studio is a luxurious indoor swimming pool set in a historic home in Italy. The concept for the project was to create a pool and bathing house that would capitalise on the views of the countryside, providing an ideal space for exercise, relaxation, and connecting with nature. The western end of the building features a long stretch of windows placed adjacent to the pool, which provides a visual connection to the landscape.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Photography by Amit Geron.

R1T Apartment by Paritzki & Liani Architects // A panoramic view of the harbour is mirrored onto a PVC ceiling at this apartment in Tel Aviv by Paritzki & Liani Architects. The designers wished to merge the exterior of the city with the “ornamental integration of the city in the interior,” with enormous sky light windows surrounding the open-plan living room.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

New York Apartment by S.K. Mukherjee // This minimalist apartment in New York City designed by S.K. Mukherjee balances it’s extreme spartan qualities with a spectacular view over the Central Park and Manhattan skyline. I think I could totally live here, even if I had to endure the seriously uncomfortable-looking furniture situation.

Outpost by Olson Kundig in North America // Set in the remote, harsh high desert of Idaho, Outpost is an artist’s live/work studio and sculpture garden. The building’s compactness restricts site impact and reinforces the desire to be outside. The house is designed around one open, multifunctional room overlooked by a mezzanine bedroom, with separate studio/office and utility spaces on a lower entry level. Elevated above the ground (snowpack in winter), the main living levels have 360-degree views of the surrounding high desert and mountains.

Photo © Hannes Henz.

Stone House Transformation by Wespi de Meuron Romeo Architetti // The original substance of this historic stone house, in the core of the village of Scaiano, consists in a main building with a cellar with vault and two floors above with kitchen, living and sleeping spaces. The glass façade in front the rooms, towards the lake, has been placed with a distance of about 60 cm from the old stonewalls.

Photo © Patrick Reynolds.

Island Retreat by Fearon Hay // New Zealand-based Fearon Hay Architects have created the ‘Island Retreat’ seated within a protective saddle facing Hauraki Bay. Large operable glass panels wrap around the perimeter as semi-permeable walls for varying levels of communication to the outdoors while perforated aluminium screens provide shading.

Photo © Earl Carter.

Point King Residence by HASSELL // Designed by HASSELL, ‘Point King Residence’, located on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia, is distinguished by its cliff top position overlooking the bay below. The architecture of the house is reflected in the interior spaces where limestone is again used alongside recycled timber battens, whilst generously sized rooms provide natural light and ventilation.

Photography © Jeremy Bittermann.

Case Inlet Retreat by mw works // The lot is 20 acres on the Key Peninsula overlooking the Case Inlet and the Olympic mountains beyond. The solution was a building of simple forms that unfolds into the landscape, offering a unique interaction with the site in each room. The living space projects west into the tree canopy on a cantilevered platform capturing views of the water and sunset. The kitchen shares those views but the Ipe decking of its floor extends south beyond a sliding glass wall to engage the meadow and the afternoon sun. With a skylight overhead and a sliding glass door toward the view, the master suite room has become the owners favourite spot to enjoy a glass of wine at day’s end.

Photo by Benja in Benschneider.

Chicken Point Cabin Idaho by Olson Kundig // The owners of Chicken Point Cabin and their two young children bought the waterfront property—located half an hour from their house in northern Idaho—in order to build a lakeside cabin. Their intent was to be able to use the house year-round, but especially during the summer, when the local weather can get oppressively hot. Their only directive to the architect was simple: make the house as open to the water as possible. The result, a large pivoting picture window on the waterside that literally opens up to the landscape.

Photography © Sharrin Rees.

Clovelly House by Rolf Ockert Design // The most magnificent quality of this site, the amazing ocean view, lies to the South while the sun still of course circles around the North. To focus on its unique location while getting natural light inside, the house was designed around a central void with a row of large operable skylights above it, angled to the North.

Photography by Joe Fletcher.

Fall House by Fougeron Architecture // The fall house possesses all the expected trappings of a typical residence: three bedrooms, kitchen, dining, living and office areas – organised within a linear transparent construction broken up in section next to a 250-foot drop to the almost non-existent beach below. Two solid volumes are connected by a transparent library/den, stepping down in a series of tiers, so that from the top of the structure one can see clear down to the lowest level in an unobstructed space.

Photo by Kentaro Kurihara.

Forest House in the City by Studio Velocity // This bright white house in Toyokawa, Japan, was designed by architects Studio Velocity with a squashed diamond shape to maximise space without overlooking the neighbours. A hair salon occupies the ground floor of the two-storey building. Two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen form the four corners of the floor and feature sharply pointing windows.

Photo © Albrecht Imanuel Schnabel.

Haus Fontanella by Bernardo Bader // Austrian studio Bernardo Bader Architekten sourced pine and spruce from the surrounding slopes to build this picturesque chalet in a village of western Austria. Square windows also come in a variety of sizes and are dotted around the walls in a way that gives no clues about the internal layout.

Photography © Gaudenz Danuser.

Refugi Lieptgas by Georg Nickisch & Selina Walder // Refugi Lieptgas, designed by Swiss practice Nickisch Sano Walder Architekten, is a modern recreation of a pre-existing agrarian vernacular. Although rendering the structure as a piece of modern architecture, many of the uses of the cabin were preserved. A large window reveals an existing rock which is allowed to almost intrude into the home, sitting as a feature piece that gives the smooth angular nature of the home a touch of nature and organic textures.

Photo by Fi McGhee.

Tilty Barn Essex England by John Pawson // Located in tranquil surroundings in the Essex countryside, Tilty Barn is a conversion of an 18th-century Dutch barn, forcefully propelled into the 21st century. The single-story house wraps around a large courtyard area (used as a horse enclosure); the interior is as tranquil as the surrounding countryside.

Photography by Sandra Pereznieto.

Sunflower House in Costa Brava by Studio Cadaval + Sola Morales // Located on a cliffside overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, this house by Cadaval & Solà-Morales is a cluster of 10 cubes that are each oriented towards a different viewpoint. The clients asked for a house that takes advantage of the impressive scenery, but to do this the architects had to overcome a major issue – the cliffside location is directly exposed to the harsh northerly Tramontane wind.

Photo by Felipe Camus.

La Leonera Mountain Retreat by Nicolas del Rio // Views of the Andes are framed by the steeply pitched roof of this A-frame house, designed by Santiago studio DRAA for a Chilean ski resort. Basing their design on typical pitched roof properties found throughout the mountain region, the architects created a building that combines two distinctly separate geometric volumes – a solid rectangular base supporting a lighter triangular structure with a glazed facade.

Photography by Brendan Austin.

Villa Elgö by GUISE // Situated just outside of Stockholm, Villa Elgö draws on the clean, raw material aesthetic of Scandinavian style cabins, creating a dwelling with an unexpected window arrangement that opens up the house in all directions to the ancient pine-and-stone landscape.

Photo by Patrick Reynolds.

Dune House by Fearon Hay // The house is designed to provide both protection and outlook to the landscape, with spaces opening to a translucent glass screened courtyard and terrace overlooking the dunes of a popular beach.

Photo by Patrick Reynolds.

Mountain Retreat by Fearon Hay in Queenstown, New Zealand // Mountain Retreat is a small structure set within a high country station, adjacent Lake Wakatipu, Central Otago. The colours and textures of the cladding integrate the building into the gravel tracks, exposed rock faces and scree slopes of the alpine environment. The architecture seeks to be a subtle insertion in the alpine landscape. The internal environment is both muscular and refined, referencing the toughness of the environment while providing comfort required for a retreat in the mountains.

Photo © Scott Frances/OTTO.

Napa Valley House by Eliot Lee & Eun Lee // Located in the hills of Napa Valley, California, the Napa Valley House was designed by Eliot Lee and his wife Eun Lee. Occupying a very rocky ridge that had not previously been built on, the duo worked with the topography of the site and allowed it guide the overall design.

Photography © Jeff Goldberg/Esto.

Tucson Mountain Retreat by Dust Architecture // The Sonoran Desert is mystical landscape replete with warm hues and expanses of arid-appropriate greenery. Among the eroded sculptures of rocky outcroppings and complex reliefs of nearby arroyos, a rammed earth home designed by local firm DUST lightly touches the landscape. The Tucson-based architecture, construction and fabrication team comprised of jesus robles and cade hayes, has imbued their first project with the sacred weight of the landscape.

The fragile environment is respected both actually and visually, with moments of bilateral glazing affording uninterrupted lines of sight into the golden, arid terrain while also providing ample cross-ventilation.

Photography © James Dow.

Tula House by Patkau Architects // Situated on a cliffside, 44 feet above the pacific waterfront, Canadian-based Patkau Architects have completed the ‘Tula House’ located on the remote Quadra Island in British Columbia. Most notably, living spaces feature wide panoramas toward ocean below, while concrete and vegetated walls remind of the rocky and forested setting.

UFOgel by Peter Jungmann // This asymmetric Alpine cabin by Austrian architect Peter Jungmann has been named Ufogel because its owners think it looks like a cross between a UFO and a “vogel” – the German word for bird. A small lounge area filled with cushions sits half a storey up, beside a long window that angles upwards to frame views towards the peaks of the Lienz Dolomites.

Related Post: Sheds, Cabins & Retreats.

Photography © Lindman Photography.

Vega Cottage by Kolman Boye Architects // This solitary wooden cottage on the Norwegian island of Vega was designed by Swedish studio Kolman Boye Architects to resemble the weather-beaten boathouses that are dotted along the island’s coastline. The architects used pine to build the structure then added birch joinery details. Two oversized windows offer views out towards the ocean and the surrounding mountain range, while a door opens the space out a terrace flanked by two walls.

Norderhov Cabin in Norway by AtelierOslo // Commissioned as a weekend house for a couple based in Oslo, AtelierOslo have designed a cabin located in the Krokskogen forest, on a steep slope overlooking the Steinsfjorden. Large glass walls in the living room are carefully detailed so their framing becomes almost invisible, creating a direct relationship with the outside.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Photo © Adolf Bereuter.

Kindergarten Susi Weigel by Bernardo Bader Architects // Huge round cushions in shades of mustard yellow and cornflower blue add colour to the pale concrete and timber interior of this kindergarten in western Austria by local studio Bernardo Bader Architekten. The two-storey building has a raw concrete structure, which is left exposed in parts of the interior. The architects sourced local fir to clad the outer walls and used acacia wood to line interior surfaces.

Related Post: Architecture for Children.

Photo © Jonathan Tuckey.

Rothaus by Jonathan Tuckey // Rothaus or Red House was originally a 20th century Chalet, which after being remodelled by Jonathan Tuckey in collaboration with Ruedi Kreienbühl, became an idyllic Swiss Alpine home. The house has been constructed over the foundation of a previous dwelling and overlooks the Ursner Valley.

Read the full article about this project & see more image here.

Photo © Joel Tettamanti.

Maison aux Jeurs by Lacroix Chessex in Switzerland // Situated at the limit of the cliff, the project plays subtly with the hillside of the site by peeling away from the ground and by opening on the valley. Two big windows at the ground floor, the living room, the 1st stage, and the master bedroom, allow the landscape to blend with the inside of the house. The materiality of the project, all in untreated fir trees, the spatiality made by small dimensions, the set of levels, windows centering particular elements from the landscape, the link with the ground and the mineral base, all these elements confer to the project an atmosphere close to the traditional chalets.

Photography © Sofia Flores Chapa.

Narigua House in El Jonuco, Mexico by David Pedroza Castañeda // The mountain landscape of coastal Mexico provides an idyllic setting for this red concrete house by Mexican architect David Pedroza Castañeda. Pigmented concrete gives the house an earthy red colour that matches the tone of the groundscape. This is married with Mexican cypress beams and hardwood floors, as well as floor-to-ceiling windows that frame panoramic mountain views.

Nico and Hilde in Balegem, Belgium by Atelier Vens Vanbelle // The room in this Belgian house designed by Atelier Vens Vanbelle is all about the relationship between the exterior and interior, whereby the oversized window is treated as a giant projector screen. Perfection.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Photography © Michael Nicholson.

Light House by Peter Stutchbury Architecture // The Light House in Dover Heights by the nation’s 2015 architectural gold medallist, Peter Stutchbury, was a worthy recipient of the Wilkinson Award for Residential Architecture at the NSW Architecture Awards earlier this year. See this house along with many more examples of awesome Australian Architecture in our round up of Australian Houses Awards 2015.

Vipp Shelter // Vipp Shelter launched in 2014 as a fully integrated and all inclusive retreat that is built, delivered and installed in just over 6 months. It’s a modern plug and play getaway that has been marketed as easy and cost-effective. The 55sqm prefabricated shelter has been designed to fit any type of landscape or natural environment. The basic construction of each shelter is adjusted according to specific locations so it can easily withstand the extremities of snow-capped mountains or barren deserts.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Photography © Jeremy Toth.

Eyrie Houses by Cheshire Architects in Kaiwaka, New Zealand // Eyrie comprises two houses near Kaiwaka. Each is barely larger than four sheets of plywood. They are made from wood, are off-grid and autonomous, their outsides burnt black. This project is part polemic, part escape. Holiday homes have become New Zealand’s decadence. In these houses a history of prismatic abstraction is conflated with a poetic of small boats bobbing in a sea of grass. There are no doors. One climbs up boulders and in through a window instead. The architects hoped that in subverting the shorthand language of building these little constructions might feel like something other than – and more than – houses.

Read the full article about this project & see more images here.

Photography © Sergio Pirrone.

Casa Rambla by LAND Arquitectos // Columns arranged in V formations support the overhanging roof of this idyllic seaside residence in Chile, which offers occupants panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. Designed by Santiago firm LAND Arquitectos, Casa Rambla is a weekend home on the seafront in Zapallar, north of Santiago, and it sits alongside a promenade linking the town with the local cemetery.

Image courtesy of Peter Giodani, Miran Kambič.

House Katarina by Multiplan Arhitekti // One-family house is located on a superb viewpoint, where the view creates the joint point of interior design in the house: the living room is a cinema with a projection screen, showing an uninterrupted image of the surrounding hills to the outlines of the capital city of Ljubljana, from the tree canopies to the green meadows and forests.

Photography © Jonas Adolfsen.

House Off/ Ramberg by Schjelderup Trondahl Architects AS // The two parts of this house near Oslo by Schjelderup Trondahl Architects are joined at an angle, with their gabled roofs meeting to form a distorted M-shap. The house’s two wings are angled at 22 degrees to one another, creating a concave facade facing the access road and opening up on the other side to provide different views of the landscape. Windows with chunky oak frames look out on the surrounding forest and across the fjord, while internal glass partitions provide views between some of the rooms.

Photography © Alain Laforest.

Le Grand Plateau by Atelier Pierre Thibault // Canadian architecture office Atelier Pierre Thibault has completed a lakeside house in a forest near Quebec, which is raised above its hillside site on thin metal stilts. When viewed from the lake, the main body of the house is partly concealed by the trees and is raised above the ground on slender columns to give the impression that it is floating within the forest canopy. Narrow horizontal windows offer views out to the surrounding forest.

Photo © Nic Lehoux Photography.

Lightbox by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson // Designed as a home and studio for a photographer and his young family, Lightbox is located on a peninsula that extends south from British Columbia across the border to Point Roberts. The densely forested site lies beside a 180-acre park that overlooks the Strait of Georgia, the San Juan Islands and the Puget Sound. The structure is crafted from affordable and common materials such as exposed wood two-bys that form the structural frame and directly support a prefabricated aluminium window system of standard glazing units. Lightbox is an uncomplicated yet powerful gesture that enables one to view the subtlety and beauty of the site while providing comfort and pleasure in the constantly changing light of the forest.

[Image credites noted.]