Great spaces…

I was literally blown away by these houses on Architectural’s Digest 100 Great Spaces feature. Minimalistic, yet still warm and homely, they are just stunning. Having grown up in Greece, I am a sucker for blue skies and the sea, so I can just imagine myself living happily ever after in the Norman Foster house! Click here for even more inspiration…

Designed by Jennifer Post, New York

Designed by Kelly Hoppen, London

Designed by Pip Cheshire & Terry Hunziker, Auckland

Designed by Richard Landry, California

Designed by Norman Foster

Designed by Donna Livingston, Indian Wells – California.

Cool house in Antwerp – Belgium

One of the buildings that we missed out in Monday’s “narrowest buildings in the world” post was this tiny house in Antwerp’s red light district.

Designed by architect couple Pieter Peerlings & Silvia Mertenand, it was built in no more than 3 weeks apparently! But that’s not the only crazy thing about it… The plot measures just 2.40m wide and 5.50m deep!!!!!! I mean, really, how is that possible?

Both the front and back of the house are made of glass, making it totally transparent from the street… The building, measuring a total of 60 sqm has 4 floors, with each floor containing only one room (obviously!).

The ground floor is the couple’s office, the 1st floor the kitchen cum dining room, the 2nd floor the living room and the 3rd floor the bedroom/ bathroom!

I must say all the rooms look quite comfortable actually, although there’s way not enough storage space… A hoarder would most definitely not be happy there! Another issue must be privacy. I get the lots of glass, lots of light thing, but surely they don’t want all the neighbours peering in 24/7 and they don’t even have blinds or curtains (from what i can see in the pictures at least).

The icing on the cake is the stunning roof top, which has a built-in bath tub, although this must be only for show, unless they bathe with their swimming suits on!

and how cool is this front door?

via Style-Files and Archinect.

Narrowest buildings in the world

Continuing on from our last post on quirky buildings, here are some of the world’s narrowest buildings!!!

Singel 166 – Amsterdam, Netherlands
This teeny house, with its rich red brick facade and impressive entrance door, is super cute even if it is a bit on the narrow side!

Kanonia – Warsaw, Poland
Before you start thinking, what is she talking about, these houses aren’t narrow at all, look closer to between the two rows of houses, to the seriously narrow yellow building…  It’s practically as narrow as its door and windows! It was built during the 17th century, when apparently there was a property tax in Poland that ws based on the width of the street-facing façade and the number of windows. That would explain a lot!

Sliver House – London, England
Wedged between two traditional British brick-built houses, this building, with its glass facade and modern architecture, looks a bit out of place and quite stark. Its width is merely 3m (10 feet), hence its name is quite fitting, but its depth at the back, at 6m, is substantially more.

Skinny House – Boston, Massachusetts

La Casa Estrecha (The Narrow House) – Old San Juan, Puerto Rico
This is also a very cute one. It’s such a good idea to paint the exterior of these narrow buildings in bright colours, otherwise they’d just disappear along the long line of buildings. I really  like the way the trees have been planted on either side of the door, giving it great kurb appeal! It is currently being turned into an art gallery apparently.

1-Meter Marvel – Madre de Deus, Brazil
With a width of less than 1 metre (91cm specifically), the Marvel wins the prize for the narrowest building in the world, if not also the ugliest (sorry…). I wonder if anyone actually lives there? It must feel so claustrophobic… and how does a bed even fit inside?

via Pointclickhome.com

One-of-a-kind buildings!

It’s really impressive how many forwarded chain messages I receive a day – I’ve often wondered who has the time to sit down and write them??!! More often that not, they’re sexually related or sob stories but occasionally an interesting one does come along. Today I got one about the 50 most peculiar buildings in the world, which is original so I thought I’d share it with you! I don’t want to bore you though, so here are the best 10!

Wonderworks – Florida, United States

Ripley’s Building – Ontario, Canada

Shoe House – Pennsylvania, United States

The Basket Building – Ohio, United States

Stone House – Guimarães, Portugal

Kansas City Public Library – Missouri, United States

The Crooked House – Sopot, Poland

Hang Nga Guesthouse a.k.a Crazy House – Vietnam

Cubic Houses – Rotterdam, Netherlands

Mammy’s Cupboard – Natchez, MS, United States