The Great Indoor-Outdoors
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Set in the scenic hills of Rio de Janeiro’s Praia de São Conrado neighborhood, this stone-and-cumaru-wood aerie—designed by Brazilian firm Studio Arthur Casas—frames breathtaking views across an infinity pool to the beach and Atlantic Ocean beyond.
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Glass sliding walls on each of the house’s three stories open to exterior spaces on either side of the residence, including the verdant rear courtyard shown here.
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A view from the front of the trilevel residence reveals its sleek form, an assemblage of stacked rectilinear volumes.
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In the woods of Aurora, Oregon, some 30 minutes south of Portland, upstart New York City firm No Architecture devised this poured-concrete home—called Courtyard House—for a multigenerational family. Spaces in the house center on an open-air courtyard and are each flexibly designed for both living and sleeping.
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Corbusian-clean lines and deftly deployed concrete characterize the aptly named Cube House by Brazilian architectural firm Studio MK27. Located in a leafy area of São Paulo, the residence’s hulking main volume appears to rest on two impossibly skinny columns; a substantial slab at the rear of the house visually keeps the box afloat. Metal panels open along the perimeter of the ground level to a lush garden and pool.
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Windows on the upper floors glow lanternlike at night.
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Los Angeles–based Dan Brunn Architecture crafted this three-story gem in the city’s Venice neighborhood for art-loving clients. Dubbed the Flip Flop House for the enigmatic pivoting walls that grace the dwelling’s top floor façade (and as a nod to its beachfront site), the home is a combination of sliding window walls and slabs of poured-in-place concrete covered in white plaster.
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A bedroom in the Flip Flop House opens onto a broad outdoor terrace with views of the beach and ocean.
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Johannesburg-based GASS Architecture Studios built this house (known as Hillside) in South African wine country for a family of five, creating a breezy stone-and-wood retreat that opens onto rolling vineyards.
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Walls of sliding glass capture views of the plantings and surrounding range.
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Situated in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest metropolis, House for Trees—a two-bedroom home for a family of three—is designed in an attempt to return much-needed greenery to the rapidly urbanizing area. Five bamboo-formed-concrete pavilions topped with banyan trees (noted for roots that grow aboveground) distinguish this quirky complex, a prototype designed by local rising-star firm Vo Trong Nghia Architects.
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Interiors feature redbrick walls and floors of either concrete or locally sourced wood.
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Swedish firm Elding Oscarson created this simple, Y-shaped volume of wood and glass as a seasonal retreat in Mollë, a town that became a popular vacation destination at the turn of the 20th century. Accommodating a young family of three, the steel-frame structure is clad in glass around its base and in slats of Douglas fir above.
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A spiral stair and freestanding fireplace help break up the open-plan interiors.
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Broad square-shaped windows on the upper levels, and glazed walls on the lower floor frame views across the grounds to the sea while showcasing the interiors.