House Of The Year 2019

It wasn’t what they had in mind, but when the now owners stumbled across a former industrial building in inner-suburban Melbourne, they completely re-imagined their plans.

Once an improvised shack with minimal amenities, this contemporary beach house has become an opportunity for place-making.

With this house, context, scale, materiality and function all come together to create an endlessly fascinating family home.

A ten-minute ferry trip takes you from one world to a place and a house where life moves to a slower and more enriching rhythm.

This exercise in reconciling heritage with contemporary needs has seen a humble worker’s cottage given new life.

Borrowing from traditional Javanese architecture, then tweaking it ten degrees, creates an exceptional indoor–outdoor experience in this family home.

Singapore is not always known for its restraint when it comes to residential design, but this house illustrates the truism that less is more.

Usually, three generations in a house represent a family. But a house can also bring together the past, present and future of a whole community, especially when it is organised like a village.

In Thai, the word ‘baan’ simply means ‘home’ – a clue to what the architects set out to achieve with this project.

The clients and designers merged during the evolution of this house, much as the different spaces within the house itself continually merge and separate.

A tired villa is revitalised as a modern home with all the architectural heritage of its location.

The challenge here was how to sustain traditional family life and cope with a tropical climate within a very contemporary home.