1. ArchDaily
  2. Houses

Houses: The Latest Architecture and News

From Homes to Coffee Shops: Adaptive Reuse Projects Transforming Domestic History

Subscriber Access | 

In the twenty-first century agenda, adaptive reuse is understood as a creative and meaningful approach to the development of the built environment. In the face of an era marked by adaptation and transformation, the shaping of human experiences aligns with the principle of "reuse, reduce, recycle." From the authenticity of place to the inherent value of materials, working in dialogue with the past makes it possible to envision new futures that engage with the uses, traditions, and beliefs of earlier eras. By considering each building as a collection of tangible and intangible elements that shape its identity, adaptive reuse interventions require a deep understanding not only of construction methods, structural systems, and spatial rhythms, but also of the cultures that built, inhabited, and will one day occupy these places.

From Homes to Coffee Shops: Adaptive Reuse Projects Transforming Domestic History - Image 1 of 4From Homes to Coffee Shops: Adaptive Reuse Projects Transforming Domestic History - Image 2 of 4From Homes to Coffee Shops: Adaptive Reuse Projects Transforming Domestic History - Image 3 of 4From Homes to Coffee Shops: Adaptive Reuse Projects Transforming Domestic History - Image 4 of 4From Homes to Coffee Shops: Adaptive Reuse Projects Transforming Domestic History - More Images+ 23

What Are Focal Points And How To Use Them In Decoration & Interior Design Projects?

Subscriber Access | 

The determination of focal points in the environments offers dynamism, personality and activates internal and external environments from the enhancement of decorative objects or construction elements. Here are some examples for you to understand what it is and how to use it in the design and decoration of your home.

What Are Focal Points And How To Use Them In Decoration & Interior Design Projects? - 1 的图像 4What Are Focal Points And How To Use Them In Decoration & Interior Design Projects? - 2 的图像 4What Are Focal Points And How To Use Them In Decoration & Interior Design Projects? - 3 的图像 4What Are Focal Points And How To Use Them In Decoration & Interior Design Projects? - 4 的图像 4What Are Focal Points And How To Use Them In Decoration & Interior Design Projects? - More Images+ 6

Social Wooden Housing in Uruguay: On the Path Towards Innovation in Socially-Conscious Architecture

Organized by the Ministry of Housing and Territorial Planning of Uruguay (MVOT) and MEVIR, with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (BID), the International Architecture Competition "Wood: Innovating Social Interest Architecture" involved submitting proposals for new types of wooden housing extensions. These could be either paired or standalone single-level structures, to be built by MEVIR in a demonstration set of 20 social interest houses within the town of Tranqueras, Rivera Department, Uruguay.

As 50 melhores casas de 2024

A cada ano, a equipe de Curadoria de Projetos do ArchDaily rememora a vasta gama de obras publicadas ao longo desse período, apresentando retrospectivas que permitem não apenas identificar tendências e variações na produção arquitetônica, mas também reconhecer de que forma impactam a nossa audiência. No ArchDaily Brasil, a seleção anual de melhores casas – que ano após ano, segue permanecendo como nossa categoria de projeto mais popular – representa uma amostra das variadas soluções, estratégias, técnicas e materiais encontrados na arquitetura residencial dos países de língua portuguesa.

As 50 melhores casas de 2024 - Image 1 of 4As 50 melhores casas de 2024 - Image 2 of 4As 50 melhores casas de 2024 - Image 3 of 4As 50 melhores casas de 2024 - Image 4 of 4As 50 melhores casas de 2024 - More Images+ 46

Appliances as Architectural Elements: Designing the Contemporary Kitchen

 | In Collaboration
Audio available

The kitchen has evolved from a functional space into a shared environment and the heart of many households. Serving as the setting for daily rituals in countless families—and even collective practices in urban life—food brings people together, making the design of spaces that respond to these needs essential to everyday living. Beyond the various kitchen layouts, aesthetics, and configurations, the integration of appliances and equipment plays a key role supporting storage, preservation, and daily use that cooking demands. From innovative technologies to advanced materials, these elements shape contemporary kitchen spaces that bring together customs and cultures from diverse backgrounds.

Inside Homes that Last: Rethinking Residential Design for Climate Resilience

 | Sponsored Content
Audio available

What makes a home resilient? Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent around the world. From power outages, hurricanes, and earthquakes to wildfires, floods, and droughts, the world is experiencing a process of transformation and adaptation that requires collaboration among diverse disciplines. The role of architecture in the built environment reflects an opportunity to rethink how homes perform under changing environmental conditions—not only by anticipating the unexpected. Designing for resilience means thinking holistically, considering material choices, energy systems, landscaping, and construction details that anticipate disruption and help homes recover quickly. It involves creating architecture that evolves with the environment, is worth preserving, and endures for years and generations.

Inside Homes that Last: Rethinking Residential Design for Climate Resilience - Image 1 of 4Inside Homes that Last: Rethinking Residential Design for Climate Resilience - Image 2 of 4Inside Homes that Last: Rethinking Residential Design for Climate Resilience - Image 3 of 4Inside Homes that Last: Rethinking Residential Design for Climate Resilience - Image 4 of 4Inside Homes that Last: Rethinking Residential Design for Climate Resilience - More Images+ 4

More Architecture for Less: SSdH and the Latent Potential of Existing Buildings

Audio available

Amid growing recognition of architecture's responsibility toward environmental and planetary ecologies, contemporary practice is increasingly oriented toward working with what already exists—its material, spatial, and historical conditions. Within this shift, architecture and design aesthetics are increasingly about reshaping inherited environments. This approach underpins the work of SSdH, a Melbourne-based architecture practice founded in 2020 by Todd de Hoog, Harrison Smart, and Jean-Marie Spencer. Working across scales of renovation, extension, and adaptive insertion, the studio consistently engages existing buildings as active agents. Winner of the ArchDaily 2025 Next Practices Awards, the Australian firm foregrounds environmental responsibility, material economy, and collaborative processes grounded in site-specific conditions.

More Architecture for Less: SSdH and the Latent Potential of Existing Buildings - Image 1 of 4More Architecture for Less: SSdH and the Latent Potential of Existing Buildings - Image 2 of 4More Architecture for Less: SSdH and the Latent Potential of Existing Buildings - Image 3 of 4More Architecture for Less: SSdH and the Latent Potential of Existing Buildings - Image 4 of 4More Architecture for Less: SSdH and the Latent Potential of Existing Buildings - More Images+ 16

7 Unbuilt Houses Shaped by Site, Climate, and Constraints

Subscriber Access | 
Audio available

Residential architecture continues to offer a productive ground for unbuilt exploration, revealing how architects respond to site, climate, and constraint at the scale of the domestic. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected projects bring together a range of proposals that reconsider the house not as an isolated object, but as a spatial system shaped by its environment. These works position architecture as a framework that negotiates between ground, material, and inhabitation, often emerging directly from the conditions of the site.

Across varied geographies, from Kerala and Cartagena to Amman, Tromsø, and Zwolle, the projects demonstrate diverse responses to domestic architecture. They include compact urban dwellings organized through vertical layering, courtyard houses partially embedded within the ground, residences adapted to sloping terrains, and typological transformations shaped by regulatory constraints. Some projects explore linear spatial sequences rooted in traditional proportions, while others organize domestic life around atria or excavated voids that mediate light, ventilation, and privacy. Together, these proposals examine how the house can be structured through section, material, and environmental performance rather than formal expression.

7 Unbuilt Houses Shaped by Site, Climate, and Constraints - Image 6 of 47 Unbuilt Houses Shaped by Site, Climate, and Constraints - Image 10 of 47 Unbuilt Houses Shaped by Site, Climate, and Constraints - Image 28 of 47 Unbuilt Houses Shaped by Site, Climate, and Constraints - Image 36 of 47 Unbuilt Houses Shaped by Site, Climate, and Constraints - More Images+ 42

Renovation and Continuity in Japanese Architecture: The Work of 1110 Office for Architecture

Audio available

In a shifting societal and environmental landscape, how can architectural design respond to transformation while meaningfully engaging with what endures? 1110 Office for Architecture, based in Osaka, Japan, approaches this question through a body of work defined by careful residential renovations and precise spatial interventions.

Named a winner of the ArchDaily 2025 Next Practices Awards, the practice represents an emerging voice in redefining architecture's role within conditions of change.

Renovation and Continuity in Japanese Architecture: The Work of 1110 Office for Architecture - Image 1 of 4Renovation and Continuity in Japanese Architecture: The Work of 1110 Office for Architecture - Image 2 of 4Renovation and Continuity in Japanese Architecture: The Work of 1110 Office for Architecture - Image 3 of 4Renovation and Continuity in Japanese Architecture: The Work of 1110 Office for Architecture - Image 4 of 4Renovation and Continuity in Japanese Architecture: The Work of 1110 Office for Architecture - More Images+ 17

Summer Houses

Explore fifty extraordinary architect-designed homes that capture the spirit of summer

Urban Sanctuaries: Creating Peaceful Homes Amidst City Chaos

"Feeling at home" is more than just an expression—it is the sense of warmth and comfort that transforms a space into a true refuge. To achieve this, elements like color, texture, lighting, and materials play a crucial role in shaping an environment that fosters relaxation and well-being. Backed by research in environmental psychology and neuroscience, the connection between physical spaces and human behavior highlights how architecture can directly influence the atmosphere, turning chaos into tranquility.

Urban Sanctuaries: Creating Peaceful Homes Amidst City Chaos - Image 1 of 4Urban Sanctuaries: Creating Peaceful Homes Amidst City Chaos - Image 2 of 4Urban Sanctuaries: Creating Peaceful Homes Amidst City Chaos - Image 3 of 4Urban Sanctuaries: Creating Peaceful Homes Amidst City Chaos - Image 4 of 4Urban Sanctuaries: Creating Peaceful Homes Amidst City Chaos - More Images+ 13

From Desert to Forest: 8 Unbuilt Houses Designed as Contemporary Retreats

Subscriber Access | 
Audio available

Residential architecture remains one of the most active fields for unbuilt architectural exploration, offering a lens through which architects rethink how domestic space can respond to landscape, climate, and contemporary patterns of living. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected proposals bring together a range of residential projects that engage with houses, villas, and retreats as sites of withdrawal, mediation, and everyday inhabitation. Rather than treating the home as a fixed or isolated object, these projects approach it as a spatial framework that negotiates exposure, privacy, and connection to place.

From Desert to Forest: 8 Unbuilt Houses Designed as Contemporary Retreats - Image 24 of 4From Desert to Forest: 8 Unbuilt Houses Designed as Contemporary Retreats - Image 36 of 4From Desert to Forest: 8 Unbuilt Houses Designed as Contemporary Retreats - Image 47 of 4From Desert to Forest: 8 Unbuilt Houses Designed as Contemporary Retreats - Image 23 of 4From Desert to Forest: 8 Unbuilt Houses Designed as Contemporary Retreats - More Images+ 44

5 Houses on the Wild Side

5 Houses on the Wild Side is a visual feast showcasing the wildly imaginative, rules-free, cozy and sumptuous interiors Elena Agostinis has created for her family’s homes in New York, Montana, and Mexico.

The 100 Best Latin American Houses of 2025

Each year, the ArchDaily Curatorial team reviews the projects that resonated most with our readers, identifying the architectural trends and design approaches that captured the greatest attention throughout the year. Across our local sites – ArchDaily Brasil and ArchDaily en Español – residential architecture remains the most popular category, with projects built in Latin America standing out year after year.

This year's selection of Best Latin American Houses brings together both renovations and ground-up projects, covering reinterpretations of local construction techniques and innovative architectural responses. The works are set in a wide range of contexts, from dense urban environments to rural and coastal landscapes.

The 100 Best Latin American Houses of 2025 - Imagen 1 de 4The 100 Best Latin American Houses of 2025 - Imagen 2 de 4The 100 Best Latin American Houses of 2025 - Imagen 3 de 4The 100 Best Latin American Houses of 2025 - Imagen 4 de 4The 100 Best Latin American Houses of 2025 - More Images+ 97

The Illusion of Level: Detailing for Water in “Flat” Architecture

Subscriber Access | 

We walk on "flat" ground every day and rarely think twice—but how flat is it, really? In the city, curbs are chamfered, sidewalks pitch toward grates, and roadways are crowned to shed water into shallow gutters. In suburbs and on unpaved paths, irregular terrain is the norm. Inside buildings, by contrast, we pursue near-perfect horizontality—structural frames, slabs, and finishes are all disciplined to create level walking surfaces in the name of safety and accessibility. Yet flatness is inherently at odds with water. A closer look reveals a quiet repertoire of accommodations: slight falls at entries, thresholds raised a few millimeters, wet areas with barely perceptible pitches. The floor is read as flat, but it is in fact carefully tuned—micro-topographies masquerading as plane—to manage water without calling attention to themselves.

What are the common ways architects "keep things flat" while actually managing water—the perennial enemy of buildings? A useful way to look at it is by zooming into three recurring conditions: exterior or roof decking, bathrooms and other wet rooms, and exterior ground planes. Each relies on a slightly different toolkit—pedestal systems over sloped waterproofing, micro-gradients to floor traps, hidden perimeter drains, split slopes—to maintain the illusion of a seamless, level surface. Studying these situations side by side reveals just how much design effort goes into reconciling perceptual flatness with the messy reality.

The Illusion of Level: Detailing for Water in “Flat” Architecture - Imagen 1 de 4The Illusion of Level: Detailing for Water in “Flat” Architecture - Imagen 2 de 4The Illusion of Level: Detailing for Water in “Flat” Architecture - Imagen 3 de 4The Illusion of Level: Detailing for Water in “Flat” Architecture - Imagen 4 de 4The Illusion of Level: Detailing for Water in “Flat” Architecture - More Images+ 15

Buildner and Dubai Celebrate Global Visionaries in €250K House of the Future Contest

 | Sponsored Content

Buildner, in partnership with the Government of Dubai, has announced the results of the 2024/25 House of the Future competition. Following the success of its inaugural edition in 2023, this second edition invited architects and designers worldwide to develop an affordable, expandable, and forward-thinking prototype home tailored to the evolving needs of Emirati families.

Organized in collaboration with the Mohammed bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation and the Sheikh Zayed Housing Programme, the competition offered a total prize fund of €250,000 (1 million AED). Winning entries are now being reviewed for potential inclusion in the UAE's national catalogue of housing designs, which provides citizens with a selection of pre-approved, innovative home models.

Form Follows the Existing: 15 Homes Designed to Preserve Local Trees

The preservation of the environment and the harmonious integration of the built and natural elements are fundamental principles in contemporary architecture. Various design strategies are employed to achieve this balance, ranging from the revival of vernacular techniques to the use of advanced technologies. However, this concern goes beyond the choice of specific construction systems or innovative materials; it also manifests in the design approach that ensures the preservation of the site's natural elements. In this context, we present 15 homes designed to protect local trees, showcasing how architectural decisions can adapt to nature rather than impose on it.

Form Follows the Existing: 15 Homes Designed to Preserve Local Trees - Image 1 of 4Form Follows the Existing: 15 Homes Designed to Preserve Local Trees - Image 2 of 4Form Follows the Existing: 15 Homes Designed to Preserve Local Trees - Image 3 of 4Form Follows the Existing: 15 Homes Designed to Preserve Local Trees - Image 4 of 4Form Follows the Existing: 15 Homes Designed to Preserve Local Trees - More Images+ 27

Foster + Partners Gains Approval for Timber Residential Project in Switzerland

Foster + Partners has received planning permission for a new timber residential building in Gstaad, Switzerland. Designed as a house in the Alpine resort town, the project combines residential use with exhibition, storage, and social spaces. According to the architects, it will be the first purpose-built facility in Gstaad to accommodate the specialised requirements of fine art, cars, fashion, and antique collections.

Foster + Partners Gains Approval for Timber Residential Project in Switzerland - Image 1 of 4Foster + Partners Gains Approval for Timber Residential Project in Switzerland - Image 2 of 4Foster + Partners Gains Approval for Timber Residential Project in Switzerland - Image 3 of 4Foster + Partners Gains Approval for Timber Residential Project in Switzerland - Image 4 of 4Foster + Partners Gains Approval for Timber Residential Project in Switzerland - More Images+ 1