Wenatchee River Cabin stands lightly above the floodplain in Wenatchee, WA, United States, a compact retreat shaped by Wittman Estes for one dedicated outdoor enthusiast. Conceived as a base camp and eventually embraced as a full-time home, the elevated cabin turns a modest footprint into a layered daily routine centered on the forest and river. Simple forms, durable materials, and a clear program keep the focus on lived experience rather than show.
School Admissions Lounge introduces families to the Western Academy of Beijing through a compact, carefully tuned room in Beijing, China. Studio Vapore shapes an elementary school admissions setting where adults settle into a calm living room–like arrangement while children gravitate toward a scaled world of nooks, books, and movement. Subtle links to the wider campus help this first encounter feel both new and reassuring, giving each visit a sense of ease and quiet anticipation.
Your outdoor space holds untapped potential waiting to be discovered. Whether you have a sprawling backyard or a cozy patio, small changes can create a dramatic impact without requiring a complete overhaul or breaking the bank. The key is choosing upgrades that blend beauty with practicality, transforming your yard into a retreat you’ll actually want to use.
Portal 62 begins as a compact house in Merida, Mexico, yet unfolds into something deeper under the direction of Veinte Diezz Arquitectos. What starts as a conventional courtyard dwelling soon pivots around the discovery of a hidden cavern, turning the project into a carefully staged journey from street to subterranean. Each move through the house clarifies that this is less a showpiece than a measured sequence meant to be uncovered slowly.
Casa Nau 64 settles beside the Óbidos Lagoon in Portugal, where [i]da arquitectos aligns the house with stone pines and wind off the water. The project organizes a single-family house into measured horizontal layers that answer sun, shelter, and garden in equal measure, turning a tight coastal plot into a quiet, outward-looking retreat.
Casa More sits in Mérida, Mexico, where Workshop: Diseño y Construcción reworks a midcentury Art Decó house into a layered domestic sequence. The house retains its 1940s character at the street and unfolds toward a new terrace and pool, moving from restored interiors to tropical gardens. Each zone reads as a chapter in the same story, shaped by climate, memory, and the easy pace of Yucatán life.
The Avber House sits on a hilltop in Avber, Slovenia, where OFIS Arhitekti reworks a clustered stone homestead into a contemporary house rooted in ancestral memory. The project gathers dwelling, former stable, and outbuilding around a sheltered courtyard, translating vernacular Karst elements into a renewed everyday setting for an Australian client returning to his family village. Historic structures stay present, while their roles shift toward present-day comfort and restrained sustainability.
LH Residence sits in the Metropolitan District of Quito, Pichincha, Ecuador, as a single-family house by Side FX Arquitectura that treats density as a design prompt. The architects work between party walls and neighboring roofs to stage a gradual retreat from the street, drawing residents inward through courtyards and filtered thresholds until daily life settles around vegetation, daylight, and controlled privacy rather than the surrounding urban crush.
