House of Vid and Higurea sits on a cliff above Ostional, Costa Rica, where the Pacific wind and turtle nesting cycles set the rules. Designed by LSD architects, the house reads as a single level from approach, yet slips down the slope to preserve views and the site’s fragile rhythms. It’s a house first, but its stance is environmental—quiet, resolved, and tuned to place.
Kazemat Koningsweg sets a quiet tone on the Veluwe in the Netherlands, where JCR Architecten crafts a hideout that recedes into the land. The small holiday house occupies a former military compound now shared by housing, workplaces, and eleven compact retreats, and it meets the brief with angular restraint and a camouflaged stance. Sunken into the ground, it reads like a bunker from afar yet opens to treetop views and light within.
Villa Above the Water sits in the Czech Republic as a family house shaped by anticipation. Designed by 3AE, the low-slung home turns inward toward a private garden rather than outward to a landscape destined to develop. The L-shaped property uses the site’s gentle slope and a swimming pond to build its own world at the edge of a village near Prague.
Fulnek Kindergarten sits in the northern reach of its garden site in Fulnek, Czech Republic, designed by XTOPIX architekt as a compact, low-slung school. The building orients its life to the south, where courtyards cut into the slope and open classrooms to views of the château across town. Calm materials, a legible plan, and child-scaled thresholds shape a daily rhythm of arriving, playing, and gathering.
Bay House sits in a coastal village in North Devon, United Kingdom, by McLean Quinlan Architects. The five-bedroom house steps with the hillside, pulling in ocean and valley views while keeping a low profile from the street. Inside, warm oak and light plaster set a restrained mood, aligning with the studio’s low-energy approach and crafted joinery.
Country House sits in Poland, conceived by IFAgroup as a house that hews to village scale and a calm lakeside rhythm. The project reads as a deliberate low profile, spreading across an 8000 m² plot with terraces turned to water and forest. It steers clear of monumentality and draws warmth from reclaimed timber and planted roof, creating a measured retreat shaped by the land.
Designed by SOA, House Lhotka in Prague, Czech Republic, was completed in 2020. This house, arranged in four distinct volumes, is unified by a central corridor and dining area. Large windows and movable glass partitions enhance the connection to the garden.
Andrea + Joan Arquitectes designed the House on the Woods in Tarragona, Spain. Designed in 2023, the project features the rehabilitation of an old rural dwelling and its surroundings. It is conceived as an occasional residence, intended as a refuge integrated into the forest.
The preexisting dwelling lies within a set of disused stone walls, where a Mediterranean forest of pine and oak trees has grown over the years, creating a synergy between the architecture and the landscape.
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