Brilliant works of architecture that incorporate and use glass in innovative ways.
The Glass House
Built: 2012
The owner's love of glass fuelled the brief to construct a beautifully simple sculptural glass staircase and a contemporary glass extension, situated at the rear of the property in the space created by the 'C' shape of the building, which would open itself up to the garden. The spaces are designed to accentuate a play between light and dark; contrasting from the bright and open communal spaces to the more subtle and secluded, almost cave-like retreat spaces in the old house.This extremely light and spacious frameless glass extension houses the open-plan kitchen, living, and dining areas. As the delicate structure reaches over to form the walls and roof of the extension, it creates a flexible inside/outside space allowing sunlight to flood through the home and filter down gradually, creating beautiful shards of light and shadow.
The Garden Shed
Built: 2010
The Garden Shed shown in the pictures is designer Linda Bergroth's summer cottage. The designer had one of the early prototypes built to her summer cottage - a distant island in eastern Finland. The Garden shed is used as an extra bedroom during the summer months. It is customized by adding a wooden floor in the greenhouse part and solar panels to enable lighting. Stairs and pavings are made from local recycled bricks. It is designed to fit in the Scandinavian landscape and has a traditional gabled roof - typical in the area because of the weather conditions. The big doors allow natural light to come in and allows you to easily see and reach everything.
Juvet Landscape Hotel
Built: 2008
The first landscape hotel in Europe is situated in the farmyard of Burtigarden farm at Alstad in Valldal, on a steep, natural levee in between birch, osp, pine and age-old boulders. In this little village in rural Norway, modern architecture encounters the natural and cultural landscape - and shows that the modern and innovative can go hand in hand with local building traditions and good, old-fashioned handicrafts.
The landscape in which these rooms are placed is by most people considered spectacularly beautiful and varied and the topography allows a layout where no room looks at another. In this way every room gets its own surprising view of a dramatic piece of landscape, always changing with the weather and the time of the day and the season.
Glass/Wood House
Built: 2010
Glass/Wood house was built in New Canaan Connecticut by owner and designer John Black Lee. The house was completed in 1956 and was a gloriously symmetrical structure nestled among the trees. In 2010, Kengo Kuma and Associates designed a transparent, L-shaped addition that sits just to the west of the original. The interior is almost entirely open, with very few walls. Instead, stainless steel mesh screens differentiate circulation space from other parts of the program. The structure is composed of steel columns only 3 inches wide and 6 inches deep, with equally minimal steel beams, and a roof supported by exposed glue-laminated spruce joists.
R128 House
Built: 2000
R128 House is an experimental house designed by Werner Sobek, a professor of engineering and architecture at the University of Stuttgart. The glass-and-steel R128 House is located on a steeply sloped site with panoramic views of Stuttgart, Germany. Although this house seems sterile and completely transparent, it is a home where comfort and privacy issues for the inhabitants have been met. It is a completely recyclable, emission-free, energy self-sufficient building. The design resulted from his desire to have an all-glass house with unencumbered views of the surrounding city and countryside that would also employ contemporary engineering concepts for sustainable buildings.
Farnsworth House
Built: 1945-1951
The Farnsworth House built for Dr. Edith Farnsworth as a weekend retreat, is a platonic perfection of order gently placed in spontaneous nature in Plano, Illinois. Situated in a 10-acre secluded wooded site with the Fox River to the south, the glass pavilion takes full advantage of relating to its natural surroundings, achieving Mies' concept of a strong relationship between the house and nature. The single-story house consists of eight I-shaped steel columns that support the roof and floor frameworks, and therefore are both structural and expressive. In between these columns are floor-to-ceiling windows around the entire house, opening up the rooms to the woods around it. The windows are what provide the beauty of Mies' idea of tying the residence with its tranquil surroundings. His idea for shading and privacy was through the many trees that were located on the private site.