Spanish studio Fran Silvestre Arquitectos has created a minimalist white house in Alicante, which winds through the landscape to enhance its relationship with the outdoors.
Named Sabater House, the Spanish dwelling unfolds through a series of intersecting, elongated forms that ascend upwards over its 780-square-metre site.
Its slim volumes adapt to the site’s natural topography, navigating existing large trees and framing a series of terraces and courtyards.
Fran Silvestre Arquitectos has created a minimalist white house in Alicante
According to Fran Silvestre Arquitectos, the sprawling design takes cues from local pathways that are carved into the terrain and lead to a hermitage.
“We were struck by how these winding paths adapt to the terrain, generating a very interesting architecture,” Fran Silvestre Arquitectos told Dezeen.
“This was the starting point to develop a home on a plot with similar characteristics in terms of width and slope of the land.”
Sabater House winds through the landscape
Sabater House is designed for a client who wanted a home to accommodate his large family while ensuring “enough independence to guarantee the privacy of all family members”.
To accomplish this, each floor of the home features a distinct programme.
Each floor of the home features a distinct programme
The highest level, described as the “nighttime area” of the home, features five bedrooms and bathrooms oriented to look out to the sea above the tree line.
Meanwhile, the middle floors contain an open-plan kitchen, dining and living area with floor-to-ceiling windows framing views out to the garden and outdoor swimming pool.
The house winds around existing trees
The living spaces are stretched across the long and narrow floor plan in a bid to avoid compacting them and open them up to the outdoors.
“The project is drawn with a very clear geometry of straight elements that are joined by a soft radius of curvature,” said the studio. “Each piece has a relationship with the environment.”
Accommodated on the lower level are the pool basin, a wine cellar, storage facilities and additional sleeping quarters.
With each floor stacked at an angle to create a zigzagging floor plan, a series of courtyards, terraces and bridges are created, further opening the relationship with the outdoors.
The middle floor features open-plan living spaces
“Something unexpected about the house for us is the character of the interstitial spaces between the blocks and how they envelop you,” explained Fran Silvestre Arquitectos.
“The first acts as an access garden that directs you towards the entrance door, and the second as one of the main terraces. They are versatile spaces that allow you to make the most of the different orientations.”
The top level contains the bedrooms
Fran Silvestre Arquitectos was founded in 2005 by architect Fran Silvestre. The studio is known for its minimalist style, which is applied throughout Sabater House.
Its previous projects that feature its signature pared-back style include an overhanging Hollywood Home and a residence with a T-shaped roof in Valencia.
Nicolas Côté and Kevlar Habitation set up La Musette in Quebec
La Musette, a collaborative project between Nicolas Côté and Kevlar Habitation, rises as a response to the increasing interest in outdoor living in Canada, especially with the rise of telecommuting. Departing from conventional territorial expansion, their approach advocates for reinvesting in villages instead of encroaching on natural landscapes. The project, initially conceived by Nicolas and his partner Sophie, aligns with sustainability and environmental responsibility, integrating seamlessly with the aesthetic of Notre-Dame-de-Ham village. Situated in the Appalachian hills, the residential project respects the village’s identity while showcasing innovation and sustainability in land development, reflecting Quebec’s capabilities.
all images courtesy of Nicolas Côté
La Musette Bridges Tradition and Innovation in Compact Design
The house, while contemporary, maintains a connection to traditional architecture with simple forms, pitched roofs, and white cladding. La Musette prioritizes compact, intelligent design to optimize space without sacrificing functionality or comfort. Versatile in its use, the house accommodates telecommuting, family gatherings, and daily living. The design incorporates cost-effective materials like plywood, ensuring warmth and authenticity within an accessible budget framework. Nicolas Côté, along with Kevlar Habitation, proposes La Musette as an invitation to enhance villages, emphasizing harmony with nature. Beyond being a residence, La Musette embodies a philosophy promoting sustainable development and encouraging reflection on spatial inhabitation for the future of small communities.
La Musette responds to the growing interest in outdoor living and telecommuting in Canada
the project advocates for reinvesting in villages instead of encroaching on natural landscapes
La Musette seamlessly integrates with the aesthetic of Notre-Dame-de-Ham village in the Appalachian hills
Swedish practice White Arkitekter has completed the Exercisfältet Stormwater Pond in Uppsala, Sweden, providing water purification and flood protection while also creating a biodiverse landscape for local residents.
The pond is located in Exercisfältet, a former military training area that has recently been subject to a large amount of development that has reduced water infiltration.
The pond is located in a former military training area
Instead of treating the pond as a purely infrastructural project, White Arkitekter took the opportunity to create a biodiverse environment around the pond to “celebrate the joy of being part of nature”.
“With all the new demands on public spaces that come with climate adaptation, it’s very important that landscape architects engage creatively with technical requirements,” lead architect Charlotta Råsmark told Dezeen.
A concrete wall provides flood protection
“We need to create spaces that can be problem solvers and places for beauty, pleasure and enjoyment at the same time,” she continued.
To the north, the pond’s “city side” follows the line of the new housing blocks with a concrete wall providing flood protection.
The pond is wrapped by a wooden pathway
Opposite, the south-facing “nature side” follows the undulating forms of the landscape, and the whole pond is wrapped by a winding wooden pathway with a weathered steel balustrade.
Untreated wood and steel were used for the walkways, both to minimise the leakage of chemicals into the water and to blend in as much as possible with the surrounding landscape from afar.
Green spaces surround the pond
The pond itself was made as small as possible to maximise the green space for recreation around it, as well as providing space onto which the water level can safely rise in the event of heavy rainfall.
“To stop the rapid decline of biodiversity, we need to make more space in urban areas for ecosystems that many people find messy and unattractive; the city greenery can’t only be about tidy lawns and borders,” Råsmark said.
“But a messy ecosystem in a city context must also be welcoming to the average city dweller and that’s where the importance of clearly visible design comes in,” she continued.
The pond has been designed to accommodate the ongoing development of the surrounding area, becoming part of a larger green belt stretching from the centre of Uppsala to lake Mälaren to the south.
The pathway has a weathered-steel balustrade
The Stormwater Pond at Exercisfältet has recently been longlisted in the mixed-use project category of Dezeen Awards 2023.
In China, studio eLandscript took a similar approach to integrating the ecological and the urban, combining the creation of a stormwater pond with a new wetland park on the site of a former power station.
Studio Marco Piva reconstructs Torre Antonini after fire
Architectural Studio Marco Piva takes over the reconstruction of the skyscraper that caught fire in Milan on August 29, 2021, leaving 80 families homeless. The project provides for the partial restoration of the architecture of the pre-existing tower ‘Torre Antonini’, giving it a distinctive morphology that stems from the cues from the previous structure and translates into a modern architectural solution. The design composes loggias that, by enveloping the entire building, establish a connection with the surrounding area and offer usable and scenic outdoor spaces. The concept holds a soft aesthetic with sinuous shapes that enfold the structure, ‘like light and elegant ribbons’. The project is planned to be completed between 2025 and 2026.
Torre Antonini exterior by Studio Marco Piva | all images courtesy of Studio Marco Piva
dynamic parapets and innovative green spaces adorn the tower
The building has two floors below ground and nineteen above, with a total height of approximately 70 meters. Starting from the lower floors, the dynamic elegance of the parapets extends fluidly over the entire height of the tower, softening its overall profile. The studio designs a stylistic element to be featured on the building, a special glass insert positioned in an irregular pattern in each parapet enabling residents to enjoy captivating views of the city of Milan.
The Torre Antonini project follows the ‘Green Wave’ concept by Marco Piva, offering an innovative and contemporary urban lifestyle that is expressed through the selection of high-quality finishes and materials and attention to every detail of the external spaces, and shaping new comfortable and functional living areas. The design of the outdoor zones and restructured loggias is the combination of research, inventiveness, and functionality, from the first objective of increasing private external areas to the subsequent implementation of sliding ‘brises soleils’ on all sides to mitigate exposure to the sun. Fixed planters and green-covered vertical grilles are provided near the lift shafts to increase the privacy of the adjacent terraces. The project aims to enhance the osmotic relationship between the Tower and its surrounding landscape, between indoor and outdoor areas, while fostering the necessary domestic intimacy.
the facade as it looks before the restoration
the designed loggias envelop the entire building offering usable and scenic outdoor spaces
Spotted: Believe it or not, some heavy metals are commonly used in foods and cosmetics. One of these is titanium dioxide (TiO2), used as a whitening and brightening pigment in everything from gum to plant-based chicken. While TiO2 has been banned from use in food products sold in the European Union (EU), it is still in use in Canada and the US. While there is no general consensus on the safety of TiO2, consumers are increasingly becoming wary of such additives. Luckily, there is now a substitute.
Swiss startup Impossible Materials has developed a cellulose-based alternative to TiO2. The company extracts the cellulose from biomaterials such as wood pulp and transforms it into a white pigment in a chemical process. The startup claims this process is more sustainable than current production processes for generating white pigments, and the material is also biodegradable, unlike other white pigments.
Impossible Materials has recently raised $3.8 million (around €3.4 million) from investors like Big Idea Ventures in a seed funding round. The money will be used to construct a pilot facility in Switzerland, expand the team, and work on market entry in food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals.
Andrew D. Ive, founder, Big Idea Ventures, explained: “Alternative protein products are getting better every day and it won’t be long until we can deliver consumers their traditional foods in more sustainable and climate friendly ways. Big Idea Ventures is investing in high quality and cost-effective supporting technologies that help accelerate consumer acceptance of alternative proteins.”
Pigment-based materials can often be unsustainable – using materials that are damaging to the environment and energy-intensive to manufacture. This is why Springwise has spotted several innovations aiming to create more sustainable pigments. These include an energy-saving paint inspired by butterflies and a non-toxic, biodegradable glitter.
London studio Waugh Thistleton Architects has unveiled the Black & White Building, a mass-timber office building designed for The Office Group in Shoreditch with a slatted tulipwood facade.
The 17.8-metre-high office building, which the studio says is the “tallest mass-timber office building in central London”, was built from a combination of beech, pine and spruce timber.
The building is located in Shoreditch, east London
Constructed from structural timber, Waugh Thistleton Architects clad the exterior of the six-storey building in tulipwood timber louvres from the street level to the roof.
“The design means that you also get the beauty of the timber internally,” Waugh Thistleton co-founder Andrew Waugh told Dezeen.
“It’s a simple form driven by the context of timber engineering, as well as the context of the surrounding Victorian buildings – these were also constructed using current methods and built to a brief,” Waugh added.
“There is no narrative here, it is pure modernism.”
Tulipwood louvres protect it from the sun
Waugh Thistleton Architects constructed the 4,480-square-metre Black & White Building from prefabricated components that were precision-engineered to be slotted together.
This means the building, which Waugh describes as “visibly sustainable”, is dismantlable and can be disassembled rather than demolished at the end of its life with its materials reused.
Wood was also used to decorate the interior, with sculptures created from wood beams
Its foundation and lower ground floor were made from concrete, with the rest of the structure constructed from cross-laminated timber (CLT).
Curtain walling was made from glued laminated timber (glulam), while columns and beams were constructed from laminated veneer lumber (LVL), which the studio said helps save on space.
“We have CLT panels for the core and CLT panels for the floors,” Waugh Thistleton Architects associate director David Lomax said. “And then the columns and beams are made from quite a highly engineered product called LVL.”
“We’re talking about typically, at the lowest level where the loads are greatest, about 100 millimetres on each side of the column saving in its dimensions,” he added.
“That’s made out of beech, which is a hardwood so it performs much, much better. [It’s] smaller columns.”
London studio Daytrip designed the interior
According to the studio, by using engineered-wood materials rather than a traditional concrete and steel structure, the building saves “thousands of tonnes in CO2” as it generates much less greenhouse gas.
The building also has at least 37 per cent less embodied carbon than comparable concrete structures, according to The Office Group (TOG).
It was named the Black & White Building as it replaces an earlier building on the site, a Victorian brick warehouse with a timber interior that had been painted black and white.
The existing building was deteriorating and not suitable for a retrofit, Waugh Thistleton Architects said.
“It couldn’t be extended – it was very small and had no foundations,” Waugh said. “Extending it would have been just a cosmetic exercise. This isn’t romance, it’s architecture.”
Warm hues contrast the timber walls inside
After meeting Waugh at a panel talk about sustainability, TOG co-founder Charlie Green asked him to instead create a new building that would be suitable for the site.
“We took our planning consented scheme, and we used the envelope and the massing of that to ask Andrew to create something within that form that’s timber,” Green said.
“He did more than that, he redesigned it so we had a more efficient core position to create a better flow of space, and came up with this timber scheme.”
The office is partly powered by 80 photovoltaic panels on its roof, with all other energy coming from green suppliers, Green said.
“Wasabi green” was used for the interior
Design studio Daytrip created the interior of the building, which contains 28 offices in different sizes as well as six meeting rooms, break-out areas and focus booths and a dedicated yoga and barre studio on the ground floor.
The building’s timber features are also visible inside, where the timber walls match the wooden furniture.
“We reacted to the original concept and the sustainable drive and wanted to continue that in the interiors,” said Daytrip co-founder Iwan Halstead.
“We wanted to respect and celebrate the timber part of the architecture.”
Most of the furniture comes from UK suppliers
Timber beams from the Victorian warehouse that previously occupied the site were kept and turned into wooden sculptures that decorate the ground-floor lobby.
Daytrip aimed to also keep the furniture as local and sustainable as possible.
“A lot of the specifications and furniture are UK suppliers and that was something that we wanted to make an effort to achieve, and we’ve done it with 80 per cent of the furniture,” Halstead said.
The overall interior design was informed by Tokyo’s original Hotel Okura, a mid-century modern hotel that was demolished in 2015 but has since been rebuilt.
A colour palette of muted green and earthy hues, which Daytrip gave names like “wasabi green,” is combined with tactile materials, including some made from recycled components.
The interior design was informed by Hotel Okura in Tokyo
At the top of the building sits a rooftop terrace, while a central lightwell was designed to help maximise the building’s natural light.
The building is “about sustainability more than anything,” Waugh said. “It’s a bright future for architecture, not the hair shirt and oat milk that sustainability is always described as.”
TOG operates more than 50 workspaces in the UK and Europe. These include an office in Borough Yards with an interior by Danish designer David Thulstrup, and a Euston workspace with an interior informed by nearby buildings such as the British Library.
Portuguese practice AB+AC Architects has designed a multifunctional wellness centre in Lisbon that doubles up as an artists’ residence.
The Open Hearts wellness centre is arranged around one large room, which AB+AC Architects refers to as the shala. This Sanskrit term refers to the idea of home but also, in the context of yoga, a place where people can learn and practise together.
The Open Hearts centre is orientated around a curtained room known as the shala
As well as yoga classes, this adaptable space will host everything from breathwork classes and sound baths to meditation sessions, film screenings, dining experiences and creative writing workshops.
Running around the periphery of the shala are floor-to-ceiling curtains crafted from white vegan leather, which can be drawn to keep the room out of view from the bustling street outdoors.
At the front of the room, a wall of gold-tinted mirrors conceals a series of storage compartments. When an event is being held, the room can also be temporarily dressed with floor cushions and long birchwood tables.
Behind the shala is the artists’ residence
“Normally, when a design is very flexible, there is a risk of ending up with a very generic or sterile space, as if the only way to address adaptability is through non-specific design,” explained AB+AC Architects.
“We knew that creating a neutral mood that could accommodate a variety of programs would not be stimulating, so we decided that the centre had to be able to evoke different emotions based on the function occurring at that given moment.”
This includes a dining room and bespoke kitchen
A grand limestone archway to the side of the shala grants access to the artists’ residence, which is entered via a narrow lounge area.
The room is topped with a light-up ceiling that measures eight metres long and, when the artist is hosting an exhibition, washes their work in a complementary glow.
Next up is a small dining area and a custom-made kitchen suite featuring wooden cabinetry and a terrazzo-style countertop.
Surfaces in the adjacent bedroom are painted a crisp shade of white while the corner dedicated to the bathroom – complete with a freestanding tub – is clad in distinctive terracotta tiles.
The same gold-tinged mirrors from the shala are used here to help disguise the toilet.
A terracotta-tiled bathroom contrasts with the white walls of the bedroom
Should the resident artist want some fresh air, they can head outside to the small private patio.
Here, a concrete planter that winds around the edge of the space is overspilling with leafy tropical plants, while volcanic stone pebbles are scattered over the floor.
Foliage lines the private outdoor patio of the artists’ residence
Open Hearts Lisbon has been shortlisted in the civic and cultural interior category of this year’s Dezeen Awards.
Other projects in the running include a cow shed-turned-library, a historic cinema in Berlin and the world’s first multi-storey skatepark.
Bathrooms can easily be dismissed as the dullest room of the house, but there’s plenty of opportunity to play around with material and colour. Interiors reporter Natasha Levy has selected eight striking bathing spaces to learn from.
Unit 662 by Rainville Sangaré
A statement shower screen adds interest to the otherwise greyscale interior of this bathroom, which sits inside a brutalist Montreal apartment.
Made from diochroic glass, the screen casts the cubicle behind in shifting shades of green, coral-orange and aqua-blue. The vanity stand has also been completed in navy blue.
Find out more about Unit 662 ›
San Francisco Residence, USA, by Jamie Bush
Blue, gold and white wallpaper printed with aqueous bubbles and streaks covers the bathroom of this San Francisco home, which belongs to a tech entrepreneur.
The rest of the home has been completed in a similarly bold aesthetic to avoid seeming “too done and perfect” – its secondary bathroom boasts ombre walls which fade from pink to blue.
Find out more about San Francisco Residence ›
And Y, Russia, by Eduard Eremchuk
In a nod to the aesthetic of subway stations, architect Eduard Eremchuk used different tiles to deck out this Russian cafe: floor tiles in the main eating area are white, and those in the kitchen are pale blue.
A surprise is offered in the tiled bathroom, where every surface – including the sink – features a crazy black-and-white cow print. Simple white tap faucets finish the space.
Find out more about And Y ›
The Siren Hotel, USA, by ASH NYC
Bathrooms are just as striking as the guest suites inside The Siren Hotel, which ASH NYC designed to “call people back” to the city of Detroit.
Flecked, cherry-red terrazzo covers the walls, clashing against the diamond-pattern monochrome floors and veiny marble shower stools.
Find out more about The Siren Hotel ›
Saku, Canada, by Rane Interiors
Vintage wallpaper originally produced in Italy during the 1970s covers the surfaces of this bathroom, which sits inside Vancouver restaurant Saku.
The room’s yellow hue is meant to emulate the “light, inviting and soothing” ambience of traditional Japanese eateries.
Find out more about Saku ›
Annabel’s, UK, by Martin Brudnizki
The bathrooms that designer Martin Bruznizki created for Annabel’s – an affluent members-only club in London – offer a perfect lesson in opulence.
Walls are upholstered in chintzy wallpaper, while the ceiling is lined with thousands of hand-made silk flowers. Pink onyx washbasins and gold-framed vanity mirrors add an extra dose of decadence.
Find out more about Annabel’s ›
Canari House, Canada, by Naturehumaine
To “energise” this compact bathroom, Naturehumaine completed all of its surfaces in a hard-to-miss hue of neon-orange. Graphical interest is added by the micro-hexagonal tiles that cover the floor and splashback.
The vivid space is in perfect keeping with the rest of the Montreal home, which also features a canary-yellow staircase.
Find out more about Canari House ›
House P, China, by MDDM Studio
Sunny yellow walls run throughout the living spaces of this Beijing home, which MDDM Studio wanted to reflect the liveliness of its occupants – a young family.
This bright aesthetic extends into the bathrooms, which feature terrazzo surfaces inlaid with large chunks of peach, yellow and dark-green aggregate. An extra splash of colour is provided by translucent blue screens that separate the bathtub from the sink.
