This private home called “Hidden House” designed by Polish KWK Promes takes “hidden” to a whole new level by even incorporating a trap door for entrance into the garage. This is like something I would’ve dreamt up at a much younger age…a grand view from a home no one knows exists.

The architect description says: “The house will be situated in Lower Silesia, in a post-german city, where the majority of buildings are steep roofed villas. Under ground there are thousands of kilometres of partly buried tunnels, which became the starting point of the design idea. The building integrates with its surroundings yet it does not refer to the visible structure, but the underground part of the city. The plot, where the house is designed slopes steeply to the south. The object’s structure has been hidden underground, what in turn has made it completely invisible from the driveway. A huge trapdoor covered with grass is the entrance to a building.”

“The driveway leads underneath the ground, to the living room, which is situated at the same level as a garden. The sleeping part has been situated in a lifted, 25 meters long centilever. It’s length results from arrangement of the bedrooms, which were supposed to be at the same side as the corridor, all with a view of the garden.”

But while this thought of a hidden house may seem as exciting as a fort made from blankets and the kitchen table to a kid, is something like a grass covered trap door realistic? Or is it taking “blending with the landscape” too far?

Another home design by KWK Promes is less futuristic looking and more like a modern take on a daylight basement but without the upper level, kind of similar to the Cooper Point House by architect Mickey Muenning in terms of trying to blend in with the landscape.

This house, called OUTrial House in Ksiazenice, Poland is based on the concept that instead of merely having an atrium that is like landscape carved out a of a house, the house is carved out of the landscape creating an atypical atrium style that is both a part of the interior and the exterior. The green roof remains a private space, like that of a trypical atrium, which is accessible only by way of stairs from the interior.

Text from the architect: “A green clearing surrounded by forest was the only context for the proposed small house. Hence the idea to ‘carve out’ a piece of the grass-covered site, move it up and treat it as the roofing to arrange all the required functions underneath.”

“When the whole was ready, the client came up with another request, to create some space for a small recording studio and a conservatory. The latter was obtained by linking the ground floor with the grassy roof through an “incision” in the green plane and ‘bending’ the incised fragment down, inside the building.”

Just like a daylight basement that, from one side of the home, provides the illusion that the house is only one level, the OUTrial house looks invisible from one side and like a typical one level, modern style house from the other.

images via KWK Promes, ArchDaily and Doornob

This creative ad from Brazilian advertising agency Ponto de Criação in São Paulo tries to put global warming into a perspective that people can better identify with. The message is “Global Warming: When you feel it, it’s already too late”. It does amazing job at getting the point across regarding the shrinking of habitat. Check it out.

I am in love with this building. I can imagine the space with it’s simple yet exquisite lines, grand ceiling arching up, filled with light and the sweet smell of pine all around. The arches remind me of the attic of Casa Milá in Barcelona where I spent a ridiculous amount of time examing the arches curving around like vertibrae, except this chapel appears far more dramatic with the daring height and sleek lines. However, despite the differnces the idea that binds these spaces is the same, to mimic the body of an animal which, in this case, happens to be a fish.

images via Ettubrute

Architect Matti Sanaksenaho of Sanaksenaho Architects was struck by inspiration while trying to grab hold of a fish that was flapping around in his boat during a fishing trip. The St. Henry’s Ecumenical Art Chapel built in 2005 in Turku, Finland is meant as a place of worship for all faiths, resembling that of a simple, old village church. It sits amidst evergreens on the island of Hirvensalo with the shape of the building following the gentle contours of the natural land on an east-west axis.

The entire exterior is made of copper and set in a way to imply that of fish scales. There no distinguishing roof from the rest of the building, it is but one body.

images via Design Finland

image via Ettubrute

Ridiculously uncomfortable looking benches aside, the interior space is exquisite. The 40 foot high ceiling creates a feeling of awe, something that one might expect to feel when walking inside of a house of faith but unlike most churches in the world, this one does it simply and without decoration. The inside is completely made of wood, from the floor to the ceiling and all furniture. The building uses pine, the furniture is of alder.

The building is lit primarily by the dramatic ring of windows at one end, opposite the entry behind the alter. The interplay of shadows and light is in constant flux as the sun moves through the sky. The journey one makes from the entry is that of moving out and away from the shadows and towards the light.

images via Ettubrute