Contemporary architecture is not one look. These 25 houses show how design can grow from a site, a garden, a view, a daily routine—or the careful reuse of an existing building. ArchitectureAU describes its Houses issues as showcasing “the best contemporary residential architecture, with inspirational ideas from leading architects and designers.” The projects below offer that inspiration through specific choices in plan, light, landscape and materials, not through a single style or ranking.
Renovations and additions that make the old feel new
Working with an existing house can produce a distinctly contemporary home without erasing what made the original worth keeping. These projects use additions, reorganization and selective retention to change how a house works.
1. Orca House — dbA. arquitectura, Orca, Portugal
Published in 2025, this rehabilitation and extension preserves the original granite masonry while adding an upper volume. The extension uses hempcrete blocks with hydraulic lime plaster. Its useful lesson is not that every old stone house needs a contrasting addition, but that a new layer can be clearly contemporary while allowing the original structure to remain legible.
2. Threshold House — Studio McW, De Beauvoir, London
Designed in 2024 and published in 2025, this project combines a lower-ground-floor extension with the redesign of a Victorian home. Its plan connects the kitchen, private rooms, study and dining area with the garden. It is an example of an intervention whose success is as much about everyday movement and outdoor access as about the exterior.
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3. Cobalt Coach House — Foils, Peckham, United Kingdom
Designed in 2024 and published in 2025, this coach-house remodeling reorganizes a constrained footprint rather than relying on a simple increase in floor area. The main living space moves to the front, where a double-height room and enclosed courtyard shape the experience; bedrooms and utility spaces are arranged to the rear.
4. North Freo House — Robeson Architects, North Fremantle, Australia
Published in 2025, North Freo House retains serviceable rooms and places an upper-floor addition over existing walls. A double-height void brings light into the home. The project illustrates a focused renovation strategy: preserve what still works and direct the major change toward the areas that need it.
5. Mapleton House — ArchitectureAU December 2024 Houses issue
ArchitectureAU lists Mapleton House in its December 2024 Houses issue. Its project summary emphasizes inhabited terrain, making it a useful prompt for considering how a house can follow or occupy the land rather than treating the site as a level, interchangeable platform.
6. West End Shade House — ArchitectureAU December 2024 Houses issue
Also included in ArchitectureAU’s December 2024 issue, West End Shade House is presented among projects that respond to urban settings and connect homes with gardens. Its title points to shade as a design concern, but the issue summary does not establish a specific construction system or measured environmental result.
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This issue-listed project foregrounds garden connection. The idea of a “borrowed” garden is an invitation to think about how a home can frame or share a green outlook, rather than treating the boundary of the building as the limit of its visual experience.
8. Alexandria House — ArchitectureAU December 2024 Houses issue
ArchitectureAU’s December 2024 issue includes Alexandria House among projects concerned with reframing views and responding to urban contexts. It suggests that an existing city setting can be a design resource: the question is how rooms, openings and outlooks are arranged within it.
9. Terrace House Mirage — ArchitectureAU December 2024 Houses issue
Listed in the same issue, Terrace House Mirage is another example associated with responses to urban settings. Its inclusion alongside garden- and terrain-focused projects is a reminder that contemporary residential design can address the tight conditions of a city as directly as it addresses a rural landscape.
10. Carlyle Drive House — ArchitectureAU June 2024 Houses issue
ArchitectureAU’s June 2024 issue includes Carlyle Drive House in a group of projects whose descriptions foreground rehabilitation and connection to place. It belongs in an inspiration list for readers interested in treating renovation as design work in its own right, rather than as a lesser alternative to a new build.
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Peta’s House appears in the June 2024 issue, where project descriptions also foreground compact living. The issue’s framing makes it a useful reminder that the quality of a home depends on how space is used and connected, not only on its size.
12. Smith House — ArchitectureAU June 2024 Houses issue
Smith House is one of the June 2024 issue’s projects associated with rehabilitation and connection to place. The available issue summary does not specify its materials or plan, so its value here is as part of a broader group of examples showing the architectural potential of working with context.
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13. First House: Riverview — ArchitectureAU June 2024 Houses issue
ArchitectureAU’s June 2024 issue lists First House: Riverview among projects with an emphasis on connection to place. Its inclusion complements the more detailed renovation examples in this list: a home’s relationship to its surroundings can be central to its design story.
New homes shaped by land, views and climate
A site can do more than provide a backdrop. Topography, airflow and views can influence where a house sits, how it is entered and how rooms relate to the landscape. These projects show several different ways to make that relationship part of the architecture.
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14. Loop House — Mobius Architekci, Poland
Published in 2024, Loop House is elevated above the ground. The project description connects that move with airflow and reduced interference with the site. It is an example of form mediating contact with the landscape rather than assuming that a house must sit directly on the ground.
15. KH House — NGSTUDIO, Piracaia, Brazil
Designed in 2025, KH House is oriented toward views of a reservoir. Its described palette pairs wood and stone with concrete. The project makes orientation and material contrast part of the home’s response to its setting; the material description alone does not establish energy or environmental performance.
16. Barefoot Dreams House — Ameet Mirpuri Design Studio + Studio JH, Morjim, Goa, India
Designed in 2025, this holiday house steps along a dramatic natural slope and frames views of the Arabian Sea. The sequence through the home responds to the topography, making the terrain an organizing feature rather than a condition to be hidden or flattened.
17. Casa DLCA — 0studio Arquitectura, Zapopan, Mexico
Designed in 2024 and published in 2025, Casa DLCA is a three-level home arranged around a triple-height central patio. Concrete and warm wood establish a contrast in material and atmosphere, while the courtyard acts as the spatial anchor. It offers a clear example of a house organized inward as well as outward.
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ArchitectureAU’s June 2025 issue includes Mess Hall among projects whose summaries highlight adaptable family life. That focus shifts attention from the static floor plan to the ways a home might accommodate changing patterns of use.
19. Broome Street House — ArchitectureAU June 2025 Houses issue
Also listed in the June 2025 issue, Broome Street House is associated with a sloping site. Alongside Barefoot Dreams House, it points to the design opportunities and planning questions that arise when a house must relate to changing ground levels.
More houses to explore for garden, compact-living and place ideas
The remaining projects in ArchitectureAU’s issue selections broaden the range of reference points. Their summaries offer useful themes, though they do not provide enough detail to infer particular materials, construction methods or performance.
20. Terrace House Mirage — listed among urban projects
Beyond its place in the December 2024 issue’s selection, Terrace House Mirage is a useful reference for thinking about housing in an urban setting, where neighboring buildings and limited outdoor space can shape design decisions.
21. Peta’s House — a compact-living reference
The June 2024 issue’s emphasis on compact living makes Peta’s House a relevant example for considering how a smaller or more constrained home can be organized around daily needs.
22. Mapleton House — a terrain-focused reference
Mapleton House appears in the December 2024 issue’s terrain-oriented group. It can prompt questions about how building form and movement through the home might respond to the contours of a site.
23. Borrowed Garden House — a garden-connection reference
As a project associated with garden connection in the December 2024 issue, Borrowed Garden House offers a starting point for considering outlooks, thresholds and the visual relationship between interior rooms and planted space.
24. First House: Riverview — a place-focused reference
The June 2024 issue describes its projects in terms that include connection to place. First House: Riverview belongs to that wider conversation about how a home can be understood in relation to its setting.
25. West End Shade House — an urban-response reference
West End Shade House completes this selection of issue-listed projects. Its place among urban-responsive houses encourages attention to how a design addresses its immediate surroundings; the available summary does not specify particular shading devices or measured results.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What to look for when taking inspiration from these houses
These projects are most useful as prompts for decisions, not as a checklist of styles to copy. A feature that works in a coastal holiday home or a rural stone dwelling may not suit a different site, climate or existing structure.
- Start with the site. Ask whether the design responds to slope, views, gardens or airflow, and whether the building’s placement changes how residents experience the land.
- Separate renovation from new construction. Projects such as Orca House, Threshold House, Cobalt Coach House and North Freo House work with existing buildings. Consider which rooms or structural elements remain useful before assuming everything should be replaced.
- Study the plan, not only the façade. Courtyards, double-height spaces, garden access and room rearrangements can change daylight and circulation. Casa DLCA’s central patio and Cobalt Coach House’s reorganized living space show how a plan can shape daily life.
- Read materials in context. Orca House’s extension uses hempcrete blocks and hydraulic lime plaster; Casa DLCA contrasts concrete and warm wood. These are project-specific descriptions, not proof of comparative cost, durability or environmental performance.
- Ask how the home can adapt. The June 2025 issue’s emphasis on adaptable family life is a useful prompt to consider how household routines may change over time.
The examples come from ArchitectureAU Houses issue pages and ArchDaily project pages. ArchDaily’s descriptions attribute design intent to the architects; descriptions of airflow, views or spatial effect should be read as project accounts, not independent performance measurements. Project years and publication years are distinct where both are reported.
Quick Recap
Sources and project pages
- ArchitectureAU Houses issue page and editorial framing
- ArchitectureAU, December 2024 Houses issue
- ArchitectureAU, June 2024 Houses issue
- ArchitectureAU, June 2025 Houses issue
- Orca House
- Loop House
- Threshold House
- Casa DLCA
- Cobalt Coach House
- North Freo House
- KH House
- Barefoot Dreams House
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