Fresh Builds: The 25 Coolest Houses of 2012

2012 was a year of stunning contemporary architecture around the world. While some of these houses offer secluded serenity in sleek spaces, others boast advanced functionality and sustainability. Whether you want to live immersed in hip-hop or within a California sushi roll, your dream homes may seem humble compared to these fresh builds. Check out The 25 Coolest Houses of 2012 to see what we mean.

RELATED: Fresh Builds: 15 Awesome Stadiums You Need to See
RELATED: The World's 25 Tallest Buildings

Follow @Complex_Art

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Architect: Bild Architects

From the front, the Blurred House seems like a traditional, unchanged suburban home. The back of the house however, features contemporary design, showing a contrast between new and old styles. There's a clear separation between the classic and modern, but the blurring of ideas seems to make it work.

via

Location: Santa Monica, California

Architect: Jendretzki Architects

This sunny addition to a mid-century home in Santa Monica's Rustic Canyon area was built with the resident family's love of Scandinavian design in mind. It features a muted material palette of light toned wood and glass. It doubles as a work studio, too.

via

Location: Curacaví, Chile

Architect: James and Mau Architects

The Manifesto House uses 85% recycled and reused materials, non-polluting constructive systems, and renewable energy. The house is based on a prefabricated and modular design, which allows it to adapt form and positioning to accommodate its energetic needs. It can "dress and undress" itself, thanks to ventilated external solar covers on the walls and roof.

via

Location: Norway

Architect: Reiulf Ramstad Architects

The Trollstigen house on Norway's west coast was built as part of the traveling exhibition, Detour: Architecture and Design along 18 tourist Routes in Norway. The house features a visitor environment from a mountain lodge with a restaurant, gallery, flood barriers, water cascades, bridges, paths to outdoor furniture, and pavilions for viewing the scenery. The architecture focuses on clear transitions between planned zones and the natural landscape, treating water as a dynamic element.

via

Location: N/A

Architect: Gunes Peksen

The Wave House is a concept home that simulates the actual movements of a wave. This may be the perfect summer house you've been dreaming of.

via

Location: Bangalore, India

Architect: Architecture Paradigm

The House of Pavilions has many redeeming features, especially its water and fountain design. Its vast windows not only let in beautiful natural light but also unify the house by allowing the various pavilions to be visible from each other.

via

Location: Cairns, Australia

Architect: mmp Architects

The Hp Tree House appears to float within the lush trees of Mt. Whitfield. It uses steel support to minimize its effects on the environment and has three pavilions to separate the living quarters and provide space to entertain.

via

Location: Penafiel, Portugal

Architect: Alvaro Leite Siza

The Tolo House ia a contemporary abode that unfolds naturally on a rocky slope. It includes outdoor patios, a swimming pool, and a rooftop garden, providing a perfect balance between luxury living and immersion in nature. The exterior of the house is a concrete facade with sharp angles and metal doors, while the contrasting interior features a minimal white color scheme with wooden doors and accents.

via

Location: N/A

Architect: Christopher Daniel of Violent Volumes

The California Roll House is an ambitious project that worked. Korean architect Christopher Daniel took the California sushi roll as inspiration and turned it into an amazing concept for a house. In his ideal construction, the impermanent home assembles and disassembles quickly and has perfect solar temperature balance.

via

Location: Coromandel, New Zealand

Architect: Crosson Clarke Architects

The Coromandel Bach House is a "box" featuring a mechanism that allows the home to completely open up or to be closed. The house has an outdoor bathtub and amazing ocean front views, while offering tons of privacy. Crosson Clarke Architects says, "The house was conceived as a container sitting lightly on the land for habitation or the dream of habitation."

via

Location: Cape Town, South Africa

Architect: Stefan Antoni Olmesdahl Truen Architects

The Nettleton 198 house, with seven stories and six bedrooms, was built with its views and the harsh sun in mind. Angled to recede into the mountain, the house has a circular entrance area, backlit glass, a floating timber staircase, and features walnut wood throughout.

via

Location: Hokkaido, Japan

Architect: International Royal Architecture

With a steep 60-degree slope roof, the ASH House is designed to accommodate heavy snow and weather damage. Located in Hokkaido (home to occasional flurries), the home boasts a functional but attractive exterior paired with sleek dark wood interiors.

via

Location: Manitou Springs, Colorado

Architect: Unknown

This tripartite pyramid is a two-bedroom, 2,600-square-foot property with amazing views of the Rockies. The glass-and-copper structure is filled with impressive furnishings, an Egyptian chandelier, and awesome paintings. Although the home was inspired by the Old Kingdom.

via

Location: Ancram, New York

Architect: HHF Architects and Ai Wei Wei

HHF Architects and Ai Weiwei collaborated to design a country guest house getaway for a wealthy art collector. What they ended up with was a Y-shaped structure that married the house's three purposes: guestroom, workroom, and gallery space.

via

Location: Israel

Architect: Auerbach-Halevy

From the outside House K looks like a 9-meter high concrete block without any visible openings. The modern Arabic structure is covered with a uniform system of exposed concrete panels and heavy wood latticework, referring to the eastern trellis-mashrabiya. The architects say that every part of House K is complementary to each other, from the exterior to interior and the layout to design of the furniture.

via

Location: Delme, France

Architect: Christophe Berdaguer and Marie Péjus

The Gue(ho)st House—built at the site of an old prison house, school, and funeral home—was inspired by a phrase invented by Marchel Duchamp-"A GUEST + A HOST = A GHOST." The artists who imagined the house gave it a cloak of polystyrene and paint, covering it with resin and chunky shapes on the facade.

via

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Architect: DAPstockholm

The Villa Midgård boasts large windows, tall ceilings, a sun-filled master bedroom, and two unique pools. The client's wishes were fulfilled through multi-volume design with various shapes and direction. It also has a garden protected by the overhang of the house.

via

Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Architect: UNStudio

The Haus am Weinberg has incredible views of an ancient hillside vineyard and the Stuttgart cityscape. It has varying atmospheres and spatial qualities, defined by four glazed and open corners allowing daylight to reach deep into the house. It was built to accentuate the natural light and oak wood flooring, through a sloping roofline and floor-to-ceiling windows.

via

Location: Shizuoka, Japan

Architect: Shigeru Ban Architects

The Crescent House may have an eccentric shape, but it is impressively well-integrated with its surroundings. The entrance features a glass-enclosed staircase that leads to the main floor of the house from which stunning views can be enjoyed.

via

Location: Guatemala City, Guatemala

Architect: PAZ Arquitectura

The Corallo House is an upgraded tree house that respects nature. Located on a hillside, the house preserves its surrounding trees by building around them, while incorporating contemporary architecture into the local ecology.

via

Location: Hechtel-Eksel, Belgium

Architect: Baumraum Architects

Architect Baumraum says, "THE TREEHOUSE helps to bridge the gap between economy and ecology." The treehouse was built using sustainable materials and promotes sustainability to politicians, corporations, and organizations.

via

Location: Milan, Italy

Architect: Santambrogio

This all-glass house may be completely transparent, featuring glass walls, floors, ceilings, and furniture frames, but it can definitely withstand all climates. If you dare to live in a glass house, here you can experience living in nature without having to deal with any temperature extremes.

via

Location: Lignano Pineta, Italy

Architect: Lanfranco Pollini

The Villa Al Mare has an exterior made of corten steel, showing off a rust-like appearance while not actually rusting. While the house itself embraces strange geometry, the outdoor pool is enclosed in transparent walls and raised from the ground level, offering swimming views.

via

Location: Moscow, Russia

Architect: BERNASKONI

This mirror-covered house was built for the Mongayt family, and truly blends in with its surroundings. The house changes appearance with the changing seasons and time of day, as its reflective surfaces mirror the nature in its environment.

via

Location: Melbourne, Australia

Architect: ITN Architects

Zvi Belling of ITN Architects built himself the home of his dreams-one inspired by hip-hop and graffiti. The house is meant to be the first in a series of buildings, and consists of precast concrete walls, arrows, swooshes, and drips. Graffiti writer Prowla created the style for "HIVE" written on the exterior of the house.

via