The Architecture Edit: Wallpaper’s houses of the month

If there’s one thing that Wallpaper* does well, it’s houses – spotlighting architecturally arresting gems from around the globe and spanning the spectrum of modern design. Our inboxes are overflowing with news of the world’s most boundary-pushing architectural projects, and we strive to bring you the very best.

To ensure you don’t miss a thing – and to showcase the scope of residential architecture today – we’ve launched a monthly series: The Architecture Edit. Each instalment will highlight our favourite houses of the month: buildings that demonstrate creative planning, innovative methods and, of course, aesthetic excellence.

A Williamsburg loft

Brooklyn studio Of Possible has completed 103 Grand Street, a loft-style residential building containing two duplexes and a triplex. Each unit is defined by triple-height spaces, tall windows and abundant daylight, evoking the neighbourhood’s industrial-conversion past. Architect Vincent Appel prioritised not just floor area but vertical volume, seeking to elevate spatial quality. Meanwhile, interiors feature tactile materials – timber, stone and linen-like textures – for an organic, minimalist feel. While the street façade adopts classic Brooklyn brick, the rear reveals playful stacked volumes clad in custom fluted terracotta, creating terraces and outdoor rooms that encourage neighbourly interaction.

A Czech studio

Päivä Architekti’s Studio Above the Golden Canyon extends an existing home in the Czech village of Luka pod Medníkem with a new timber structure woven into a steep, wooded site. The addition, which overlooks the Sázava River, includes an open studio with mezzanine, an en-suite bedroom and a utility zone, linked to the original house by a covered walkway that incorporates a mature oak tree. Constructed from steel, tanned larch cladding, engineered spruce interiors and concrete flooring, part of the studio cantilevers over the landscape, with large sliding glass panels dissolving the boundary between interior and nature.

An Australian sanctuary

Amongst the Eucalypts by Jason Gibney Design Workshop is a New South Wales holiday home that sits lightly on its site, following the natural contours to form outdoor rooms and sheltered courtyards. Despite its serene minimalism, the house is engineered for bushfire resilience – developed with bushfire specialists and local craftspeople. The design incorporates pivoting façade panels, retractable mesh shutters and durable materials that allow the building to shift from openness to full protection. Its concrete and fibre-cement shell creates an ‘armoured’ yet contemporary aesthetic, demonstrating that fire-resistant architecture can be elegant and sustainable.

A Miami retreat

A couple in Miami commissioned Brillhart Architecture to create a home immersed in a lush, jungle-like double lot in historic Morningside – an approach inspired by the neighbourhood’s garden origins and Florida’s tropical modernism. Rather than clearing the hundreds of mature trees on site, the architects mapped the vegetation and arranged a 4,100 sq ft residence as four pavilions connected by glass corridors and open walkways. Elevated 30 inches above ground, the home appears to float among strangler figs, live oaks and gumbo-limbo trees, while shou sugi ban siding and ipe shutters merge with the greenery, and calm interiors of pale stone and wood frame continuous garden views.

A mid-century icon

The Stahl House – an icon of mid-century modernism perched in the Hollywood Hills – was listed for sale for $25 million this month. Designed by Pierre Koenig and immortalised in Julius Shulman’s 1960 photograph, its glass-walled design and cinematic views helped define California modernism. Though modest at 2,200 sq ft with two bedrooms, it has remained largely unchanged since completion, and retains its original open-plan kitchen, unrenovated bathrooms and legendary pool. The home has remained in the Stahl family for 65 years and was designated a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1999; it requires thoughtful stewardship, and the owners hope to find a buyer who appreciates its architectural legacy.

A renovated winery

Near Lisbon, Quinta do Álamo transforms the ruins of an old winery into a minimalist retreat for two musicians. Atelier Matteo Arnone organised the plan around symmetry, driven by the need for two identical recording studios. The long, linear structure is carved with voids and internal patios that draw daylight deep inside, while gentle curves introduce softness. The ground floor houses a combined living room, kitchen and bedroom; above, the twin studios are embedded within the building’s thick perimeter walls. Patios and passages thread through the home toward the pool, resulting in a serene, balanced composition defined by rhythm and light.

An Indian farmhouse

On a two-acre site in Karnataka, Taliesyn Design & Architecture’s House by the Grove reimagines a farmhouse as a porous, nature-immersed dwelling. The 5,400 sq ft home uses verandas, open walkways and sliding glass partitions to merge the indoors and out, while materials such as hand-finished cement, steel, Sira stone and Kota stone root the architecture in its boulder-strewn landscape. A soaring great room with operable façades forms the social heart, flanked by long verandas beneath a pitched roof clad in Mangalore tiles. Bedrooms feature open-to-sky bathrooms, and a second floor – accessed via an external stair – contains a library, another en-suite bedroom and walkways overlooking the great hall.

A London rooftop

Studio Felicity Bell has transformed a Clerkenwell rooftop into a minimalist home with sweeping views across London. Built atop a former industrial building once inhabited by the owners, the addition is set back from the street façade to form a wraparound terrace and reduce visual impact. The new structure’s columns align with the original building’s piers, creating a grid that alternates between open, pergola-like bays and glazed panels. Inside, a generous open-plan living space surrounded by glass frames views of the City and BT Tower. The adaptable interior to shifts between working, living and hosting, with a stained-oak monolith conceals a studio, desk and guest bed.