
Implicit
One Space Design
Created by Chinese studio One Space Design under the direction of founders Denny Ho and Jasmine Zhong and design director Alice Li, this apartment interior in Chengdu feels soft and modern, its minimalist architecture approach wrapping it in a subtle, unified design. ‘The overall atmosphere is dominated by shadowy, dark, ambiguous and ambiguous East Asian aesthetics. Quiet and comfortable,’ they explain. Photography: eight mouth

Maison Pour Dodo
Studio Merlin
Studio Merlin has reworked this London apartment in Stoke Newington in order to make the residents sleep easier. Focusing on a clean and uncluttered design that would emphasise serenity and wellness, minimising anxiety, the architects worked with warm and soothing Natural Douglas Fir timber flooring and minimalist architecture throughout. Storage was streamlined and clever joinery prioritised for the full final effect. ‘The effect is a composed space where each of the client’s things have a home; sometimes concealed, densely packed and understated, others as pride of place, carefully curated and easily physically or visually accessible,’ says studio founder Josh Piddock. Photography: Richard Chivers

Desert Home
Studio ST Architects
The project, the Studio ST Architects’ founder Esther Sperber’s own parents’ home, is located among the breathtaking views of the Israeli desert. The concept aimed to create a ‘simple, eco-friendly and energy efficient family home.’ Various methods were used, as the architect explains: ‘To blend in with the surroundings, the exterior stucco responds to the color of the mountains and a rustcolored finish is used for recessed areas. Light, sun-bleached, sand stucco was used for the outer surfaces. To keep the home self-sustaining, desert appropriate, energy-efficient technology, including a passive solar system on the roof to provide hot water, and a gray water system for irrigating the garden.’ At the same time, a clean, uncluttered aesthetic offers refreshing minimalism inside and out. Photography: Aviad Bar Ness

Sin Nombre Casa y Galeria
Associates Architecture
Situated in the hip, historic center of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, Sin Nombre Casa Y Galeria is a home and art space created by Associates Architecture. A new built structure was designed atop an existing base made of local stone, which was partially damaged. The architects restored and reworked that base and composed a quiet, inward looking structure on top, encompassing the two different functions inside, arranged around three internal patios. Clean shapes, tactile, organic feeling surfaces and materials and neutral colours help maintain this project’s minimalist architecture atmosphere.

Japanese ryokan house
OWIU
Amidcentury residence in the foothills of LA’s Mount Washington neighbourhood has been transformed into a serene, Japanese ryokan-inspired home by locally based architecture and design studio OWIU. The young practice, co-founded by Amanda Gunawan and Joel Wong, took on the task to redesign an existing Los Angeles house into a haven of calm, merging modernist architecture and Japanese house design in a thoroughly contemporary piece of domestic bliss. ‘Much of our design leans toward the ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, enabling us to achieve a visceral effect,’ says Gunawan. The property, set on Palmero Drive and originally built in 1955, was left neglected and unloved when OWIU undertook the commission. They instantly knew they had to act and reimagine it with a sense of balance and harmony at its heart – qualities often found in that Japanese building typology. ‘The space shouldn’t energetically spark something in you; you should feel neutral,’ says Gunawan, who believes a home should be a retreat, an ‘uncharged space’. ‘If you go in strong [with design], it energises you quickly and then promptly dies out.’ Photography: Justin Chung

NaMora House
Filipe Pina and David Bilo
This Portuguese farmhouse is the ultimate counrtyside retreat; as well as a working agricultural space. Designed as a collaboration between architects Filipe Pina and David Bilo, NaMora house is nestled in a naturally sheltered area at the foot of the Serra da Estrela, close to the Gonçalo region in central Portugal. Surrounded by nature - namely a dense pine tree forest - the structure, made in concrete and granite stone, appears as a series of geometric boulders among its leafy environs. Working with an existing farmland site and an old granite structure within it, the architects reworked what was there, adding a contemporary extension that appears distinctly modern and separate from the historical structure, but at the same time feels at home in its location. The team mirrored the stone building’s outline in the new house, spreading the design across a stepped plan that negotiates the site’s incline. ‘The final outcome, with the extension of the existing house, resulted from a compromise between the owners wishes and the existing features and morphology of the land, characterized by the existence of several terraces,’ the architects explain. Photography: Ivo Tavares