Village of Joy

Forest Spiral - Hundertwasser Building (Darmstadt, Germany)

The Hundertwasser house “Waldspirale” (”Forest Spiral”) was built in Darmstadt between 1998 and 2000. Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the famous Austrian architect and painter, is widely renowned for his revolutionary, colourful architectural designs which incorporate irregular, organic forms, e.g. onion-shaped domes.

The structure with 105 apartments wraps around a landscaped courtyard with a running stream. Up in the turret at the southeast corner, there is a restaurant, including a cocktail bar.

You can read more about this building here.

Photos via: Joachim S. Müller

Cubic Houses (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

The original idea of these cubic houses came about in the 1970s. Piet Blom has developed a couple of these cubic houses that were built in Helmond.

The city of Rotterdam asked him to design housing on top of a pedestrian bridge and he decided to use the cubic houses idea. The concept behind these houses is that he tries to create a forest by each cube representing an abstract tree; therefore the whole village becomes a forest. You can read an article about Cubic Houses here.

Photos via: vpzone, photoAtlas, Reinier

The Story Book House (Washington, United States)

House is located in Olalla, Kitsap County, Seattle area. House has 5 stone fireplaces, custom ceilings, calls, windows and more. Quite a peace of archetcure I would say.

Photos via: mabrealestate

The Bubble House (France)

Up a steep, rocky track on the edge of the village, which lies south of the medieval town of Carcassone, an extraordinary sight awaits you: a series of interlocking spheres that make up La Maison Bulles, “the bubble house”.

Its owner is Daniel Bord, the village mayor, and its design was inspired by the Finnish architect Antti Lovag, who invented the bubble-house concept in the 1970s.

You can read a full story in telegraph.co.uk here.

Photos via: I have got the style

Crazy House (Vietnam)

The house is owned by the daughter of the ex-president of Vietnam, who studied architecture in Moscow.

It does not comply with any convention about house building, has unexpected twists and turns, roofs and rooms. It looks like a fairy tale castle, it has enormous “animals” like a giraffe and a spider, no window is rectangular or round, and it can be visited like a museum. More photos can be found here.

Photos via: hankoss