Architecture

A huge, round opening is carved above the outdoor dining area of this house in southern France by Pascual Architect, which also features large glass doors that swing open to the garden. The local studio designed the 180-square-metre family house in the city of Nîmes to make the most of the region's sun and a garden featuring a swimming pool.

The house by Megumi Matsubara & Hiroi Ariyama in Nagano surrounds and is surrounded by the trees and plants of the forest, with five courtyards that vertically invite light and nature into this house.

Casa Kwantes bases itself around the clients’ desire for seclusion and privacy, whilst having a maximum of daylight and open living spaces. From the road, the bare brick wall offers only a partial glimpse into the property and family life through an opening of the white brickwork façade - a subtle indented entrance leading into an initially dark and enclosed entrance hall.

Kim Benatar and Sian Fisher, co-founders of Three14 Architects, persuaded their client to demolish his home of ten years to create this calm, contemporary cuboid in Bantry Bay, Cape Town. In with the new! We say. Looking for an open-plan home that was elegant, yet easy, a peaceful backdrop to his routine and a space that would transform easily to entertain guests.

Part art installation, part theatre set, Dropbox, the digital file hosting and sharing company, have set up their HQ in San Francisco. This is the first time Dropbox employees have all been under the same roof. All 24,000 square metres of it. A job this size takes some collaboration. In this case it was between San Francisco architectural firm Rapt Studio, New York’s AvroKo and Dropbox in-house team Glara Ahn and Claire Pederson.

Living in a trendy high-ceilinged, two-bedroom home in a converted derelict building in Hackney is an inevitable dream for many young, creative Londoners. But for James Davies, founder of Paper House Project, the architecture studio he set up in 2014, it's now a reality.

Acquasalata Store on Via Marx Carlo, 11 in Cattolica, a small town on the east cost of northern Italy, combines an edited palette of materials with clever use of coloured grids and strip lighting. Volumes large and small, finished in brushed stainless steel, combine grids featuring two dominant colours – yellow and orange.