Best of summer houses

A selection of retreat paradises facing the sea or immersed in forests, in close relationship with nature.

Be it on top of a hill in Spain or on a beach in California, the true spirit of summer houses is to bring you back to the basics. The common feature among holiday retreats in India, Chile, Brazil and France is an utopian urge for nature and solitude, in a world that is relentlessly loosing both.


— Galal Mahmoud renovated a private villa in Greece preserving the traditional architecture and adding an outdoor relax area that faces the Cyclades and adds a suspended-like effect.

— Portuguese architect Paulo Martins renovated a vacation house in Aveiro, using clear colours and a minimalist language in order to maximize the bounds.

Chilean architect Cristián Izquierdo realised a wooden vacation house whose rooms are private spaces connected to the outside by a row of portals framing the horizon.

— Los Angeles-based architect Barbara Bestor designed a vacation house for Mike D, frontman of the Beastie Boys, renovating some ramshackle structures found in Malibu, California.

— The house designed by Joao Diniz near Belo Horizonte, is part of a larger family-community masterplan and updates the image of traditional Brazilian rural houses.

— The vacation house in Noosa, Australia, by Sparks Architects pairs an operable insulated box for cooler months that allows habitation to a tent-like amenity in warmer months.

— OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen’s house in Cretas, Spain, in fully open, and provides a maximum relationship between the dweller and the Mediterranean nature.

— Located on a steep terrain, the single family house by Studio Erdil İnşaat on the Egean Sea maximizes space with a cantilever that allows for panoramic views, a swimming pool, terraces and gardens.

— An optimal use of local materials and the reuse of existing resources has led the construction of a sustainable retirement house in India, designed by unTAG studio within a dense grove of mangoes.

— Architect Hanna Michelson has completed the Loft house, the first out of four planned getaways on the hillside of Åsberget mountain in the north of Sweden.

— Artelabo designed an introverted house in Gignac, France, which entirely turns towards the landscape, using a banal constructive language and an obvious formal register.


Top: Galal Mahmoud Architects, Villa in Mykonos, Greece, 2017