This is a guest post from Antonina of OpenBuildings - a community-driven and openly editable encyclopaedia of buildings from around the world. 

Ask a child to draw you a house and the design will most likely turn out akin to some of the houses below. Far apart from their historical roots and environmental advantages, the house shaped houses touch on a notion deeply rooted in our genes of what the house – and essentially our home – looks like. The iconic quality of the archetype house is so strong it has transformed it into a pictogram as readable as the word ‘house’ itself. And hopefully, today’s pick of house-inspired houses comes as a proof that a house could feel just as housy, iconic and lovable even when stripped off all retro decor normally associated with historical houses.

Herzog & de Meuron: Rudin House

image: flickr user bjdica

dRMM: Sliding House

image: Alex de Rijke

Hitoshi Wakamatsu Architect & Associates: Tokyo Court House

image: Taisuke Inatsugu – Shinkenchiku-sha Co.

Formalhaut – Seifert+Stoeckmann: Living Room

image: Seifert+Stoeckmann

Moomoo Architects: L House

image: Moomoo Architects

Fantastic Norway: House of Families

image: Fantastic Norway

MVRDV: Balancing Barn

image: Edmund Sumner

Jun Ishikawa: OUCHI-01 House

image: Hiroshi Ueda

Cebra: Sinus House

image: Kaj Lergaard

Herzog & de Meuron: VitraHaus

image: Iwan Baan www.iwan.com; copyright: Vitra

• Bio
• Latest Posts

antonina

Antonina is an architect who has recently joined the OpenBuildings team to take over Community Outreach. Believes in interdisciplinary approach to architecture and everything else, fascinated by Japanese and Dutch design, typography and all things inspired.
OpenBuildings is a community-driven and openly editable encyclopaedia of contemporary and conceptual architecture from around the world that exists as a website and application for iPhone, and recently – Android, which enable users to find, learn about and share nearby buildings of architectural merit.

Latest posts by antonina (see all)

• Inspired Architecture: Floating Homes – September 12, 2012
• Inspired Playgrounds – August 30, 2012
• Puppy Interiors – July 31, 2012
• Inspired Architecture: Building Light – July 11, 2012
• Recycled Homes – June 19, 2012