The houses shortlisted in the 2025 World Architecture Festival
Casa Alcornoque
Flow 81 Architecture Lab had to find “gaps” to locate this house on a cork oak forest on a hillside of Benahavís, Malaga. To protect the natural environment, the house is lifted above steep terrain surrounded by treetops.
Designed for a young family, the ground floor is “semi-buried” and opens onto the forest, ensuring the children can play and grow up in nature. This area is shielded by a flying platform on the south side, supporting the living space, which segues onto a gigantic skyline terrace.
Copper Bottom
Adrian James Architects has created a “habitable power station” at this house in Oxford UK, which generates more renewable energy than it needs. Not only is it carbon negative in use, but, say the architects, the 30% annual green energy surplus will, over time, compensate for the carbon footprint of its construction.
The house is 100% recycled and recyclable: it has a single, south-facing roof plane supporting photo-voltaic panels generating energy, while consumption is minimised by the two-storey cuboid design of the house, built to passive house rules. The house was constructed with insulated timber panels and an envelope of softwood trusses and plywood, ensuring its frame is entirely carbon-capturing timber.
Inside, the living spaces face south towards the sun. The interior is open plan, and focussed around a double-height space. The building has wide corridors and no steps on either floor - details designed to adapt to wheelchair occupancy if required in the future.
Ridge House
Toronto-based Superkül concealed this house within the Ontario landscape: it straddles a grassy slope between a field and the forest’s edge, and is largely concealed, its sculptural roof melting into the landscape. The design counters several constraints posed by the site — the downslope, a high water table, and a mature ironwood tree. Embedding the property into its surroundings has allowed the architects to angle living spaces towards the pine forest at the back of the property, while the front of the building is hidden from the road.
They have designed the house with passive-first principles, while the absence of a basement, due to the high water table, has decreased the project’s overall reliance on concrete.
Inside, light pours through skylights. Zoned heated flooring heats communal spaces, while a cold-climate heat pump transfers warm air from outside into the home, minimising carbon consumption for heating and cooling. There’s also an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) system, which brings in fresh air, while also maintaining comfortable living temperatures.
Lakes Twin House
Located next to Suan Luang Rama IX Park, one of Bangkok’s largest public green spaces, this Ekar Architects-designed home nestles on a 12-rai plot surrounded by nature - an oasis within an urban centre.
There is no single dwelling here, instead the family chose to live in nine modest pavilions placed around a large pond that allow them to gather as a family, while having their own privacy. The sociable spaces include a family pavilion, a Thai kitchen, and a lakeside sala [living room]. Each family member, including the three sons, has their own space to live while staying close to their parents.
The buildings, subtly referencing traditional Thai architecture, are made from natural timber. Rooflines start low to provide shade and intimacy, then rise gradually to bring in air and light.
Sustainability is thoughtfully considered. The pond brings in birds, insects, and aquatic life. Soil from the pond was reused to shape small hills, creating privacy and helping manage rainwater. A vegetable garden and chicken coop support self-sufficiency.
K House
A reimagining of a traditional family farmhouse set in a village on the outskirts of Bombay, India. ADND architects designed a new façade, which wraps around the original structure bringing light, ventilation and nature into the house.
The architects retained the main structure of the house, while opening up the perimeter: the lower level of the building is clad in stone slabs, which roots it in the landscape, and a wooden brise soleil above lends lightness to the structure. The veranda opens to the tropical landscape and pool creating a transition from indoor to semi-outdoor to outdoor spaces. This area is also the nucleus of the space, shading it from the tropical sun, while funnelling natural breezes inside. The drop-off porte-cochere is perched on a large rock boulder further merging the house into its setting.
El Risco
Flow 81 Architecture Lab’s second nomination: a house of two halves built on a what had been an uninhabitable cliff. As it was only possible to build on one corner on a narrow strip of land, the house was divided into two volumes: one for access with a workshop and the other for living with a single bedroom, kitchen and living-dining room. A covered corridor built within the rock formations of the mountain connects the two. The “essence of the plot” was preserved as much as possible - even the graffiti they found at the site as it forms part of the history of the area.
Rock from the build has been reused at different points in the project, enhancing the aesthetic of spaces, and used for terrace walls, gravel and the finish on the roof under the photovoltaic panels.
The main structure and finish is exposed concrete, and most of the materials were sourced locally: the floor is natural stone from Almeria; the wood is thermo-treated pine from Seville; the joinery is reused aluminium and the porcelain tiles are made from 65% recycled materials.
The Central Courtyard Villa
Nextoffice has transformed the traditional Iranian courtyard, a cornerstone of its architecture, into a three dimension home: no longer concealed at the core of the house but a integral part of it.
Tunnels and ribbon structures are stacked on top of each other and merged with arches. Within this stack a three-dimensional central courtyard takes shape around an indoor-outdoor pool, creating a contemporary home in Lavasan, Tehran.
The concept of the central courtyard has evolved around Iran’s climate, controlling light radiation and balancing temperature. It creates a private space that also defines and separates the private lives of its residents.
Van der Vlugt Residence
This house on a stretch of coastline in the Upper Florida Keys sits on columns 10 ft off the ground protecting it from storms and sea level rises.
Strang Design conceived a monolith encased in board-formed concrete, punctured by floor-to-ceiling windows, filling the interior with skyline views and abundant light; the addition of louvers helps with shading and cooling. Inside, the only division in the open-plan space is the staircase. Concrete elements create cohesion inside the library, which are contrasted against a curved white bookshelf. The owner’s suite is wrapped by sliding glass doors with views of the Atlantic Ocean. There are a further two more bedrooms on the third level for the family’s children, alongside an office with a covered terrace.
Lantern House
Set on an urban lot in Vancouver’s Westside, this is a sanctuary for a young family: a place of calm responding to the “rhythm of filtered light, shadow on stucco walls, and air drifting between volumes”.
Leckie Studio Architecture + Design designed the house with passive principles around a central “void” that draws in light and filters it to surrounding rooms. The palette is pared back: rough stucco sits below a filigree of cedar slats that form a screen mediating views and enclosure. A number of apertures modulate brightness through the day. The living room contains a concealed hi-fi station and record collection, hidden behind limewashed sliding panels that allow the space to transform into a listening room.
Villa Moira
Abraham John Architects’ multilayered design helps to preserve the Goan landscape around this villa, home to 62 existing mature trees including mango and banyan. The house unfolds across multiple levels around a central courtyard. Each room has framed vistas of the treetops, or the fields beyond.
The muted concrete backdrop allows nature to take centre stage throughout this six bedroom house, which is accented by textural timber decks and Sukabumi tiles. The panoramic courtyard is accessed at the mid level of the house, becoming the inner sanctum of the home, while the living and dining areas open onto a deck and infinity pool overlooking fields. Courtyards and water features enhance tranquility and further connect the house to its surroundings.
View the picture gallery below for a look all the houses shortlisted
