Warm, inviting, embracing the indoor-outdoor lifestyle with a touch of the exotic, tropical modern homes are a dream of paradise realized. Contemporary tropical residential architecture has risen from a geographically specific homegrown aesthetic to a source of inspiration for the world's great modern architects and designers. Set in exotic locales, with pools, lush foliage, colorful gardens, these homes define a way of life. Frequently elegant and uncluttered, the houses serve as models of smart and beautiful design with lots of ideas for homeowners who do not necessarily live in a tropical or subtropical climate, but who wish to have something of that appeal and sensitivity in their own home. This book presents some of the most innovative interpretations of the genre from the past five years by internationally recognized architects and interior decorators, such as Tadao Ando, as well the work of young up-and-comers of great talent, including German-born, Bali-based Alexis Dornier, and Mexico's Roof Arquitectos. Selected residences span the globe, from the southern United States, the Caribbean, and tropical regions of Latin America, to Southeast Asia, northern Australasia, and Africa. Modern Tropical explores the exotic material, color, cultural, environmental, and aesthetic choices of some of contemporary architecture's most beautiful residential properties. Each house is introduced with breathtaking interior and exterior photography and orientation plans, giving readers an in-depth glimpse of the rapidly evolving symbiosis between nature and shelter, indoor and outdoor, and rustic and polished, in a definitive examination of tropical modern living.

This fascinating sourcebook presents the most remarkable, beautiful, and innovative building fa ades in contemporary architecture. A building's fa ade sets the aesthetic tone for its entire design while serving a variety of functions, from regulating light and protecting against the elements to providing insulation for temperature and sound. This absorbing book details hundreds of examples of interesting and progressive fa ades from around the world. Presented in colorful double-page spreads, each fa ade is photographed from different angles and includes engaging texts that describe their significance. Readers can learn how traditional mashrabiyas in Abu Dhabi are being engineered to respond to light and to regulate heat, how a hospital in Mexico City has been constructed with "smog-eating" tiles, and how a "bio-adaptive" fa ade in Germany uses algae to generate energy and provide shade. Informative and accessible, this compendium is a highly useful resource for architects, engineers, and designers.

Frequently elegant and uncluttered, these houses serve as models of smart and often exquisite design with lots of ideas for homeowners who don't necessarily live in a waterfront home, but who wish to have something of that appeal and sensitivity in their own space. A range of projects encompassing myriad geographic and cultural inspirations show some of the world's most inviting residences, built in stone and glass, in wood and steel and concrete. The houses vary in size and style, though all within the realm of the modern, from open plan homes that include terraces and rooms that flow from indoors to out, to spaces flooded with light and views. Each house is photographed comprehensively with detailed interior and exterior pictures and plans, and placed into context through the lens of widely respected editor Oscar Riera Ojeda and descriptive texts written by design critic Byron Hawes, to give readers a privileged look at the best of shore-side residential architecture. With its beautiful modernist homes set beside the golden sands of the gulf coast of Mexico or upon the romantic islands of Greece, from Finland to South Africa to New Zealand, Houses by the Shore is a paean to rooms with a view.