Designed by Tokyo studio Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects, Nowhere but Sajima forms part of the Nowhere Resort, a series of weekly rentable holiday homes on the Miura peninsula of Kanagawa Prefecture.

The house is located on the harbour of a small fishing village. It has a triangular plan, with rooms on three storeys.

Each of the windows lines up with a different room and the ceiling of every room follows the profile of its window.

The architects describe the rooms as "thin tube-like spaces" with views directed towards the ocean. "We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship," they explain.

Sliding doors and screens allow different rooms to open out to one another, plus a circular cutaway provides views between the first-floor study and the storey above.

See more holiday homes on Dezeen, including a set of apartments above a yacht house on the Crimean coastline and a weekend fishing retreat in Germany.

Here are more details from Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects:

Nowhere but Sajima

Cutting resort environment out of urban environment

Nowhere resort is the resort program that is renting out weekly vacation house. Suggesting new urban lifestyle by making shorter the distance to weekend house from standard 3 hours up to 1 hour. The environment must get close to urban when shorten the distance, the issue comes to how to cut off resort environment out of there. Therefore Nowhere but Sajima comes to build long and thin tube-like spaces that bundle them into one home unit. The tube-like spaces are facing toward the ocean and at the same time intercept the sight from the next condominium. The building is controlling both privacy and scenery.

A home for guests

Nowhere but Sajima provides a temporary 'home' for its guests. The weekly rental service provided by Nowhere Resort is a relatively new method of operating resort properties in Japan, and allows different tenants the opportunity to inhabit a 'home' on a weekly basis. While the weekly term is short compared to a standard monthly rental and long compared to a hotel stay, this in-between length accommodates a new diversity of uses of a 'home'. Serving as a space for exhibitions, as a classroom or for wedding parties, the unit easily adapts to the imagination and invention of the tenant and in doing so also re-defines the range of activities that can take place in the 'home'. As well as accommodating the functions of work and business, the 'home' again becomes the space of many life events beside the basic function of 'inhabitance'. In acquiring a new program for use, the 'home' regains the richness of activity that can take place all around of life.

The building, a triangular block composed of tube-like volumes heading to the ocean, stands on a point of reclaimed land in a small fishing village. While the site meets the seawall and directly faces the sea, it is also faces other buildings across the water. To provide adequate privacy without the use of curtains, narrow tube-shaped spaces were bundled together and angled to provide openings toward the sea. The orientation of these tubes naturally blocks the line of sight from the adjacent apartments and while gazing down the length of the tube from inside only the ocean can be seen. While providing an escape from the tide of urbanism characterising what we normally call a 'resort', the design still maintains the key aspects of the resort experience. We have created a place reminiscent of looking out to sea from the deck of a ship.

Location: Yokosuka Kanagawa, JAPAN
Principal Use: HouseStructure: RC 3 stories

Site Area: 132.09 sq.m
Building Area: 63.88 sq.m
Total Floor Area: 176.65 sq.m
Max Height: 9,459 mm

Architect: Yasutaka Yoshimura Architects
Client: Nowhere resort
Structural Engineer: Akira Suzuki/ASA
Services: EOS+
Electric Services: comodo
General Contractor: Heisei Construction

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With a long narrow body that ambles gently across the terrain, the Tucson Mountain Retreat is a single-storey residence with terraces along its north and south elevations and a small deck upon its roof.

DUST architects Cade Hayes and Jesus Robles planned a location away from animal migration paths and overexposure to sunlight and wind, then used local soil to build the house's red earth walls.

"Great effort was invested to minimise the physical impact of the home in such a fragile environment, while at the same time attempting to create a place that would serve as a backdrop to life and strengthen the sacred connections to the awe-inspiring mystical landscape," explains Hayes.

The rooms of the house are separated into three zones, comprising a sleeping and bathing area, a central living room and a music studio. Residents have to leave the building to move between zones, intended to provide acoustic separation.

The living room features glazed walls on both sides, which slide open to enable cross ventilation. The music room opens out to a north-facing deck, while the two bedrooms have a terrace along their southern edge and feature a chunky concrete canopy to shelter them from harsh midday sun.

A spiralling metal staircase leads up to the roof, offering residents a wide-stretching view of the surrounding desert landscape.

The house produces all its own water using a large rainwater harvesting system that filters the liquid until it is clean enough to drink.

There's also a small car parking area a short distance away and it can be accessed via a narrow footpath.

Another project we've featured from the Arizona deserts is a cast concrete house that is sunken into the ground. We've also published a cabin built by students in the Utah desert. See more houses in the US.

See more architecture using rammed earth, including a research complex in India.

Photography is by Jeff Goldberg/ESTO.

Here's a project description from DUST:

The Tucson Mountain Retreat is located within the Sonoran Desert; an extremely lush, exposed, arid expanse of land that emits a sense of stillness and permanency, and holds mysteries of magical proportions. The home is carefully sited in response to the adjacent arroyos, rock out-croppings, ancient cacti, animal migration paths, air movement, sun exposure and views. Great effort was invested to minimise the physical impact of the home in such a fragile environment, while at the same time attempting to create a place that would serve as a backdrop to life and strengthen the sacred connections to the awe-inspiring mystical landscape.

Intentionally isolating the parking over 400 feet from the house, one must traverse and engage the desert by walking along a narrow footpath toward the house, passing through a dense clustered area of cacti and Palo Verde that obscure direct views of the home. Upon each progressive footstep, the house slowly reveals itself, rising out of the ground. The entry sequence, a series of playfully engaging concrete steps, dissolves into the desert. As one ascends, each step offers an alternative decision and a new adventure. Through this process, movement slows and senses are stimulated, leaving the rush of city life behind.

The home is primarily made of rammed earth, a material that uses widely available soil, provides desirable thermal mass and has virtually no adverse environmental side effects. Historically vernacular to arid regions, it fits well within the Sonoran Desert, while at the same time it embodies inherent poetic qualities that engage the visual, tactile and auditory senses of all who experience it.

The program of the home is divided into three distinct and isolated zones; living, sleeping, and music recording/home entertainment. Each zone must be accessed by leaving the occupied zone, stepping outside, and entering a different space. This separation resolves the clients' desired acoustic separation while at the same time, offers a unique opportunity to continuously experience the raw desert landscape.

Rooted in the desert, where water is always scarce, the design incorporates a generous 30,000 gallon rainwater harvesting system with an advanced filtration system that makes our most precious resource available for all household uses.

Solar heat gain is reduced by orienting the house in a linear fashion along an east–west axis, and by minimising door and window openings in the narrow east and west facades. The main living and the sleeping spaces extend into patios and open toward the south under deep overhangs that allow unadulterated views and access to the Sonoran Desert. The overhangs provide shelter from the summer sun while allowing winter sunlight to enter and passively heat the floors and walls. They also scoop prevailing southerly breezes and enhance cross ventilation, which can be flexibly controlled by adjusting the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors. When the large glass doors are fully opened, the house is transformed, evoking a boundless ramada-like spirit where the desert and home become one.

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Merricks Beach House functions as a holiday home and is available to rent on a short-term basis, so Kennedy Nolan Architects was asked to create a flexible building with a structure durable enough to accommodate regularly changing occupants.

The single-storey house is arranged over three staggered levels that respond to the natural slope of the site. Rooms are laid out on a U-shaped plan, creating a large courtyard on the western side of the building.

Half of the house is given over to social spaces, on the assumption that temporary residents spend more time entertaining and are likely to have children around. To the south, a kitchen leads out to a dedicated barbecue deck, while a sunken living room opens out to the courtyard and a "bunk room" can be used as a second lounge.

Two bedrooms are lined up along the eastern side of the building and sit beside a single bathroom. There's no need for much storage, so each room contains just the basic furnishings.

The recycled clay bricks were used to construct the lowest sections of the house's walls and are visible both inside and outside the building. In most places they are painted white, but the architects left two unfinished circles to reveal the original colour.

Timber wraps over the tops and corners of the walls, while windows are slotted into gaps between the two different materials.

Merricks Beach House is one of several new houses in Melbourne featured on Dezeen recently. Others include a residence clad in slabs of travertine and a house with the silhouette of three little buildings. See more houses in Australia.

Photography is by Derek Swalwell.

Read on for more information from Kennedy Nolan Architects:

Merricks Beach House

This small house at Merricks Beach has been designed as a weekender that is available for short term rental. It needed to be an economical build and tough enough for the knocks of a rental market. It is two blocks from the beach. It has no views and had no existing trees on the site.

There are the usual line-up of rooms required, and in this instance it is a modest list; but what becomes a more interesting conversation is how you live differently in the weekender.

» No one needs to 'own' a bedroom
» No one needs to shower and leave quickly in the morning
» What you need to store is completely different
» You arrive and unpack; you leave & pack
» You spend more time with others; having guests stay over is common
» There always seems to be more children than adults!
» It is a place to enjoy each other

A courtyard typology ensures maximum privacy and access to northern winter sun, yet in this straightforward floor plan a number of 'in-between' spaces have been considered.

The bunk room which is located on the north edge of the internal courtyard has no doors and the king single bunks sit within their own alcove. This spacefeels dark and private and becomes a second living room when the house swells with people. Within this space thereare different places to be. There is no need for walls or doors. Light forms the threshold.

The coastal weekender is not just a summer dream. In winter the hearth is central to this house. Located between the kitchen and living room, a slow combustion fireplace defines another 'in-between' space. There is time here in the colder months to pull up a chair, chat or read. In summer this space dissolves into the open corner of the central deck.

A slight fall across the site allows for the house to have 3 levels. The living pit sits below the central timber deck. It is a soft floor that allows you to be low and look out over the skillion roof to the trees in the surrounding area. The pit edge becomes another of these in-between places. It is a place to sit and wide enough for a futon for an afternoon nap in the winter sun. The edge curves to become the hearth for the fire, finishing in a ledge for the television.

The materials of the build are a big part of what this house is about. It is not a precise build. It feels raw and tough. A language of masonry, concrete and timber was developed. The white painted brickwork to both interior and exterior walls is never punctured by windows. They are always walls, solid and straightforward. There are two moments where a circle has been left, telling the story of the recycled red bricks that the house is made from. The structural concrete slab, rough-sawn timber cladding and concrete block screen wall have been expressed with similar simplicity.

Location: Merricks Beach, Melbourne, Australia
Architects: Kennedy Nolan Architects
Project type: New house
Completion Date: May 2012
Site area: 850sqm
Floor area: 155sqm
Project Team: Rachel Nolan, Patrick Kennedy, Michael Macleod

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Called Stacked Cabin, the house nestles against the sloping landscape of a small woodland clearing, allowing entrances on two of its three compact floors.

Thick concrete walls surround rooms at the base of the house, while upper floors are clad with the lightweight metal panels and cedar is used for the doors and window frames.

"The meticulously detailed project takes advantage of readily available materials used in the region's farmstead architecture," explains Johnsen Schmaling Architects. "Exposed concrete, cedar, anodised metal and cementitious plaster all echo the muted, earthy hues of the surrounding forest and rock formations."

A workshop occupies most of the ground floor level, alongside a small washroom and equipment area. A large cedar door opens this floor out to the forest, while a smaller door leads up to the domestic spaces on the floors above.

On the first floor, a living room is sandwiched between a kitchen and a pair of bedrooms. There are no walls between the rooms, but a set of curtains allows residents to partition the spaces when necessary.

The front and rear walls of the living room are glazed and slide open for cross ventilation during the warmer summer months.

The uppermost floor contains only a study, which the architects describe as an "elevated observatory with treetop views".

Johnsen Schmaling Architects also recently completed a rusted steel cabin for a musician, which was named a winner in the AIA Small Project Awards a few days ago. See more architecture in the US.

Photography is by John J. Macaulay.

Here's a project description from Johnsen Schmaling Architects:

Stacked Cabin by Johnsen Schmaling Architects

This modest, 880 square-foot cabin for a young family sits at the end of an old logging road, its compact volume hugging the edge of a small clearing in a remote Wisconsin forest.

Above: site plan

The tight budget required a rigorously simple structure. In order to minimize the building's footprint and take advantage of the sloped site, the horizontally organized components of a traditional cabin compound – typically an open-plan longhouse with communal living space, an outhouse, and a freestanding toolshed – were reconfigured and stacked vertically. The bottom level, carved into the hill and accessible from the clearing, houses a small workshop, equipment storage, and a washroom, providing the infrastructural base for the living quarters above. A wood-slatted entry door opens to stairs that lead up to the open living hall centered around a wood-burning stove and bracketed by a simple galley kitchen and a pair of small, open sleeping rooms.

Above: floor plans - click for larger image

Floor-to-ceiling curtains on either end of the living hall can be moved or retracted, their undulating fabric and delicate texture adding a sensual dimension to the crisp interior palette. Depending on their arrangement, the curtains can provide privacy for the sleeping rooms, open them up to the main living space, or screen the kitchen when not in use. Large-scale lift-slide apertures along the sides of the living hall offer extensive views of the forest and direct access to an informal hillside terrace. In the summer, the apertures become screened openings, virtually transforming the living hall into a covered outdoor room and facilitating a high degree of cross-ventilation that eliminates the need for mechanical conditioning. A small study, originally conceived as another room adjacent to the living hall, was instead stacked on top of it, creating an intimate, elevated observatory with treetop views.

Above: sections - click for larger image

The meticulously detailed project takes advantage of readily available materials used in the region's farmstead architecture. On the outside, exposed concrete, cedar, anodized metal, and cementitious plaster all echo the muted, earthy hues of the surrounding forest and rock formations. The material palette extends to the inside, where integrally colored polished concrete floors on the two main levels provide sufficiently durable surfaces against the periodic abuse from cross country skies, dogs, and muddy hiking boots. Walls, ceilings, and built-in cabinets are painted white, lightening up the interiors during the long winter months and providing a quiet, neutral foreground against which nature's complex and ever-changing tableau, carefully framed by the cabin's large openings, can unfold.

Above: exploded 3D diagram

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Named Omnibus House, the long and narrow residence is constructed on the side of a hill and the wall beneath it functions as a retainer against the sloping landscape.

Gubbins wanted the house to be visually linked to the outdoor spaces of its woodland location, so he designed the concrete volume with lengths of glazing stretching across its longest facades, allowing views right through the building.

"All the issues with privacy are solved because of the slope of the location," said Jose Quintana Cabezas, an architect at Gubbins Arquitectos. "There are neighbours, but they are far away enough to not to have visual contact, plus all the tree trunks help."

One of the most prominent features of the house is a concrete staircase that cuts through its centre, connecting the rooms on the main floor with an entrance on the storey below and a terrace on the rooftop.

Corridors run along both sides of the building, while rooms are arranged in sequence between. Glazed partitions divide the living and dining rooms, either side of the staircase, while wooden boards separate the bedrooms at the western end.

The concrete walls are exposed inside the building, plus polished concrete floors run through each room.

Santiago studio Gubbins Arquitectos also recently completed a hillside house with walls of timber and concrete.

Other recent projects in Chile include an earthquake-proof house and a hotel for stargazers. See more architecture in Chile.

Here's some more information from Gubbins Arquitectos:

Omnibus House

Life and leisure space

To break the typical areas of an urban house; kitchen, living–dining room and dormitories, this house has a double circulation that deconstructs these areas into a set of complimentary places.

This creates a way of inhabiting that moves away from a typical urban arrangement into a more playful one.

To inhabit the exterior from within

To inhabit the exterior of a holiday house does not only imply the direct interaction with the outside of the house, but also the interaction through the house.

This has been achieved through its own structure and arrangement, allowing the possibility of re-discovering new views from the terrace-roof; from the back terrace through the living room, from the corridor or galleria by the main façade or sheltered along the houses stone base.

A sustainable architecture

The north orientation of the houses main façade (23.5 metres width by 3.1 metres height) offers the possibility of becoming a large solar collector that at night time re-emits the accumulated thermal energy gathered during the day, by its walls, concrete slabs and roof.

Materiality and construction

The use of concrete as the main material, gives a sense of mass that is necessary for relating to the context.

Its colour complements the surrounding trees and allowed the used of a large span for the roofing and the use of different textures produced by the rough sawn timber formwork sold by a local retailer.

Above: ground floor plan - click for larger image

Above: first floor plan - click for larger image

Above: roof plan - click for larger image

Above: east elevation - click for larger image

Above: west elevation - click for larger image

Above: north elevation - click for larger image

Above: south elevation - click for larger image

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