Jonathan Woolf Architects used chiselled sandstone to construct this family home near Nairobi, which is built into a hillside and topped by a heavy sloping roof (+ slideshow). More about Hewn sandstone walls and an overhanging roof enclose a hillside home in Nairobi
Monterrey studio Greenfield used walls of rammed earth and rugged stone to frame the rooms of this villa for the staff of an animal breeding facility in Mexico's Maderas del Carmen natural park (+ slideshow). More about The Cave is a rammed-earth and stone villa in a Mexico wildlife conservation facility
A wooden spine extends beneath the diagonally pitched roof of this diamond-shaped house and artist's studio in Japan (+ slideshow). More about House and art studio by Alphaville features a diamond-shaped plan and a pointed roof
Perforated metal panels create a grid of Xs on the outer walls of this family house in Ljubljana by Slovenian studio OFIS Arhitekti (+ slideshow). More about OFIS Arhitekti creates grid of crosses on the facade of Villa Criss-Cross Envelope
Australian architect Andrew Maynard has doubled the size of a house in Victoria by adding a row of skinny gabled blocks, intended to make the building look like a small village rather than a monolithic block (+ slideshow). More about Andrew Maynard's "anti-monolith" house is made up of seven small blocks
An old train carriage forms one half of this family home in Takasago, Japan, while the other half looks like it could be a railway station (+ slideshow). More about Takanobu Kishimoto's Platform is a home built around a train carriage
Australian studio Mihaly Slocombe has returned to a Melbourne home it completed almost a decade ago to add a timber nursery annex patterned with circular cutouts (+ slideshow). More about Mihaly Slocombe extends vineyard home in Australia with wooden nursery
Diagonal slats of timber line the boxy recesses set into the facade of this house in Portugal that has been remodelled by architect Ernesto Pereira (+ slideshow). More about Ernesto Pereira updates a coastal Portuguese home with timber-clad cutaways
A modern timber and glass structure connects the more traditional stone-walled buildings at either end of this house in the Scottish highlands, designed by architects Stuart Archer and Liz Marinko (+ slideshow). More about Gabled stone and glass Torispardon house reinterprets Scottish farm buildings
Faced with a sharply sloping plot in Portland, Oregon, architect Ben Waechter chose to "build up rather than out" to create a cost-efficient house for a family (+ slideshow). More about Ben Waechter's Tower House makes the most of an "unbuildable" Portland hillside
London studio Kirkwood McCarthy has renovated a derelict workshop in east London to create a brick house that is tacked onto the end of a narrow mews yard (+ slideshow). More about Old upholsterer's workshop in London transformed into a narrow brick home
A narrow wooden tunnel provides the entrance to this forest refuge built by students beside a mountain in Bergen, Norway (+ slideshow). More about Norwegian mountain hut is entered through a curving wooden orifice
A staircase runs up alongside a six-metre-high bookshelf inside this house in Ukraine, which also features walls that look like piles of logs (+ slideshow). More about Ukraine house by Sergey Makhno combines a staircase with a two-storey-high bookcase
This extension to a Victorian house in London features a decorative wooden ceiling, exposed brickwork and a dining space that opens out to a garden filled with bushy plants (+ slideshow). More about Gort Scott adds timber-framed extension to 19th century Victoria Park house
Bright white shutters concertina across the glazed facade of this Porto home designed and occupied by local architects Cláudia Monteiro and Vitor Oliveira. More about Folding shutters create varying levels of privacy for Porto townhouse
An entranceway lined with planks of red-brown wood punctures the concrete facade of this family home arranged around a courtyard in Brazil (+ slideshow). More about Red wood corridor forms entrance to concrete home in Brazil by Studio Guilherme Torres
A painted fabric screen concealing windows and balconies merges with the crisp white facade of this artist's house in north London by local firm Guard Tillman Pollock (+ slideshow). More about Stretched fabric hides the windows and balconies of an artist's Hampstead home
A grid of hinged metal shutters form a privacy screen across the windows of this terraced house in New York that architect Philippe Baumann designed for himself and his partner (+ slideshow). More about Philippe Baumann's Courtyard House is shielded behind a metal mesh cage
Modular buildings specialist ArchiBlox has unveiled its prototype for a compact carbon-positive house, featuring "edible garden walls", a sunroom and an insulating grass roof (+ slideshow). More about Prefabricated house in Melbourne's City Square can produce more energy than it uses
Weathered steel screens cast chequerboard patterns of sunlight and shadow across the internal surfaces of this house near Tel Aviv by Israeli architect Pitsou Kedem (+ slideshow). More about Perforated screens cast graphic shadow patterns over concrete house by Pitsou Kedem