Have you ever dreamed to take a holiday in a house designed by some of the most talented architects at work today? The Living Architecture project allows you to do that. With houses set in some of the most stunning locations in Britain, houses have been commissioned to Peter Zumthor, Michael & Patty Hopkins, NORD, Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects & MVRDV.

They describe the project saying:

We started the organisation from a desire to shift perceptions of modern architecture. We wanted to allow people to experience what it is like to live, eat and sleep in a space designed by an outstanding architectural practice. While there are examples of great modern buildings in Britain, they tend to be in places that one passes through (eg. airports, museums, offices) and the few modern houses that exist are almost all in private hands and cannot be visited.

Here's an overview on the projects:

The Balancing Barn by MVRDV

The Balancing Barn is built on a site beside a nature reserve and overlooking a small lake. From the road, the barn is almost invisible, with a pitched roof that faces the long straight driveway and suggests a property with a small and traditional shape. However, the whole house is in fact 30 metres long, extending right over the grounds it occupies.

At its midpoint, the house starts to cantilever over the descending slope; a balancing act made possible by the rigid structure of the building; resulting in 50% of the barn being in free space, and giving a wide view over the Suffolk landscape, adjacent lake and surrounding garden. The long sides of the structure are well hidden by trees allowing privacy inside and around the barn. The exterior is covered in reflective steel tiles, resulting in the barn changing its exterior with every new season.

The Dune House by Jarmund/Vigsnæs Architects

Jarmund/Vigsnæs had created a building with a complex geometrically roofscape that references local seaside buildings while remaining distinctively contemporary. 

The roof, clad in a lightly tinted orange steel alloy, reflects the changing colours of the sea and sky and the panoramic windows on the ground floor give one a sense of nestling in the dunes while at the same time inviting one out to the beckoning sea beyond. Each of the four peaks of the roof contains a bedroom and a bathroom, with windows carefully positioned to catch intriguing views of the land and sea scape all around. The timber-lined bedrooms all have bath tubs in them, so that one can lie in warm water and, from small adjacent windows, take in glimpses of the North Sea or the meadows which surround the house at the rear.

The Long House by Hopkins Architects 

For this project, Hopkins Architects have created a house that in many ways sums up the highlights of their career. Their Long House gives out on to the flat, almost prairie-like expanses of the Norfolk landscape and on the upper story, affords one views over the inlets, saltmarshes and creeks of the North Sea coast. The house is distinctive for its massive and traditionally crafted flint wall, which references the ancient churches and barns of the area.

The Shingle House by NORD Architecture

The site in Dungeness is challenging, it is Britain's only desert, and home of a peculiar assortment of buildings and activities: fishermen's huts, lighthouses, a miniature steam railway and a nuclear power station. They say:

NORD have embraced the extremes of the location. Their 'Shingle House' is a dramatic sleek black building made up out of tarred timber shingles and boards. Inside a polished concrete fireplace is surrounded by comfortable seating, with views out onto the shingle beach beyond. The house has its own small bath house, with an imposing sunken bath, and fittings made up of carefully hand-crafted metalwork and timber.

The Secular Retreat by Atelier Peter Zumthor

Peter Zumthor is frequently described as the greatest architect at work in the world today, and has recently been awarded the internationally prestigious Pritzker Prize. He is famous for his baths at Vals in Switzerland, his Bruder Chapel outside Cologne in Germany and his Kolumba Museum in Cologne itself. As read:

The design makes use of an original rammed concrete that gives the building a mass and scale characteristic of a timeless example of ecclesiastical architecture. Nestled in one of the most beautiful parts of the English countryside, Peter Zumthor has designed a work of art to touch the soul.

The difference between five-star hotels designed by reowned architects is that these kind of hotels are, most of the time, large-scale buildings. Here, you have the opportunity to own the house just for yourself for a bit of time.

So, if you don't have enough money to buy one of the ORDOS 100's houses, you can always dream that you're the owner of the latest Zumthor's project by renting a house here. More info at Living Architecture.