House

No prizes for guessing where the Stairway House gets its name. This unusual project is located in Japan and serves as home to three generations of the same family, with the oversized staircase meant to help connect them.

Minimaliste has previously impressed us with its line of models that can withstand its country's harshest weather, and now the firm has completed its first home designed for family life. The Charme serves as full-time home to a family of four.

Build Tiny recently completed a new home that gets its name from combining the names of the owner's two grandmothers. Family is a strong theme with the Daisy Vera Tiny House and the off-grid model also integrates an heirloom stained glass window.

It’s rare to see a firm as high-profile as Foster + Partners design a private home, but if the Dolunay Villa is any indication, this is a pity. It features an undulating timber roof and expansive glazing frames the view for those inside.

In Tenta has launched a prefabricated tiny house that can accommodate a family of six. With most tiny homes being designed for a couple or a maximum of four guests, it's great to see a clever design that can comfortably house six people.

Plant Prefab has recently revealed its latest tiny house that is jam-packed with smart technology. Dubbed LivingHome 10, the 496-sq-ft dwelling is designed as an Accessory Dwelling Unit and features a smart voice command system.

You could be forgiven for assuming that the Casa Ojalá tiny house concept we covered last year was too ambitious to be realized, but a prototype is indeed being built and readied for production. Pre-orders are now open for the flexible tiny house.

If your idea for the perfect vacation is to spend a week in a potato or a shoe, then you may be a good fit for a new competition by Airbnb. It's spending US$1 million to fund the wildest new home ideas from around the globe.

A challenge with tiny houses is that there's often nowhere for guests to stay and the situation is even trickier in France, where they're usually smaller than in the US. The Mogote sleeps two in its bedroom but makes room for guests with a sofa bed.

Here's an idea for a beach house with a difference, courtesy of Brooklyn-based Studio Vural. Dune House would be built into the beach rather than on it like you might expect, and would run off-the-grid with solar panels and wind turbines.

Build Tiny managed to squeeze two storage-integrated staircases into the Home Haven Tiny House's 8-m (26-ft)-long frame. The tiny house was delivered as a turnkey build ready to move in for roughly NZD 132,000 (around US$85,000).

The Innisfree Anarres runs from a standard RV-style hookup but has solar panels on its roof to reduce its grid-based electricity usage. Teacup Tiny Homes also sought to provide efficient heating by installing a solar air heater on its exterior wall.