Tag Archives: Veliz Arquitecto

This modern eco-home features a garden roof and integrates the surrounding forest into its design!

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Hugging House is a modern eco-home architecture concept that features a garden roof and incorporates the natural landscape of the land into its layout.

Noticing the devasting changes that come with climate change, most modern architects look to the natural world for inspiration to help preserve it. Whether that means building a self-sustainable home using a ‘passive house’ construction method or incorporating biophilia into the design scheme, architects interpret earth’s many ecosystems in exciting and different ways.

Cuba-based Veliz Arquitecto conceptualized a modern eco home called Hugging House that integrates the land’s rolling terrain and surrounding trees into the layout of the building.

Hugging House is a large, bi-level, cantilevered home located somewhere with dense forestry and overhead treetop canopies. The two sections that comprise Hugging House merge together as if in an embrace. Concrete slabs comprise the home’s surrounding driveway that leads to the ground level and outdoor leisure areas.

Veliz Arquitecto’s Hugging House is still only in its conceptual phase, but if brought to life, Hugging House’s location would be fully incorporated into the layout of the home. Describing the design in his own words, Veliz Arquitectos notes, “We have taken advantage of the slopes of the land in order to create visual connections at different heights with the existing vegetation and beyond the landscape, as well as [used] the premises with which we always try to characterize the project.”

Choosing to merge the outdoor areas with the home’s entire layout led to some exciting design choices including a garden roof and abstract overall frame. The Hugging House’s garden roof is located in a terrace-like enclosure where residents can lay out and feel as close to nature as if they were sitting on the ground below.

In addition to the garden roof, Hugging House features a swimming pool, fire pit, and concrete driveway. On the inside, residents and guests can enjoy a living room, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, and laundry room.

Designer: Veliz Arquitecto

The inside also features garden walls and ceilings to further the home’s biophilic design principle. 

Upstairs, natural stone walls give the bedroom a sultry, cozy appeal.

The dining area and bar room feature bright and dark design elements respectively. 

A floating staircase brings guests from the living room to the second floor. 

This glass fishbowl-like home has us re-thinking about how we connect with nature

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Now that we’ve been inside our homes for over a year now living in a fishbowl doesn’t sound all that bad. However, while many architects are turning to semi-outdoor designs to develop public facilities like restaurants and storefronts, the upcoming trend for homes in this new era finds their indoor spaces merging with the outdoors to get some natural airflow a good breeze. Architecture studio Veliz Arquitectos conceptualized what it might look like to turn a fishbowl into a modern house, turning an entire glass globe into a two-story home.

Envisioned somewhere in a snowy grassland, the Fishbowl House mimics the shape of a crystal ball, propped up on three sturdy wooden pillars that connect to the home’s exterior with a steel fastener. If ever constructed, the Fishbowl House would be entirely made from glass, merging the exterior with the interior. Inside, plants fill the scene, harmonizing with the natural world outside. Constructed from wood, the flooring and semi-outdoor deck helps to warm up the glass facade and make the cabin feel much closer to the natural world. Otherwise, guests can start up a fire in the home’s integrated fireplace for a cozy night of stargazing. For the days and nights, you’d like a little bit more privacy, curtains that seem to be constructed from wood descend from the home’s ceiling to cover the whole of Fishbowl House’s interior.

Veliz Arquitectos conceptualized the Fishbowl House to evoke a sense of safety for those living inside. Lifted above the ground, the Fishbowl House’s entrance is inaccessible without help from a stair or ladder extension. Yet, when the home’s curtains are drawn, the home gives off a den-like quality, oozing with warmth and comfort. Inspired to create a refuge in response to the constricted living situations brought on by the pandemic, Veliz Arquitectos notes, “The Glass Fishbowl protects us apparently, but it can be very fragile, inside it is the safest place and our best memories from the outside wrap us.”

While the design stands out from the crowd for sure, it may be taking things too far. Ironic, isn’t it that we are finally placing ourselves into glass bowls as we did to our pets so long ago. Sure, the world is all about new experiences, and love it or hate it, there is no way you will ignore a house like this. While it is pretty to look at, given the nature of glass, there is almost zero possibility we’ll ever get to see this in real. ANd for sure never ina typhoon zone!

Designer: Veliz Arquitectos

Curtains descend from the Fishbowl House’s ceiling to bring some privacy to an otherwise transparent glasshouse.

Propped up on wooden pillars, three metal fasteners join the pillars to the house’s exterior facade.

Totally transparent from every angle, the Fishbowl House features a warm lighting fixture for when the sunlight doesn’t pour in through the glass facade.

The home comprises two levels, the bottom houses the living area while the top floor keeps the home’s bedroom.

Positioned against the night sky, the Fishbowl House provides the perfect viewing spot for stargazing.

Filled to its brim with plant life, the Fishbowl House merges the outdoors with the indoors from the inside, out.

These cabins are designed to be habitable cocoons hanging on the edge of Cuban mountains!

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Imagine a cabin that envelops you in the landscape through its design – that is exactly what Jorge Luis Veliz Quintana creates an imaginative refuge for lovers of climbing and nature. With views to the striking landscape in the surrounding valley, the ‘cabins on the mountain’ are delicately placed along the bouldering cliffs as if emerging from the earth. The architect’s visualization shapes the timber structures like cocoons to blend in further.

Soaring out of rocks and trees, the organically-shaped cabins by Veliz Arquitecto unravel in a span of 150sqm. The curved wooden lattices perch upon concrete platforms that almost camouflage amongst the grey tones of the cliff, making the retreats seem to levitate. The design evolves with the front unfolding out onto a welcoming terrace; a balcony ideal for long stargazing nights and sunrises. Conceptualized in two levels, the stairs lead into an open-plan interior, designed to accommodate a bedroom and bathroom with 360° views all around.

To realize the tranquil project, Veliz Arquitecto uses a combination of software programs. Sketchup is his tool of preference for 3D development, which is then moved into Lumion for rendering. After the addition of textures, light, and the surroundings, photoshop is used for the final touches. As the result, the digital and dreamy scenography is enough to let the mind escape through the mountains of Cuba.

Designer: Veliz Arquitecto