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The Buildner bookshop / Ideas worth keeping
For minds
that build.
A new perspective. A spark for your next project. Books that belong on your desk, and in your thinking.
Find your next read01–12Architecture. Design. Possibility.
In print & on screen.
In print & on screen.
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Your next big idea
starts here.
From a single chair to a different way of living.
Find the perspective you’re looking for.
The printed books
Made to be
held.
Six of the titles come in print, from a 256-page hardcover to a notebook that fits in a pocket. Printed copies ship free, worldwide.
The review
Nine minutes
inside a book.
Show It Better, the YouTube channel on communicating architecture visually, goes through What is Small-Scale Architecture?, from the interviews to the competition designs.
A review by Show It Better, on Buildner’s YouTube channel.
In their words
Two architects,
two questions.
Every ARCHHIVE book asks one question. Ben van Berkel and Kengo Kuma answer two of them.
Ben van BerkelFounder and principal architect, UNStudio, Amsterdam.What is Small-Scale Architecture?“Small scale projects sometimes generate ideas which can later be extended to larger scale projects. They not only perform as a testing ground for geometric, material and construction related considerations, but they are also invaluable when testing ideas on a conceptual level. Or better said, how to combine the two.”
Kengo KumaFounder, Kengo Kuma & Associates, Tokyo.What is Affordable Housing?“In our current era, it’s imperative to reevaluate and alter our understanding of ‘living’ within a home. The key aspect of this evolution is ensuring that all housing we envision and bring to life must be accessible in terms of affordability.”
The MICROHOME collection / Issues 01–04
Less space.
More possibility.
Small homes are a testing ground for big ideas. Explore built projects and competition concepts that rethink how we live.
See all four issuesYour desk. Your device. Your choice.
Keep it close.
A library that goes with you.
Take your reading from the studio to the train. Digital editions for your laptop, tablet, or phone.
The best of both worlds.
The printed edition for your desk and its digital companion for everywhere else. Available on selected titles.
Find your perfect pair ↗From the world of Buildner
Good architecture starts
with an open mind.
For over a decade, Buildner has brought architectural ideas into the world through international competitions. These books bring that spirit to your bookshelf: different voices, unexpected approaches, and possibilities worth exploring.
Discover Buildner ↗- 12
- titles, in print and PDF
- 1,800+
- pages
- 590+
- projects, essays, interviews and poems
- 15
- years of Buildner competitions
A few useful things
Before you
turn the page.
Can I choose between print and digital?
Yes. Each book page shows the editions available for that title. Some are PDF-only, some offer print and PDF, and selected titles also have a print + PDF bundle.
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Yes. You have 14 days from the day it arrives to change your mind: choose Withdraw from contract at the bottom of any page, then send the book back. The bookstore terms have the details.
What format are the digital editions?
Digital books and MICROHOME magazines are supplied as PDFs. A print + PDF bundle includes both editions of the same title.
Inside the magazine
Homes that turn,
slide and travel.
The second issue of MICROHOME, Buildner’s digital magazine of small homes. Ten built works, from a house of glass in the desert to a concrete home of 18.8 m² in Tokyo, sit beside thirty ideas from the MICROHOME competition: homes that turn, slide, come apart, hang under a bridge or rent out a billboard.
- 10
- built works
- 30
- ideas from the competition
- 25
- countries and territories
- 25 m²
- the most a competition entry may have
Turn the pages
Wide pages,
small homes.
Real pages from the digital magazine, laid out wide for a screen: the built works first, the competition ideas after.
Page 5. Climate Positive Micro Homes, Kaja Kühl, youarethecity, USA. 
Page 25. The Calyx Project, Studio Nine Architects, Australia. 
Page 28. TIKKU, Casagrande Laboratory, Finland. 
Page 31. Jewel, APOLLO Architects & Associates, Japan. 
Page 47. Yoku Kabin, Amalgam Studio, USA. 
Page 63. Three Scenes, Han Kuo, Taiwan. 
Page 82. Glass Dome, Yuting Zhang, USA. 
Page 101. Billboard House, Davit Botchorishvili, Georgia.
The competition
Off the grid,
25 m² at most.
Every year the MICROHOME competition asks for ideas about living small that others can easily repeat: an answer to the affordable housing crisis spreading from city to city, and to resources running low. This issue sets the most inventive entries next to small homes that architects and makers have built.
The brief stays short: an off-grid, modular home for an imagined young professional couple, on any site in the world, with room to rethink the plan, the look, the technology and the materials. Only the floor area is fixed.
What every entry has to be
- 0125 m² at most
All floors together stay within 25 square metres, the one fixed rule.
- 02Off the grid
No public power or water to plug into, so the home supplies its own.
- 03Modular
Made of modules that can be built in a workshop, joined on site and repeated.
- 04For two
An imagined young professional couple, on any site, anywhere in the world.
Case studies
Six homes,
three built, three imagined.
Three built works and three competition ideas, in the order of the magazine, with the thinking behind them.
01
Glass that holds up the roof
Glass House
OFIS arhitekti, Slovenia
Guardian Glass asked for it and OFIS arhitekti designed it, with the structural engineers AKT II and the climate engineers Transsolar: a research prototype for a simple, comfortable retreat in the harsh climate of the desert, using very little energy.
It tests how far glass can go. The thin triple-glazed walls are the only structure: they stand up to the desert’s fast winds, carry the timber roof and deck, and shade the rooms behind them. A bedroom, a living area and a bathroom sit around a central core, all opening onto a shaded porch, and wastewater treatment and solar cells fit in the footprint, for stays of about a week for one or two.
- Glass walls as the only structure
- A one-week retreat for one or two
- Solar cells and its own wastewater treatment
Pages 10–12
02
A cabin that comes apart in twelve pieces
XS Micro House
Saunders Architecture, Norway
Saunders Architecture’s finely made cabin has 24 m² inside and a 12 m² terrace. It is prefabricated as a retreat that needs nothing else and breaks down into twelve parts, so it can go by boat or truck to remote places and be put up easily. It stands on piles and can be taken down and moved again; for a while it stood on the docks of Bergen, Norway.
A Murphy bed folds away, open shelves run all round, the washroom hides behind the bedhead, and a ladder leads up to a reading nook under the roof. Big sliding aluminium doors and a ceiling 4 metres high make it feel larger, and rainwater collection, a composting toilet and solar panels make it fully off the grid.
- 24 m² inside, 12 m² of terrace
- Twelve parts, by boat or truck
- 100% off the grid
Pages 13–15
03
An A-frame on a trailer
Base Cabin
Studio Edwards, Australia
Studio Edwards’ mobile retreat is built on a trailer and wheeled to wherever its owners want to be, close to nature. It borrows from two classics, the A-frame cabin and the Airstream trailer, and the A-frame is efficient too, using less material than an ordinary portal frame.
Clad in black rubber, it keeps quiet in the landscape. Inside is a comfortable bed with a triangular window onto the view, a toilet and shower pod lit from above, and at the back of the pod a sink and a small counter for cooking, with a window ledge beside the large glazed front that opens.
- Wheeled on a trailer
- Clad in black rubber
- A triangular window over the bed
Pages 19–21
04
The one-room house on the cover
Pocket House
Caleb White and Emily Gruendel, USA
Pocket House takes an age-old model, the house of one room, and hides everything else in its thick walls: storage and services live in the cavities, the poché, leaving one simple room to use in many ways. Three skylights shape the space inside, turned to the morning, midday and evening sun.
It is drawn as an extra home on a suburban lot near Austin, Texas, where the population grows fast and the rules hold back apartment buildings. Unlike most suburban houses, it puts quality, detail and use before size, so a compact home feels comfortable, even luxurious. It is the house on the cover of this issue.
- One room, the rest in the walls
- Three skylights for three times of day
- An extra home for a suburban lot
Pages 35–36
05
Two turntables in the floor
Revolve Microhome
Damien Lees, Australia
Microhomes could help with sustainability, affordability and ways of living that adapt, Damien Lees argues, but the loss of space puts many people off. Revolve Microhome answers with a room that changes with the time of day.
Two turntables, each turning on its own, remake the large central area, so the same few square metres serve for gathering, working, resting and sleeping, as the people living there need.
- Two turntables, 3.45 m across
- 7 by 3.55 metres in all
- One room for gathering, work, rest and sleep
Pages 52–54
06
A home hung under a bridge
Bridge House
Andi Beloulaj, Alex Chatzigiannis, Vicky Papaliakou and Philippos Photiadis, Greece
Bridge House puts bridges to use, old ones or new: the 25 m² home hangs below the deck, fitted to the bridge’s own structure, which makes it cheaper to build and kinder to the environment.
A staircase at the side leads down past an outdoor entrance with seats to the private level. Following the bridge, the rooms run in a line, with the services in a utility volume along one side and one long passage that also serves as living space.
- 25 m² under the deck
- Reached by a stair at the side
- Services along one side
Pages 97–98
“We enjoy taking a bath every night, listening to our collection of 300 records, eating rice boiled in an earthen pot, and reading our favorite books.”
Emerging ideas
Five ideas
worth copying.
MICROHOME looks for ideas that are easy to repeat. Five that run through the thirty competition entries of this issue, and where to find them.
- Turn the room
Revolve Microhome sets two turntables in the floor, so one central room turns into a bedroom, a desk or a place to gather. Three Scenes brings bed, table and shower into view in turn, like the scenes of a revolving stage.
- Slide the walls
Sliding Puzzle House moves its modules like the tiles of the old puzzle: pushed to the edges they open a courtyard, lined up they frame a view. Eco Wheel’s three rooms turn on two wheels and slide along a rail.
- Pack it flat
Yoku Kabin arrives as a flat-pack kit that two people with no building skills can put up in about twelve hours. Dwell-In fits on one trailer behind a pickup truck, and XS Micro House comes apart in twelve pieces.
- Borrow a structure
Bridge House hangs from the structure of a bridge, old or new. MDU-LA divides one family house into five small homes, and the Student Housing Module fits on the roofs of existing buildings, drawn for the University of Havana.
- Build with what is there
Pallethouse is made of wooden pallets, so it can reach places hit by disaster. Glass Dome sets recycled bottles in adobe and clay, Degradable Dwelling uses recycled cork, MICASA rammed earth, Ssoudou mud brick.
Everything in the issue
Forty ways
to live small.
Every built work and competition idea in the issue, with the designers and the page each one starts on. Choose a thread to follow.
Climate Positive Micro Homes
Kaja Kühl, youarethecity
USA, page 5
ÁPH80
Abaton
Spain, page 8
Glass House
OFIS arhitekti
Slovenia, page 10
XS Micro House
Saunders Architecture
Norway, page 13
Love2 House
Takeshi Hosaka Architects
Japan, page 16
Base Cabin
Studio Edwards
Australia, page 19
Abodu Cabin
Koto Design with Abodu
UK and USA, page 22
The Calyx Project
Studio Nine Architects
Australia, page 25
TIKKU
Casagrande Laboratory
Finland, page 28
Jewel
APOLLO Architects & Associates
Japan, page 31
Pocket House
Caleb White and Emily Gruendel
USA, page 35
futarigurashi
Bart Bliek
Netherlands, page 37
GLITCH: The Story of a Dead Pixel
Vlad Chabai
Netherlands, page 39
The Nook
Chiara Lombardi
Sweden, page 41
Not just another brick in the wall
Edoardo Marini and Francesca Loreti
Italy, page 44
Yoku Kabin
Amalgam Studio: Ben Albury, Juan Felipe Castellanos and Nicole Tian
USA, page 47
Eco Wheel
Trinh Quoc Huy
Vietnam, page 49
Revolve Microhome
Damien Lees
Australia, page 52
Home of Hope
Santiago Caballero Barrios, Paula Ayala, Valentina Castillo and Mateo Cardona
Colombia, page 55
MDU-LA
Jamie Kleine
USA, page 57
NOMAD
Şeyma Çimen
Turkey, page 59
Dwell-In
Nicholas Ooi
Singapore, page 61
Three Scenes
Han Kuo
Taiwan, page 63
Dry Forest House
Juan Arroyo Labán, Andrea Bautista Machado and Jessica García Huachez
Peru, page 66
Sliding Puzzle House
Jihoon Kim
USA, page 69
Simplicity
Malin Persson
Sweden, page 71
Ssoudou
Emmanuel Batchily
France, page 73
Student Housing Module
Amaury Hernández Ochoa, Anabel Morales Villar, Mariangel Pérez Morales and Javier Alejandro Cuadra Aruca
Cuba, page 76
Building Bridges
Luisa Herzog, Lukas Kunze, Luca Ligotti and Malte Terbove
Germany, page 78
Degradable Dwelling
Lionel Giordano
UK, page 80
Glass Dome
Yuting Zhang
USA, page 82
MICASA
Benea Romana Dariana
Romania, page 85
Pallethouse
Klaudia Szczecińska
Poland, page 87
Compact House
Raina Kanari
Sweden, page 89
Fair and Square
Mathieu Mainoldi
France, page 92
Beekeeper’s House
Shuhao Wang and Jian Gao
Spain, page 95
Bridge House
Andi Beloulaj, Alex Chatzigiannis, Vicky Papaliakou and Philippos Photiadis
Greece, page 97
Slow Water
Ben Ingle and Ross Robertson
UK, page 99
Billboard House
Davit Botchorishvili
Georgia, page 101
DU·MONO
Alfred Bandojo and Elaine Salufrania
Philippines, page 103
Words and pictures from MICROHOME Magazine, Issue 02 (Buildner). Every project and its pictures by the architects, studios and designers named; the cover shows Pocket House by Caleb White and Emily Gruendel. Photographs: Laszlo Kovacs (Climate Positive Micro Homes), Juan Baraja (ÁPH80), José Navarrete Jiménez and Gonzalo Botet (Glass House), Bent René Synnevåg (XS Micro House), Koji Fujii (Love2 House), Studio Edwards (Base Cabin), Joe Fletcher (Abodu Cabin), Studio Nine Architects (The Calyx Project), Jenni Gästgivar, Iltalehti (TIKKU), Masao Nishikawa (Jewel).
