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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.
↗ Free worldwide print shipping▤ Print, PDF, or both↶ 14-day returns on printed books
The reading room
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.
How much does shipping cost?
Nothing. Printed books ship free worldwide, and we email you the tracking details as soon as your order is on its way.
Can I return a printed book?
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
Small homes,
unlikely places.
The third issue of MICROHOME, Buildner’s digital magazine of small homes. Ten built works, from a cabin that opens layer by layer in a Dutch forest to 7.3 m² on a traffic island near Stuttgart, sit beside thirty ideas from the MICROHOME competition: homes of cork and of IKEA shelving, a facade that grows algae, a treehouse that turns, and a boathouse for health workers on the Amazon.
- 10
- built works
- 30
- ideas from the competition
- 21
- countries
- 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 9. Piil, Arsenit, Estonia. 
Page 12. Soft Lodge, i29 architects, Netherlands. 
Page 22. Charred Cabin, La Vega, Nicolas del Rio Arquitectos, Chile. 
Page 68. The Responsible Cabin, Nikolaj Dreyer Nielsen, Marie Louise Kristiansen and Jonas Posselt, Denmark. 
Page 92. Algae Living, Aldo Feandri, Stephanie Larassati and Ali Savero, Indonesia. 
Page 95. Onigiri, Ryo Ishikawa and Mars Sambo, Japan. 
Page 107. Suber House, Jolanda Devalle and Alison Zuccaro, USA. 
Page 110. Round and Round, Dinullah Ibrahim, Amyra Marlia and Safira Salsabila, Indonesia.
The competition
Room for two,
25 m² at most.
This third issue sets the most inventive entries of Buildner’s yearly MICROHOME competition beside small homes that architects and makers have built. The competition asks for ideas about living small that are easy to repeat, because the affordable housing crisis keeps spreading from city to city and resources keep running low.
Entrants design an off-grid, modular home for an imagined young professional couple, on any site, anywhere in the world. They are free 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
The whole floor of the home stays within 25 square metres.
- 02Off the grid
Not tied to public power or water networks, so it supplies its own.
- 03Modular
Made of modules, built in a workshop, joined on site and easy to repeat.
- 04For two
A home for an imagined young professional couple, on any site the designers choose.
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
A cabin you open layer by layer
Cabin ANNA
Caspar Schols, Netherlands
Caspar Schols drew ANNA from his own family’s life: a low-tech, standard package for living, not a monument. Its layers slide open and shut by hand, so the people inside choose how much of the forest comes in, and the walls between them and nature fall away. It stands in the woods of the Netherlands.
ANNA has since grown into the ANNA Collection, with baths set into the floor and bedrooms on a mezzanine, and ANNA One, a stripped-down version to put together yourself. Easy assembly runs through all of them, so each owner can shape a place of their own, close to nature.
- Layers that slide by hand
- A low-tech package for living
- ANNA One, to build yourself
Pages 5–8
02
A fishing shack by the sea, made new
The Viking Seaside Summer House
FREAKS, France
On the Cotentin coast of western France, where the Vikings came in the ninth century, FREAKS were asked to renovate an old concrete fishing shack on a rocky beach above the sea. Like Thoreau’s cabin at Walden it measures 3 by 4 metres, 12 m², and strict coastal rules kept its size and shape as they were.
So the change is in the skin and the details: a new roof and outer insulation clad in pale, champagne-coloured galvanised metal, and two big sliding windows onto the horizon. Inside, a core of white tiles with yellow joints holds the toilet and a glass shower, a loft takes a double bed, and folding armchairs around the table seat up to eight. A terrace opens the room to the pink granite of the shore.
- 12 m², 3 by 4 metres
- An old fishing shack
- Two big sliding windows
Pages 25–28
03
A tea house of old windows
Tiny House TEKITEKI-AN
6lines studio, Japan
TEKITEKI-AN stands in Kamanuma, a satoyama village two hours from Tokyo, where people look after the land together and programmes like Small Earth bring city people out to farm. 6lines studio built it with local craftsmen, inspired by the water cycle; at 3 by 3 metres, it recalls a traditional tea house.
Its openings are filled with old windows from demolished houses of the village, set in two layers like patchwork, so the light falls in changing patterns. It is insulated with smoked rice husk and built of reused materials, the slope is shaped to take it, and its roof is planted with grass: a place to sit and eat oranges looking over the village to the sea.
- 3 by 3 metres
- Windows from demolished village houses
- Insulated with smoked rice husk
Pages 32–34
04
A floating home for health workers
Manauara Boathouse
Camila Miwa Arai, Aline Nakamura and Luisa Caminha, Brazil
Manaus has the fifth highest GDP in Brazil, yet the state of Amazonas around it is deeply unequal, and the rainforest is vast. The Manauara Boathouse is drawn for the Brazilian side of the Amazon River near Manaus, as temporary homes for health workers who travel to communities with little care.
It is built of local wood, with angled brise-soleil panels that move to keep out the strong sun and rain, and folding furniture and built-in storage for the work. Its 18 m² floor and a loft of 6.48 m² make 24.48 m²; an outboard engine moves it, and rainwater and wastewater are cleaned on board before clear water goes back to the river.
- 24.48 m² with the loft
- Local wood, movable sun panels
- Clean water back to the river
Pages 52–54
05
A shelter people can build after a disaster
HOME+AID
Akkarawin Valinluck, USA
Floods, storms, landslides, earthquakes and wildfires are among the worst disasters in Thailand, and every year they damage tens of thousands of homes. HOME+AID answers with a kit of prefabricated structural parts made from local materials.
The parts are designed for building methods that local people already know, so they can put up the shelter themselves. It gives a family a temporary home after a disaster, and keeps the work and the materials close to home, which the designer counts as good for the local economy and for the environment.
- Prefabricated parts of local materials
- Built with methods locals know
- A temporary home after a disaster
Pages 77–79
06
The desert house on the cover
Contextual Appropriation
Alex Tahinos, USA
For Alex Tahinos, the tiny home movement is a longing to make peace with nature at a time of screens, when social media blurs what is real. Drawing on Latour, this home sits on the line between nature and society: a simple, familiar shell around the technology inside.
Its envelope of concrete and mud brick takes in the site itself, and its facade, like old Roman brickwork, is made of found pieces, carried by steel and self-supporting sandwich panels. It stays in one place but adapts to its surroundings and the seasons. It is the house on the cover of this issue.
- Concrete and mud brick
- A facade of found pieces
- The house on the cover
Pages 118–120
“Even the smallest projects can contain big ideas.”
Emerging ideas
Cork, shelves
and treehouses.
The cover promises cork homes, treehouses and homes built from IKEA shelving, and more. Five ideas that run through the issue, and where to find them.
- Cork homes
Suber House takes its name from the cork oak, Quercus suber. Built of cork on buoyant foundations, it rises with the water in places that flood. VA.RI.able Home is made of Italian wood, cork and recycled plastic.
- Treehouses
Piil, built in Estonia, is a prefabricated treehouse 9 metres tall on a single leg. Round and Round holds on to the trees with a fixed middle module while its two round modules turn 180 degrees on rails, like a ferris wheel.
- IKEA shelving
RAVI, IVAR read backwards, is a handmade prototype put together from IKEA’s IVAR shelving modules: a home of 5 by 4.7 metres that costs little and is simple to build.
- Earth and algae
H-EART-H CYCLE is clad in prefabricated rammed earth panels, and Micro(climate) Home is built mostly of straw, earth and wood. Algae Living grows microalgae in a bioreactor on its facade to clean the air of Jakarta.
- Second lives
TEKITEKI-AN is glazed with old windows from demolished village houses and insulated with smoked rice husk. Circular Tiny House uses only reused and renewable materials, with no nails or glue, so it can be taken apart.
Everything in the issue
Forty homes,
no two alike.
Every built work and competition idea in the issue, with the designers and the page each one starts on. Choose a thread to follow.
Cabin ANNA
Caspar Schols
Netherlands, page 5
Piil
Arsenit
Estonia, page 9
Soft Lodge
i29 architects
Netherlands, page 12
Digital House
Julian Krüger and Benjamin Kemper
Germany, page 16
Adraga
Madeiguincho
Portugal, page 19
Charred Cabin, La Vega
Nicolas del Rio Arquitectos
Chile, page 22
The Viking Seaside Summer House
FREAKS
France, page 25
Micro Courtyardhouse
Atelier Kaiser Shen
Germany, page 29
Tiny House TEKITEKI-AN
6lines studio
Japan, page 32
Circular Tiny House
Coburg University with Professor Dr. Rainer Hirth
Germany, page 35
Circular Living
Alicia Davis, Maximilan Hauss, Matthias Hauss and Simon Pscherer
Germany, page 38
5²
Hadi Daliraqaei and Amir Moradi
Canada, page 41
VA.RI.able Home
Rosaria Iacovone and Annalisa Valentino
Italy, page 44
less is +
Federrico Mannino and Sónia Raquel Gaudêncio
France, page 47
Gone with the Wind
Imen Bel Hadj Yahia, Selin Delamare, Anne Der Haroutiounian and Juliette Selingue
France, page 50
Manauara Boathouse
Camila Miwa Arai, Aline Nakamura and Luisa Caminha
Brazil, page 52
Pinecone
Harun Sabljaković and Sabina Filipović
Bosnia, page 55
Micro(climate) Home
Pauline Arnaud and Hugo Chartier
France, page 57
SU.PER SAYAN: Self-Sufficient Permaculture Microhome
Osrithalita Gabriela, Abimantra Pradhana and Jasmine Pranasiwi
Indonesia, page 60
ReNook Microhome
Jessica Hardin
USA, page 64
Resilient House
Laura Suvieri and Andrea Tumiati
Italy, page 66
The Responsible Cabin
Nikolaj Dreyer Nielsen, Marie Louise Kristiansen and Jonas Posselt
Denmark, page 68
H-EART-H CYCLE
Nicholas Diddi and Riccardo Cosco
France, page 72
Pivot House
Ibrahim Muasher, Gergana Popova and Simon Taylor
UK, page 74
HOME+AID
Akkarawin Valinluck
USA, page 77
Honeycomb
Veronika Luisa Dandl and Flavia Thalisa Gütermann
Germany, page 80
RAVI
Olga Rof Enriquez
Spain, page 83
Re-House
Mayank Shekhawat
Canada, page 86
ADA House
Ariel Arosemena, Diane Lan and Amilcar Perez
Panama, page 89
Algae Living
Aldo Feandri, Stephanie Larassati and Ali Savero
Indonesia, page 92
Onigiri
Ryo Ishikawa and Mars Sambo
Japan, page 95
Anonymous Watchman
Jinlong Li, Huichao Luo, Xibao Ren and Sen Yan
Australia, page 98
Needle Suburbia
Santiago Carlos Peña Fiorda, Agustin Llobera, Florencia Mischelejis and Valeria Ospital Greslebin
Argentina, page 101
Dharavi Dwellers
Hannah Holmen and Dandika Thanos
Czech Republic, page 104
Suber House
Jolanda Devalle and Alison Zuccaro
USA, page 107
Round and Round
Dinullah Ibrahim, Amyra Marlia and Safira Salsabila
Indonesia, page 110
Tiny Home, Big Impact
Eric Weber
USA, page 114
Contextual Appropriation
Alex Tahinos
USA, page 118
Hideaway
Matteo Brero, Nicola Luppino, Narcis Constantin Oprea and Daniel Stiven Pepe Galindo
Italy, page 121
Pulley House
Hugh Leahy
Ireland, page 125
Words and pictures from MICROHOME Magazine, Issue 03 (Buildner). Every project and its pictures by the architects, studios and designers named; the cover shows Contextual Appropriation by Alex Tahinos. Photographs: Jorrit ’t Hoen (Cabin ANNA), Yifan Liu (Piil), i29 (Soft Lodge), Julian Krüger and Benjamin Kemper (Digital House), João Carranca (Adraga), Felipe Camus (Charred Cabin, La Vega), Jules Couartou (The Viking Seaside Summer House), Nicolai Rapp (Micro Courtyardhouse), Ryo Oyama, Tsukamoto Laboratory (Tiny House TEKITEKI-AN), Sebastian Kolm (Circular Tiny House).
