Designed by Mareines + Patalano, this great beach home outside of Rio de Janeiro stands as a beautiful compliment to nature and adds to the planet’s beauty and tranquility.

Except for a stunning architectural show, the Brazilian Leaf House packs many green features, a perfect combination of form with function. Designed as a giant tropical banana leaf and looking like a blossoming delight, the roof helps harvest rainwater for house use, and the whole design helps providing natural ventilation and cooling, thus reducing the need to rely on the grid. The interior is “just” as green, using locally harvested wood crafted in a sustainable fashion, stone and natural fabrics.

Most often constructions that crop up on the beaches, are costly real estate properties with lavish designs that does nothing beyond destroying the natural beaches and further degrade the ecosystem. This one really looks like a dream house, isn’t it? - via World Architecture News

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Though they have their reasons, I can’t figure out why they’ve built such a big umbrella “house”. The project uses modified umbrellas and was put up by Kengo Kuma who did it for the Milan Triennale Museum of design.

The umbrellas are zipped together along their outer edges to form the modular shape you can see in the pictures, and each of them have two extra flaps hanging from the central segment which are used for different compositions. The Umbrella House has a kitchen area, a sleeping mat if you need a power nap and should be great for on-campus gatherings, don’t you think?

via DesignBoom