Designed by SeARCH, a Dutch architecture firm, and Christian Müller Architects, the home features an enormous patio with an elliptical opening designed to accentuate the view. The old-looking barn in the distance even features an underground tunnel that serves as an entrance into the home. All in all, the design was so unique that the builders were able to skirt around the notoriously strict building requirements in the area. Absolutely beautiful—which is why you should hit the following link for more images. [Iwan Bann via Arbitare via Fast Company]

The Klein Bottle House—located in Rye, Australia—is made of concrete sheets and black metal, surrounded by trees and next to a beach. I like it, but if I had to choose something, I would rather get Ben Rose Home, Cameron's house in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Or if you want to get all freaky funky nerdy with me, I'd pick Rem Koolhaas's Maison à Bordeaux. [McBride Charles Ryan via Design Boom]

Kamen himself calls his house a "cross between a technology museum of old stuff and Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory." Accurate only if Willy Wonka wore a jean suit. But, both are pretty admirable people, so it's a fair comparison.

Also cool are the sports facilities (tennis courts, basketball hoops, a friggin' softball field), plus a steam engine. All befitting an impressive man who was nevertheless able to put me to sleep at my own graduation. [WMUR - Thanks Eq!]

First Place - Vince Versna
Second Place - Richard Green
Third Place - Jeff

Modern country houses are crazy, because since Frank Lloyd Wright built that house over that waterfall, everyone and their mom has wanted to do radical new things to meld new structures with the grass, trees, hills and streams that were here eons before we walked upright.

Commissioned by a group called Living Architecture, the Dutch firm of MVRDV, with the British firm Mole Architects, came up with this 30-meter-long baby, half of which does not sit on anything. Here's all I could get from the description at Dezeen:

At the midpoint it starts to cantilever over the descending slope; a balancing act made possible by the rigid structure of the building; resulting in 50% of the barn being in free space, and giving a wide view over the Suffolk landscape, adjacent lake and surrounding gardens.

But still, if you and all your drunk friends decided to go to the end and jump up and down, wouldn't that house tip over, and hurt the girl and the sheep who idle and graze nearby? If no, then why not? I'm gonna guess the answer has something to do with long steel beams stuck down deep in the earth at the non-floating end. Then I'm gonna walk away, and try not to think about that poor little girl. [Dezeen]

Everything associated with this is so deeply stupid I want to cry. From this:

Our Home of the Year sits among the Hollywood Hills, where the stars shine as brightly inside the homes as they do in the night sky.

...to the two flatscreen TVs in the bedroom facing the same direction...

...to the giant plasma screen in the bathroom so the soaking rich fucks within can watch TV instead of looking at the amazing view of the aforementioned gilt Hollywood Hills. It is all controlled by a Crestron automation system, which in turn is controlled by Satan.

But hey, look, one of those three-screened racing simulator things:

And is it a surprise that custom-installer geeks have horrible taste in actual homes? I guess some people like living in a rendered Sharper Image catalog.

But as Silvio Dante once said: "Disgusting" [Electronic House]

The company behind the main software, Home Automated Living, named their product HAL (yawn yawn yawn). And with this software, Electronic House says you could say something along the lines of "open music, open Led Zeppelin, play Black Dog," and just like that, you get Black Dog. HAL also works with the Leviton lighting system, the GE security system and the HAI thermostat—all over voice.

If you need a bit more futurism in the house, the HAL system will even speak the name and number of a caller when the phone rings, iPod shuffle style. Electronic House didn't go into the pricing of a system like this, but it's probably such a demoralizing figure that we're all better off not knowing. [Electronic House]

Listening Test: It's music tech week at Gizmodo.

From inside to out, the Klein Bottle experimental house plays with the theme of a mathematical puzzle that manifests in an interesting hodgepodge of geometry. But cleverly hidden within these angles and crevices is a rain water collection system and solar paneling (because aliens hate to pollute).

So be honest, readers. Would you live in a house that looked like this? And if so, would you be willing to transplant it into any normal housing development? Or would you need to be part of some off the grid martian colony? [dornob via io9]

Kalkin's prefab homes use anywhere from one to six, or sometimes even 12 shipping containers as the frame for the home. Kalkin's homes tend to range in price from $150-$400 per square foot, with the cheapest container house costing $50,000. Some are very simple, merely containing a room in in a single container, where as others have whole other structures built inside them.

But despite all the architectural eye candy, I think my favorite part of the piece was an anecdote about how Kalkin once decided to shave while delivering a lecture at the Whitney museum. But I digress. Fast Company has plenty more photos, so check them out. [Fast Company]

Apparently, this property used to be some sort of musical venue called "Caveland" where the likes of Bob Seger and Ike and Tina Turner (!?!) once performed. As if the story wasn't already strange enough, the house is now for sale because the economy crashed and the family can no longer afford their balloon payment mortgage, so their attempting to sell the house for $300,000.

Apparently the house is finished, but most of the photos show the house in an unfinished form. But whatever, because the main point here is that these people are living in a cave. And that's just crazy. [Cave House eBay via Uncrate]

Companies all over the world, not only from Dubai, but also Nevada and Brazil, are beginning to develop their own way of creating both houses and towers that have the ability to rotate (generally 360 degrees/hour). Custom contractors are building homes on a one-off basis out in California, while Brazilian developer is wrapping up their Suite Vollard, where the 11 flats will sell for $550,000. They also have deals to develop in Canada, Japan, Portugal, the US and the UAE.

Apparently, the big issue in the past with building houses like these came down to plumbing. Now contractors and plumbers are working around those limitations with rubber hoses, rounded half pipes, or just leaving all that stuff in a stationary center column.

The custom houses built in California only use between 370 watts and 1 kilowatt of power for every hour the house was rotating. These houses also have an interesting way of delivering power: there's a metal brush on the that sweeps against a metal ring connected to a power supply inside the anchored base.

In any case, while the idea of rotating houses may not be entirely new, the prospect of them becoming somewhat commonplace is. [The Economist]

Inside, however, the homes look huge.

Each module is only 175 pounds, and they can be carried and assembled by a couple of people in a matter of hours. I don't know how that is compatible with "typhoon resistant," but since it has been approved by Japan's safety-obsessed government, we would have to believe it's true. Head to Pink Tentacle for more pictures and details. [Pink Tentacle]