Ten Houses That Break the Rules, Beautifully

Nora — why it’s built this way

The designer Eileen Gray built it between 1926 and 1929 with her partner, the architect Jean Badovici. It was her first building, and the name is a code for their initials: E for Eileen, 10 for J (the tenth letter), 2 for B and 7 for G. Before placing it, she studied the slope, the path of the sun and the direction of the winds, then set the house at the lowest edge of the terraces. It’s small, about 1,300 square feet on two levels, so she spent three years on the furniture: pieces built into the walls, a table that swings out on a metal arm, a headboard with its own pillow cupboard. Cap Moderne, which runs visits, says tours are guided, booked ahead and limited to small groups.

Nora — why it’s built this way

First, the honest label: this is a hotel room, not a home. It belongs to Treehotel, near the village of Harads in the far north of Sweden. The architects, Tham & Videgård, describe it as a simple hut in the trees: a light aluminum frame fixed straight onto the trunk of a tall pine, a cube about 13 feet on each side, covered in highly reflective glass so it’s camouflaged among the treetops. Finished in 2010, it sleeps two, with a balcony reached by step ladder and the shower in a nearby building. You can book a night; nobody lives there.

Nora — why it’s built this way

As the Serbian newspapers Blic and B92 told the story in 2013, a few swimmers had the idea in 1968. They wanted a place to rest on the rock they dove from, hauled up wood, then a roof against the sun, and finally turned the shelter into a real one-room house. Smaller loads went over by boat; heavier pieces were let go upstream and caught as the current carried them past the rock. The tourist organization says the river has swept the house away from time to time, and the town’s enthusiasts always built a new one, sturdier than the last. It’s now the town’s symbol. There’s a legend, too: the rock was thrown into the river by the folk hero Marko Kraljević so his horse could cross without getting wet.

Nora — why it’s built this way

Frank Lloyd Wright designed it in 1935 for the Kaufmann family, owners of Pittsburgh’s largest department store. He planned the house to rise above the waterfall it’s built over. Local craftsmen quarried sandstone from the property, and the main house, guest house and service wing were finished in 1939. The museum that runs it calls it the best example of Wright’s organic architecture: art and nature in harmony. Tickets have to be bought in advance, and the museum is closed Wednesdays.

Nora — why it’s built this way

The town council counts more than 2,000 inhabited cave homes dug into the clay hills of Guadix. The clay insulates them, and the council gives the indoor temperature as a steady 18 to 20°C (about 64 to 68°F). The diggers start at the ceiling and work down. The first room, called the portal, opens onto the others, which have closets built into the rock. Curtains stand in for inside doors so air can move between the front door, the window and the chimney, and the kitchen chimney is bored straight up through the hill, built of mortar and whitewashed. The town runs an interpretation center inside several original cave homes.

Nora — why it’s built this way

UNESCO notes that Yazd’s walls and roofs alike are built of earth. The Encyclopaedia Iranica says it’s known as “the city of wind catchers.” The towers cool the summer rooms on the ground floor and in the basement in two ways. When the wind blows, air caught in the vents cools as it drops into the rooms. When the air is still, the sun warms the tower walls, air rises out the top, and cooler air is pulled up from the courtyard and basement.

Nora — why it’s built this way

Built mostly by the Hakka people, a tulou is made by mixing clay, sand and lime and ramming it into walls about 5 feet thick. UNESCO describes them as defensive homes: one entrance, and windows to the outside only above the first floor. A single building housed a whole clan, up to 800 people, UNESCO says, and it was divided vertically, with each family keeping two or three rooms on each floor. Fujian has more than 30,000 tulou, and they came through a magnitude-7 earthquake in 1918. UNESCO added them to its World Heritage list in 2008.

Nora — why it’s built this way

Monet lived here from 1883 until 1926, and the house and gardens were restored in the late 1970s. The foundation that runs it says the dining room has been recreated in detail, and that the yellow-painted furniture was very modern for its time. It was a full house, with eight children, and Monet going back and forth between his studio and the garden. The house is open from April 1 to November 1, and online booking is recommended.

Nora — why it’s built this way

The architect Luis Barragán built it in 1948 and lived there until his death in 1988. UNESCO describes a concrete building of about 12,500 square feet, with a ground floor, two upper floors and a small private garden, and credits Barragán with blending modern design with traditional and local ideas. Mexico City’s official tourism site calls it the only individual property in Latin America on the World Heritage list. A foundation runs it as a museum, and visits are guided and require a reservation.

Nora — why it’s built this way

Just outside Austin, 100 homes at Wolf Ranch were printed in concrete by ICON, which calls it the world’s first 3D-printed community. Bjarke Ingels Group designed them, and they were finished in 2025. CNBC reported that the metal roofs are the only part that wasn’t printed, and that the corners are rounded because that’s how the printer moves. The honest part: the builders told CNBC it cost a bit more to put up than they had planned.