Beyond the fundamental notion of shelter, what defines a house? The broad-ranging selection of extraordinary dwellings in the Architecture Now! Houses series shows the concept to be infinitely malleable: one house seems to hover above the ground, another is embedded in it; some have stark minimal lines, others have tropical gardens; some are palatial, others monastic—all of them displaying remarkable structural and aesthetic mastery. Here is a connoisseur's choice of the world's most remarkable new houses.

Architecture Now! Houses features architects and practices including:
3LHD Architects, Ábalos & Herreros, Ricardo Bak Gordon, Shigeru Ban, Blank Studio, Gianni Botsford, Nancy Copley, Correia/Ragazzi Arquitectos, Durbach Block, Eastern Design Office, Fuhrimann & Hächler, Terunobu Fujimori, Sou Fujimoto Architects, Kotaro Ide, Carlos Jiménez, Jouin Manku, Kamayachi + Harigai, Mathias Klotz, Kengo Kuma, Leven Betts Studio, MOS, Mount Fuji Architects Studio, Plasma Studio, Antoine Predock, Laurent Savioz, Shim + Sutcliffe, Álvaro Siza Vieira, Philippe Stuebi, Zhang Lei, René van Zuuk and many others