Wacky Wednesday: Gravity-Defying Homes From Around the World

Ingenious engineering brings unique architecture to new heights.       

Archangelsk, Russia

Though incomplete, the “Gangster House” is believed to be the world's tallest wooden house, soaring thirteen floors to reach 144 feet (about half the size of London’s Big Ben). The homeowner, gangster Nikolai Sutyagin, had all intentions of finishing the construction but his dream went on hold when he got locked up behind bars for his third jail sentence. Now out of jail and out of money, the ex-convict lives at the bottom of this precarious tower of wood.
               

British Columbia, Canada

Free Spirits' wooden spheres can be hung from any solid surface (tree, cliff, bridge, etc.) and are accessed by a spiral stairway or a short suspension bridge. A web of rope grasps onto a strong point, essentially replacing the foundation of a conventional building. You can anchor points on the top and bottom to prevent swinging or just let it loose and enjoy the ride.

Syzmbark, Poland

The design of the Upside Down House seems totally nonsensical—but that is exactly the message the Polish philanthropist and designer, Daniel Czapiewski, was trying to send. The unstable and backward construction was built as a social commentary on Poland’s former Communist era. The monument is worth a trip, be it for a lesson in history or balance.

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Cool-looking would be a good enough reason for us, but the Cactus House was created to maximize each apartment’s outdoor space and indoor sunlight. The splaying stack of slabs creates big terraces for gardening and the irregular shape allows sun to enter from multiple angles.

Krasnosilka, Ukraine

Supported by a single cantilever, this mysterious Floating Castle, a levitating farm house, belongs in a sci-fi flick. Allegedly located in an abandoned granary near Krasnosilka in Ukraine, it's claimed to be an old bunker for the overload of mineral fertilizers.

Cincinnati, Ohio

So disparate in materials and shapes the hodgepodge Mushroom House looks like it's been welded and glued together. But this is no random construction: It was designed by the professor of architecture and interior design at the University of Cincinnati, Terry Brown, and was on the market in recent years.

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Living in a tilted house is much easier than it looks—just ask the people living in these the Kijk-Kubus cube homes. Architect Piet Blom tipped a conventional house forty-five degrees and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pole so that three sides face down and the other three face the sky. Each of the cube houses accommodates three floors: a living space including a kitchen, study and bathroom, the middle floor houses bedrooms and the top is the pyramid room that can act like an attic or viewing deck. These houses are quite expensive, but you can satisfy your curiosity by visiting the museum show house.

Amsterdam-Osdorp, Holland

A zoning law and blueprint flub were the inspiration for the Wozoco Apartments. Dutch housing regulations require apartment construction to provide a certain amount of daylight to their tenants—but MVRDV architects forgot to plan for that. Their solution? To hang thirteen of the 100 units off the north facade of the block. The ingenious design saves ground floor space and allows enough sunlight to enter the east or west facade.

Freiburg, Germany)

Green to the extreme: Architect Rolf Disch built the Heliotrope Rotating House, a solar powered home that rotates towards the warm sun in the winter and rotates back toward its well-insulated rear in the summer. A house that spins in circles doesn’t sound too stable to us, but for the environment it might be worth the risk.

Berman House (Joadja, Australia)

Surrounded by lush vegetation and the wild animals of the Outback, the striking cliffside Berman House hangs over a deep river cut-canyon. We don’t know what makes this split-level house more thrilling—looking down from the plank-like living room, or all those wild animals.

Montreal, Canada

Apartments connect and stack like Lego blocks in Montreal's Habitat 67. Without a traditional vertical construction, the apartments have the open space that most urban residences lack, including a separate patio for each apartment.

Anywhere!

Inspired by a city billboard, this rendering of the pole-supported Single Hausz only needs a few feet of land to hold a home. And it can be installed in a variety of ground conditions, so you can relocate it to wherever your heart desires.

New Rochelle, New York

We assumed this oddball home was UFO-inspired, but it turns out the weed Queen Anne’s lace was the inspiration for the Pod House. Its thin stems support pods with interconnected walkways.

Darwin, Australia

It’s pretty gutsy to build a stilt-house, like the Rozak House, in cyclone country, but these residents came prepared. Even if Mother Nature knocked their house off the grid, the solar power panels and rainwater collection systems would keep them self-sufficient. Take that, cyclone!

From http://www.countryliving.com/homes/real-estate/gravity-defying-homes#last-slide