Balancing Buildings: 14 Structures that Seem to Defy Gravity

Thai Home by Kidd Co. Ltd.

Balancing Buildings Thai Home 1

Balancing Buildings Thai Home 2

Balancing Buildings Thai Home 3

This unusual house in Thailand by Kidd Co. Ltd. is a minimalist rectangle seemingly plopped on top of a more organic-looking base. The upper floor is the main house, while the grounded portion is the guest quarters.

Hemeroscopium House

Balancing Buildings Hemeroscopium 1

Balancing Buildings Hemeroscopium 2

A narrow infinity pool juts dramatically from a seemingly unstable stack of concrete volumes. The ultramodern Hemeroscopium House in Madrid by Ensamble Studio features seven prefabricated elements that are piled to create a helix. “Hemeroscopium house materializes the peak of its equilibrium with what in Ensamble Studio we ironically call the ‘G Point,’ a twenty ton granite stone, expression of the force of gravity and a physical counterweight to the whole structure.”

Teetering Tea Houses by Terunobu Fujimori

Balancing Buildings Terunobu

Balancing Buildings Terunobu 2

Japanese architect Terunobu Fujimori is known for his whimsical tea houses, which are often perched atop alarmingly high or spindly supports to look out over the surrounding landscape. Looking like something out of a fantasy film, the little houses are a relaxing place to meditate, if you can forget how precariously the whole structure is balanced.