You know those glass tubes at the bank drive-through that shoot your deposits and withdrawals back and forth between you and the tellers? This house is like living in a cluster of them. Sadly, they’re not full of money, but it’s still pretty cool. ‘Cylinder House’ by lead architect Cyril Lancelin of the firm Town and Concrete is a modular glass residence in Lyon, France that can easily be expanded and rearranged without disturbing the trees around it by adding or subtracting one glass tube at a time.

Set on plinths, the tubes are narrow enough to allow for optimal malleability, conforming to the site. Some are taller than others, and some seem to hover above the landscape. The tubes can be fully open to each other, partially open or closed off altogether for smaller spaces. There are no walls or hallways inside other than the curving glass.

“The furniture marks space, but its movement can reinvent the house,” say the architects. “The plan is not fixed, to follow the evolution of the lives of these occupants. From the outside, the facades undulate… this system of cylinder juxtaposition allows to enlarge the house but also to have a blurred outer delimitation of the house with its context.”

The effect is definitely unusual when viewing the house from outside. As modular designs become more popular, their inventiveness only increases. It’ll be interesting to see how architecture as a whole is affected by the trend in the coming years.

Glass floors give us a glimpse at what’s beneath our feet – whether that’s the historical bones of a building, a swimming pool on the next floor, the city streets or the bottom of a canyon – while freaking us out over the potential of breakage. And yes, sometimes these glass floors really do crack, no matter how ‘unbreakable’ they’re supposed to be, including those situated hundreds of feet above the ground.

2 Glass-Bottomed Bridges in China

You’d better not be afraid of heights if you’re gonna cross this glass-bottomed bridge in China, suspended a stomach-turning 590 feet above ground level in China’s central Hunan Province. Known locally as Haohan Quiao, the bridge features glass panels measuring 24 millimeters thick, which are supposedly 25 times stronger than regular glass. But this isn’t the only such bridge in China. The second is the structure hanging 1350 feet over the bottom of Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon – and this bridge really did crack at one point under an unexpected volume of visitors, forcing its closure. This one is officially the world’s longest glass bridge.

Office in Oslo by Reiulf Ramstad

A 19th century villa gets a modern update by architect Reiulf Ramstad, while this transparent section of floor reveals the old beams hidden beneath the newer materials for a reminder of the building’s history.

Hotel Les Cols Pavellons

You’d never guess that just beyond the traditional-looking 13th century farmhouse at hotel Les Cols Pavellons in the Catalan town of Olot is a series of ultramodern glass pavilions. These ‘zen’ hotel rooms are like crystal cubes housing almost nothing but a bed, a glass table and chairs and a bath for a minimalist experience that’s all about experiencing the design.

Glass-Bottomed Sky Slide in Los Angeles

More than just a glass-bottomed observation deck, which is becoming more common all over the world, this attraction at the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles is a fully functioning slide that chutes guests 45 feet from a window on the 70th story to a terrace on the 69th.

Glass-Bottomed Suspended Pool in Houston

Houston is home to an awesome plexiglass pool that cantilevers 10 feet past the edge of the building, 500 feet above street level. Installed at the new Market Square Tower apartment building by Jackson & Ryan Architects, the skypool offers views of the Houston skyline, and stops passersby in their tracks on the sidewalk below.

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Tread Lightly 16 Clearly Stunning Transparent Floor Designs

Transparent additions to historic architecture physically expand the space while making the subtlest possible changes to the building exteriors, allowing you to see the original structures right through the glazed walls. Augmenting 500-year-old farmhouses,  Victorian row houses in London and some of Paris’ most iconic-looking apartment buildings, these modern glass extensions aim to blend in with the sky, offering transitions to gardens and bringing natural light into formerly dark interiors.

17th Century Manor Update by Jonathan Tuckey Design

Invisible from the street, this ‘ghostly’ addition to the 17th century Yew Street House in London by Jonathon Tuckey Design lets you see right through its walls to the original stone structure, disrupting its beautiful form as little as possible while adding a gorgeous light-filled dining space.

Farmer’s Cottage in Croatia by Proarh

Zagreb-based architecture firm Proarh renovated a dilapidated traditional Zagorje cottage in Croatia into a modern family home, retaining the external frame while replacing the existing porch with a transparent glass view facing a view of the mountains.

19th Century Parisian Photography Studio to Rooftop Apartments

This glass addition to a 19th century photography studio in Paris by Vincent Parreira Atelier is conceived as an ‘inhabited observatory’ perched atop a Haussmannian building in the city’s Opéra-Madeleine district.

Straatweg Extension by BBVH Architecten

An original masonry structure in Rotterdam, built in the 1930s, gets some much-needed natural light thanks to a two-story, all-glass wing added by BBVH Architecten, which features a transparent roof, facade and upper-level floor with an operable garage-style door leading out to the garden.

‘Salle Labrouste’ Former French National Library

A major overhaul to the French National Library by Bruno Gaudin and Virginie Bregal updated it for the 21st century while retaining its dazzling beauty, adding a glass gallery that serves as a rooftop promenade to link two sides of the structure’s quadrangle.

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Transparent Intentions 13 Glass Additions To Historic Architecture

Watch for shooting stars and identify constellations from the comfort of a warm and cozy bed in rooms designed to provide nearly unfettered access to the sky, with transparent roofs blurring the lines between indoors and out. From hotels in some of the world’s prime stargazing locations like Finland and Chile to homes equipped with observatories to a tree house that literally lifts its lid, these see-through structures flood the interiors with sunlight during the day and offer amazing views at night.

Starlight Room

Set on faux skis, with a glass ceiling and walls, the Starlight Room looks out onto the Dolomites in the northern Italian town of Cortina d’Ampezzo for high-altitude views far from light pollution and noise. The tiny hotel room accommodates singles and couples, and contains little more than a double bed and television. Guests arrive via snowmobile or snow shoes, and room service is delivered, though it looks like exiting the cabin to go to the bathroom in the snow might not be the most pleasant experience in the middle of the night.

The Sky Den Literally Lifts its Lid

The roof of this tree house by architect George Clark opens to the sky, enlarging the space so it can be used as a protected indoor shelter or an open-air observatory. Located in England’s Kielder Water & Forest Park, the Sky Den has flat-pack furniture built right into its movable walls, so guests can pull down and set up whatever they need to be comfortable, from beds to stools and benches.

Camouflage House

A habitable greenhouse, Hiroshi Iguchi’s Camouflage House blends into the landscape, with an inner core of private spaces surrounded by a glass enclosure. Almost completely transparent, the house in Nagano, Japan incorporates an interior garden via openings that allow trees to grow straight up the angled roof from the courtyard.

Transparent Ceilings and Floors

This four-story house in Shanghai by architect Yung Ho Chang of Atelier FCJZ features a glass roof as well as transparent floors on three levels, so you can see the interior of each floor in addition to the sky. Designed as a concrete box with no windows, the home gets all of its daylight from the ceiling. Talk about radical transparency – the toilet is even visible from just below the dining room.

Bob Hope’s UFO House

Designed by John Lautner in 1973, the house Bob Hope lived in for decades with his wife Dolores features a dramatic oculus for daylight and stargazing. The bizarre-looking structure was nicknamed ‘UFO House’ and ‘Volcano Home’ for its unusual shape when viewed from afar. Lautner refused to claim the project as his own work, reportedly because Dolores Hope demanded changes to the interior that didn’t fit his artistic vision.

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Beyond The Glass Ceiling 14 Houses Made For Stargazing

Spotlighting the reflective, shimmering and transparent qualities of glass, architecture primarily made up of glazed volumes interacts with its environment in ways that opaque structures simply can’t, whether they’re overlooking the ocean or in the middle of a busy urban square. Their sense of vulnerability is tempered by this feeling of connection, containing their inhabitants without cutting them off from the world.

Japanese School

“I wanted to create a building where it isn’t clear if there are any rules at all,” says architect Junya Ishigami of the disorienting Kanazawa Institute of Technology, comprised of little more than 305 steel columns and a whole lot of glass. The structure reflects the trees at its perimeter, seeming to multiply them, making it feel more like a forest itself than a college classroom. Inside, the steel beams mimic tree trunks.

Russet Residence by Splyce Design

Stacks of glazed boxes jut out from a Vancouver hillside in this modern residence by Splyce Design, stretching out toward the ocean. Some rooms even cantilever from the sides of the house, maximizing the number of interior spaces with an impressive view. All of that frameless glazing helps the home blend in with its surrounding forest environment.

Offices for Junta de Castilla y Leon by Alberto Campo Baeza

How do you make a structure feel simultaneously open and vulnerable, and as secure as a fortress? Build a glass box inside a stone enclosure. Alberto Campo Baeza’s offices for Junta de Castilla y León utilizes sandstone to disguise the very modern building in its historic environment, the walled city of Zamora, Spain. The perimeter walls provide privacy, while the glazed box within soaks up sunlight.

Skyline Residence

The incredible Skyline Residence in Hollywood by Belzberg Architects has its very own drive-in theater on the side of a geometric glazed volume. The entirety of the glass facade opens to the sky on the bottom floor, leading out to a 65-foot hillside infinity pool.

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Glitter And Float 13 Glamorous Glass Box Buildings