Complete with a Main Street, a barber shop and hardware store, this village-in-a-box is designed to make elderly patients with memory loss feel at home in an unexpectedly interior small-town setting.

The Lantern operates a series of such “villages” in Ohio, each looking as much like a movie set as a walkable small town or historic suburb, complete with fake grass, cafe tables and street lamps.

Cute homes are accented with porches and rocking chairs while a high-tech ceiling overhead projects bird sounds and features a high-tech sky display that shifts over the course of the day (and night).

The dwellings and other buildings draw inspiration from the 1940s – in other words: they are made to look like the same places the people living here grew up in.

CEO Jean Makesh got his idea to develop this set of facilities while working as an occupational therapists in less-inviting facilities. His core vision involved using biophilic design to support normal and active lifestyles that would minimize habit disruption and transition anxiety for incoming residents.

It would be too easy to draw comparisons between this place and science-fictional film dystopias (like the Truman Show), but the reality is that for most residents this assisted-living facility is much homier than a stark white hospital-style complex.

A similar-but-outdoor complex in Holland has also been developed along the same lines, containing residents with controlled exits and disguised staff while providing the illusion of an open town through shops and streets.

Whether your furry friends are canine or feline, this pair of posh pet architecture companies have your Modernist domesticated animal needs (quite literally) covered.

And for those domiciles home to both cats and dogs that do not share space, fear not: the Puphaus is made for the outdoor dog and Meyou created for the indoors cat.

First, the Puphaus borrows domestic architectural design elements but employs a tools-free approach for easy assembly, creating a backyard home for your pup that could be cooler than your own house.

“Sporting backgrounds in graphic and industrial design, dog-loving founders Roy Fleeman and Zach Griggs wanted to design & build something unique for man’s best friend: the Puphaus. Time to ditch the plastic igloos and give our pups some stylish new digs.”

The Meyou line of cat furniture by Parisian designer Aude Sanchez approaches the problem as a question of interior design, aiming to create habitats that will not just look good next to but also become part of your decorative scheme.

The resulting cat cocoons are made for curious and playful kitties to use for shelter, napping, hiding or even sharpening their claws.

The Ball, The Cocoon and The Bed are variations on the same design approach, each with slightly different layouts and features – they can work individually or as a set for various rooms.

Ceilings retract and glazed walls swing open to connect intimate indoor spaces with courtyards, terraces and gardens in these modern residences blurring the lines between indoors and out. Located everywhere from Colorado to Kuala Lumpur, these open-air homes take advantage of mild climates and spectacular views, with alternatives to conventional walls enabling natural ventilation and a sense of being connected to nature.

Kloof House, Johannesburg, South Africa

Every room in the sculptural Kloof House by Nico van der Meulen Architects opens directly to the outdoors via gigantic sliding glass walls. The kitchen, living room, dining room and bedrooms can all be fully connected to various outdoor spaces like courtyards, balconies and gardens. The swimming pool becomes part of the living room area, and one bedroom connects to a cantilevered koi pond.

The Fish House, Singapore

This modern tropical residence in Singapore seamlessly integrates courtyard spaces into the interiors on every level for natural ventilation and nearly uninterrupted views of the ocean. A glass-walled lounge cantilevers out over the swimming pool, and residents can walk up onto the green roof, which is partially shaded with solar panels.

Loft 24-7, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Decks and terraces connect the various freestanding volumes that make up Loft 24-7 by Fernanda Marques Arquitetos Associados, with the effect continued indoors using glazed walls and ceilings. “Being inside feeling like one is outside. I believe that to be a key issue in understanding the interior design being produced today,” says the architect. “In times when environmental awareness is growing, and, of course, also the desire to be close to nature.”

Casa P, Sao Paulo, Brazil

The ground floor of Casa P by Studio MK27 is enclosed with a slatted wooden ‘freijó’ wall, which acts as a privacy screen and offers natural ventilation. These oversized shutters can be opened completely to connect the interiors to the courtyard. Two more concrete volumes are stacked on top of the first, with the topmost one boasting all-glass walls for optimal views.

Willow House, Singapore

Greenery from the planted roof drips down into a living space via an open oculus, living spaces overlook swimming pools and reflecting pools, and trees grow indoors in this boundary-blurring house by Guz Architects. Taking advantage of Singapore’s warm, humid climate, the tropical residence blends traditional Singaporean architectural typologies with modern aesthetics.

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Blurring Boundaries 14 Modern Houses That Open To The Air

Pulsing with light and life, this incredible art installation provides Covent Garden, a glass-topped marketplace, with a kind of artificial interior skyscape. Created for the London Design Festival, you can watch a time-lapse video of its construction below.

The ‘Invasions’ of Charles Pétillon are well known for popping up in cramped spaces, photographed, then removed, but this project is scaled far larger than his conventional pieces, is much more public and is also his first work outside of France.

Over 100 feet long, this amorphous cloud organically weaves its way through a realm of historical brick and metal detail, a shockingly light, bright and fragile intrusion into a sharp-cornered combination of architecture and engineering.

“The balloon invasions I create are metaphors”, explains Charles Pétillon. “their goal is to change the way in which we see the things we live alongside each day without really noticing them. with ‘heartbeat’ I want to represent the market building as the beating heart of this area – connecting its past with the present day to allow visitors to re-examine its role at the heart of london’s life.”

The inventor of the suburban American mall as we know it came to hate the effects of his creations, evolving from the creator of this building typology to its most vocal critic. Architect Victor Gruen’s first mall was Southdale, built in 1956 and located in Edina (a suburb of Minneapolis) only miles away from the Mall of America, now the largest indoor shopping center in the United States. Later this month, you can learn more in person about the man and legend at the upcoming Gruen Day celebration, hosted by Tim Hwang of the Bay Area Infrastructure Observatory and Avery Trufelman, producer of 99% Invisible’s episode ‘The Gruen Effect‘.

The episode (embedded above) takes its title from that phenomena we all have come to associate with malls: a compulsion to consume, driven by dazzling displays and careful product placements in stores designed to sell. Gruen had loftier aspirations and nobler inspirations, however, when he first began to illustrate the problem of suburbs and conceive of malls as the solution.

More than just shopping centers, these were to be all-in-one ‘third spaces’ – places in addition to home and work where people could walk, interact and socialize. Following the model of European city centers, he also envisioned them as mixed-use architecture, blending commercial with residential and office spaces, perhaps even including public services like medical centers, libraries and daycares.

Recognizing American reliance on automobiles, Gruen hoped to lure people with ample parking to these centers of activity, then recreate for them the experience of tightly-packed urban streets, vibrant and full of everyday life. Walking into Southdale, you would never guess that this was a first attempt, given its resemblance to other malls around the country.

The shortcomings of this plan were, as we now know, numerous, including but not limited to the privatization of public space. One cannot protest in a mall or walk its halls at any time day or night, and skylights are not a replacement for open skies. Indeed, while malls were popular for a time, the public has fallen out of love with them – the last full-sized shopping center was built nearly a decade ago and there appear to be few if any new ones on the horizon.

In some ways, the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, built in the 1990s and currently being expanded, embodies more of what Gruen envisioned for malls, containing at its center a series of recreational spaces, rides and amusements, and flanked on its sides by places to stay (albeit temporarily – hotels not homes). People even walk and jog its halls in the early hours before stores open, much as they might on city streets – some even get married within its walls.

Perhaps, though, the relative success of this venture is tied in part to the location – the Minneapolis area is almost unbearably cold for most of the year, then quite hot and humid in the summer, making it a perfect place for a temperature-controlled alternative to being outside.

As for Gruen: he eventually returned to Vienna and rejected his work on American malls, advocating for urban renewal in city centers. Meanwhile, interested Bay Area readers will want to get tickets for Gruen Day, taking place in one of Gruen’s earliest malls and featuring speakers, tours, and (of course) food courts, and read more of this story (and many others) at 99% Invisible (illustration by Victor Gruen, poster by the BAIO and photographs via LIFE Magazine, MallsofAmerica and MNopedia).