Rooftops have long been popular urban substitutions for yards; city dwellers use their rooftops for sunbathing, grilling a few hamburgers, hanging clothes out to dry, or even a bit of rooftop gardening. But these clever dwellings use sky-high rooftop space as a prime location for living quarters. Rooftop dwellings run the range from shanties to luxury penthouses, but they all bear the benefit of offering the residents a bird’s eye view of their surroundings

Manhattan Rooftop Homes

(images via: Apartment Therapy)

In a city where real estate is precious and scarce, it makes sense to build up. These structures were built on top of existing buildings, and they’re not an entirely unusual sight in New York and other densely populated cities. They are usually built to give the existing owners/occupants more room, or to provide a warm-weather retreat. However, smart building owners could easily rent them out as luxury penthouses, given their unparalleled views of the city.

London Rooftop Home Extension

(image via: Hut Architecture)

When graphic designer Morag Myerscough decided to add on to her Clerkenwell home, she called Hut Architecture to design her very own rooftop retreat. The tiny hut atop her roof looks like it was simply plopped there by a crane, but in fact it was built on site. A stairwell inside the main home leads up to the hut on the roof, emerging inside the tiny addition. The project was featured on BBC3’s Guerrilla Homes, possibly providing inspiration for other city dwellers who don’t feel they have room to expand their homes.

Rooftop Home Addition in Buenos Aires

(images via: Treehugger)

Textile designer Rosa Skific needed to add a workshop on to her small Buenos Aires home, but there were some rather constricting stipulations: it had to be low-budget, of low environmental impact, and take up virtually no space. FPS Architecture stepped in with a solution: perch a prefab metal container on the roof and connect it to the main house via a set of stairs. The resulting workshop adds the needed space without taking up any additional real estate, and the cheery red color adds a bit of life to the otherwise grey and chaotic Buenos Aires rooftop landscape.

Mexico City Rooftop Shack-Turned-Penthouse

(image via: The Architectural Review)

This home, in an architecturally fascinating part of Mexico City, once featured a tiny artist’s shack on its rooftop. The owners decided to keep the rooftop living, but to actually extend the formal living space up into a brand new penthouse. The Austrian group Architects Collective worked with Mexico City architects at.103 to create this fluid, modern addition to the existing three-story building.

Prefab Rooftop Dwellings

(images via: Dornob and Apartment Therapy)

Building a permanent addition to an existing home isn’t the only way to add rooftop living space. These prefab additions could easily function as temporary additions, then later be moved to a different location. The top image is a LoftCube: an all-in-one dwelling designed to be easily dropped into place on a rooftop via a crane. This modern design lets in plenty of natural light and would look perfect atop a tall building. For those who prefer the DIY life, the bottom image is an Icosa Village Pod. These sustainable, low-cost pods actually snap together in place, making them ideal for on-site building. This one lives in New York, no doubt giving its occupants stunning high-rise views of the city.

Rooftop Rentals, or Removable Rooms

(image via: Everland)

These rooftop hotel rooms represent a surprisingly luxurious side to both “mobile” homes and rooftop living. The above image is Hotel Everland, which is as much art project as it is hotel room. Designed by art duo Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann, it’s a one-room hotel that travels to different locations, landing atop each roof for a limited time. The room can be rented for one night only, and comes with a stocked minibar (included in the price), towels which the artists encourage guests to steal, and unforgettable, ever-changing views.

(images via: Dornob)

These pictures are from the Grand Daddy Hotel in South Africa, the owners of which decided to add a distinctive penthouse level made of old Airstream mobile homes on the building’s roof. The rooms are all uniquely decorated and share a central open-air courtyard, much like an urban rooftop campground.

Hong Kong’s Rooftop Communities

(images via: Peperoni Books)

Rooftop living isn’t all about luxury. In many parts of the world, the poor and the homeless have taken to the rooftops as a last refuge. Illegal rooftop homes in Hong Kong, such as those above, have been considered by officials to be a public safety hazard for quite some time. They are systematically removing the homes, which are often little more than shanties built of sheet metal. The fascinating rooftop communities of Hong Kong were documented – with pictures, explanations and even architectural drawings – in the book Portraits From Above: Hong Kong’s Informal Rooftop Communities by Stefan Canham and Rufina Wu.

(image via: UrbanPhoto)

Lined up on the tops of apartment buildings, at first glance they almost appear to belong there. Indeed, they are often bought and rented just like regular real estate. But most of these rooftop dwellings are occupied by immigrants, asylum seekers and indigent people who simply cannot afford conventional housing.

Design-wise, condos and townhouses are known for being less-than-thrilling examples of architecture. They are typically boxy and boring with little variation between them. Believe it or not, there are some condos and townhouses that are truly unique and interesting. These buildings push the conventional applications of the architectural styles and prove that living in a condo or townhouse doesn’t have to mean living in a boring, cookie-cutter building. And check out our complete collection of 70 Amazing Houses from Around the World.

(images via: Paul Warchol)

The popularity of “green” architecture has most definitely been on the rise in recent years, and this townhouse in Tribeca is the perfect example of how style and Earth-friendly design can happily co-exist. The home features a unique geothermal climate system which controls the heating, cooling, and water heating. The home was completed in 2002 by architect John Petrarca who lived there with his wife, but he sadly died the year following its completion. In addition to its forward-thinking geothermal system, the house boasts over 6,000 square feet of space and five stories.

(images via: Daily Dose)

In an increasingly urban world, outdoor space is highly coveted. Apartment and condo dwellers especially are at a shortage of green and airy spaces to connect with nature in their homes. The designers of the Urban Cactus in Rotterdam want to change the experience of condo inhabitants by giving them amazing views and a personal garden space. The shape of each unit is dictated by the outdoor space it provides, with the terraces arranged in a staggered configuration so that each terrace features an open space overhead rather than the floor of the above unit.

(images via: WallyG and: New York Architecture Images)

New York City is famous for its eclectic architecture and tiny (but expensive) living spaces. These townhouses are both historic NYC abodes that also happen to be some of the most visually interesting. The house on the left was once the hideout of radical leftist Weathermen group. It was here in 1970 that part of the group’s bomb factory exploded, destroying the house in the process. It was then rebuilt in 1978 with this oddly tilted angle.

The house on the right is known as the narrowest house in the city. Featuring a maximum interior width of 8 feet, 7 inches and a minimum width of just two feet, this house requires some getting used to. It has been the home to several notable people, including the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, cartoonist William Steig, and actors John Barrymore and Cary Grant. Today it’s something of a tourist attraction for architecture and history buffs, although it’s still a private residence.

(images via: Collaborative Designworks)

The forward-thinking team at Collaborative Designworks in Texas are working to change the image of townhouses. They were tired of seeing the same boring boxes, so they set out to design townhouses that were not only more attractive to look at from the outside, but that would offer more outdoor space and fewer shared walls for occupants. The result was The 505 in Houston. The units feature abundant windows with a spectacular view of the newly rejuvenated downtown area along with roof decks on the third floor. The clever design of the building means that occupants share only one wall and can enjoy a much greater sense of privacy than most townhouse dwellers.

(image via: e-architect.co.uk)

Although it’s not yet completed, the Museum Plaza Skyscraper in Louisville, Kentucky promises to be a giant of the downtown Louisville skyline. When finished it will feature 1.5 million square feet and be filled with luxury condos, offices, a hotel, retail shops, and a huge contemporary arts center. The designers and architects involved are striving to create a city within a city to combat urban sprawl and rejuvenate the area of downtown Louisville which was previously full of derelict buildings.

(image via: Space 1999)

One of the best-known unusual condo complexes in the world is Habitat 67 in Montreal. Designed to give condo dwellers a better living experience than the plain urban skyscrapers, these condos allow inhabitants great views and a unique urban environment. The stacked-boxes appearance of the units creates interesting outdoor spaces as well as reducing the possibility that residents will glance out of their window and directly into another resident’s window.

Crazy Houses 1: Beach and Lake Houses

Crazy Houses 2: Mountain and Cliff Houses

For those of us who value art and the richness it brings to our lives, we strive to experience it firsthand whenever possible. We make pilgrimages to the world’s best art museums, attend shows in galleries, and study the works of the masters. Some of us may even be inspired to create our own art as an homage to these great works.

But when the artist you admire is an anonymous street artist, it gets a bit more complicated. With Banksy we often experience the work in some kind of secondary form – such as photos of his works, prints in a less pricey series or intricate fan tattoos. Welcome to part three in our eight-part guide to Banksy Art and Graffiti.

(image via: Banksy.co.uk)

Banksy is irrefutably a talented artist. He has gained a worldwide following and his pseudonym is known around the world. What makes the Banksy experience unusual is that most of his fans have never seen one of his pieces in person. Most of us wouldn’t even know about him if not for the spread of his work over the internet.

(image via: Mad Paul)

Various photos of Banksy’s work have been passed around on the internet for years. His street works, gallery shows, books, and auctioned pieces have created a stir unparalleled by any other street artist in history. Although his art has shown up in cities far and wide, there are plenty of places he hasn’t tagged. The fact that people in those untouched places still know his name is an astonishing feat for someone who works with spray cans and stencils on concrete walls.

(Top images via: Banksy.co.uk Bottom image via: Pinewood Design)

What’s more is that many of Banksy’s works are extremely transient. Beautiful as they are, they are usually gone within hours. They are removed and painted over by city workers who adhere to a zero-tolerance policy on graffiti.

It is perhaps this transience, in part, that has led to such an explosion in Banksy admiration. His pieces are difficult to see, nearly impossible to own, and can be enjoyed by most people only as images on a computer screen. Those who are lucky enough to see one of his works in person often take a photograph of it, knowing that if they return to the spot tomorrow it may not be there. In most cases it will have been painted over, but an increasingly common possibility is that it will have been purchased and moved to another location. It’s not hard to imagine a time in the future when elusive photos of Banksy works will be worth nearly as much as his original pieces of art themselves.

(image via: Pictures on Walls)

The enigmatic artist’s work has spawned numerous websites and online forums. Most are as a tribute, but some are to meant to decry his art and depict him as a criminal. No matter what their content, some of these sites are making decent amounts of money simply by capitalizing on the name, regardless of the fact that they have no connection with Banksy himself.

(image via: Banksy.co.uk)

To his credit, even Banksy believes that the prices paid for his artwork are far too high. Although it’s been occasionally possible to find authentic Banksy prints online for somewhat affordable prices, several of his pieces have recently been auctioned off to wealthy bidders for astronomical amounts of money. Signed prints which have been in private collections are now selling for more than their previous owners ever dreamed of. You won’t find low-quality Banksy prints on sale at your local “ready to hang” art superstore. You will, however, find a link to Banksy’s shop on his official website. The shop is filled with only free images, which he encourages visitors to download and use for any non-commercial purpose they see fit.

(Top image via: danfloorjustice. Bottom images via: GYLo and: nicasaurusrex)

Many people have taken that invitation and used these free Banksy prints – and other Banksy pieces found online – in their tattoo designs. Banksy tattoos have enjoyed a meteoric rise in popularity over the last several years. To an artist who started off by spray painting buildings in his hometown, this must be the ultimate compliment. Knowing that there are people out there who admire his work enough to make it a permanent part of their flesh has to feel absolutely amazing. The transience and untouchable quality of street art is then turned into an immovable statement of art, love, dedication, and everything else that the particular piece means to the tattoo-holder.

(image via: Blavish)

While some artists would be up in arms about the reproduction of their work, Banksy carries a slightly less territorial view of his art. As a street artist, he believes that his art belongs on the street where people can see it. His books were released with the intent of sharing his transient artwork with those who would never get to see it in person. His gallery pieces? They just pay the bills. The heart and soul of this street artist is now, and forever will be, right there on the street with those who admire him the most.

Banksy Art 1: Who is Banksy?

Banksy Art 2: Graffiti, Drawings and Stencils