When is a home addition not a home addition? When it is done as elegantly as the Lilyfield House in Sydney, Australia. Nobbs Radford Architects created this subtle modern extension, drawing inspiration from the humble original cottage, with its flanks clad in narrow wooden weatherboards, while still managing to convey a functional, standalone character.

Architect: Nobbs Radford

Let’s face it, we live in a nearly virtual society. Just the fact that you are reading Yanko Design right now and experiencing objects of design through the magic of the intertubes is proof positive. Most of the items featured here on Yanko Design may never actually touch or be near in real life. Same goes for most places on this vast planet. I have been around the world many times and still have only seen a tiny fraction of it. Enter this truly amazing step in virtual tourism called “GeoSim”

New York City has seen its share of being “Ground Zero” for monumental events in pop culture history. From the birthplace of hip hop music, Pop Art, Skyscrapers, Punk Rock, real Pizza and sadly, the World Trade center attacks. Since that tragic day, New Yorkers have done what they do best, by picking up the pieces and making New York even more appealing a place to live today as ever.

Architect: UNStudio

What started as an idea in 2002, has now been completed. The University of the Americas in the city of Concepcion, Chile. The idea behind this futuristic design was to bring a futuristic building to an urban area that is growing in logistics. The area of where the project began was once a quiet area outside of the city, which now is turning into a more centralized location for future growth. Constructed using reinforced concrete floors, with each building level being 60 meters in length.

The Virtual Wall provides a barrier made up of plasma laser beams depicting pedestrians doing what they do best and any car that crosses that barrier suffers the consequences. Okay so maybe those lasers aren’t powerful enough to do any harm but the effect is enough to make drivers and pedestrians alike follow crosswalk rules to the tee.

Designer: Hanyoung Lee

As oxymoronic as it sounds, there is a parking garage that is considered “green”. “How?” you ask. Designers Moore Ruble Yudell Architects and Planners, constructed the garage, which is on its way to being the first LEED Certified parking structure in the USA. The structure provides 900 parking spaces (14 of which are devoted to electric vehicles) throughout six levels of above ground parking and one and a half levels of below ground parking.

Architect: Moore Ruble Yudell

Belsize Architects have designed another spectacular home, No. 13, which is a small, contemporary mews house in London’s historical Regents Park. The architects looked at the project as a way of showing how a modern building could be designed on a small site in a historic part of London, and give a feeling of being much larger than it is while creating a sense of privacy.

Architect: Belsize

Sitting like a shuttle to Naboo, this design by Zaha Hadid Architects was picked to be the new Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania. Zaha Hadid’s design flaunts conceptual characteristics like fluidity, velocity and lightness in a way that make the structure appear to be floating just above the urban landscape.

Designer: Zaha Hadid

Good afternoon Mr. Bond. Welcome to my lair. I can imagine the gleam in young Jérôme Olivet’s eyes, as a child watching all those super click 007 villains and their even slicker evil lairs. Note: Evil geniuses have “lairs”, simple criminals have “hideouts.” It must have taken a mad genius to come up with this architectural design dubbed “JET HOUSE” by Jérôme Olivet.

Designer: Jerome Olivet

For sale: This charming “Tea House” by architect Shigeru Ban, is perfect for those cozy afternoons drinking tea and healing from paper cuts. Designed as an exercise in low-tech, adaptable and recyclable construction. The use of paper based building materials might prove to be a reasonable temporary housing solution in disaster zones around the globe.

Architect: Shigeru Ban