If you own one of the relatively few residential properties designed by modern-day starchitects, it’s a big deal. Not only because of the designer’s status as one of the world’s most influential contemporary contributors to the built environment, but because in many parts of the world, most homes aren’t truly designed at all. It’s assumed that as little as 2% of residences around the world are spearheaded by an architect. So if you get any architect to artfully craft a home for you, it’s a pretty exciting experience—one that only grows if it’s a legendary designer too.
While many of today’s starchitects have solidified their names through towering contributions to global skylines, striking concert halls, world-class hotels, and other projects of the like, many also have a small—but mighty—portfolio of private residences. No surprise that they’re pretty astonishing places. Below, AD visits six residential properties designed by modern-day starchitects around the world.
Photo: Jason Schmidt
Frank Gehry
Though Frank Gehry is more frequently known as the designer of the Guggenheim Bilbao or Walt Disney Concert Hall, he stepped into the architecture spotlight with the creation of his own Santa Monica home. Decades later, Gehry returned to the idea of being his own clients, and designed a new family home with his son, Sam. “Like so much of the firm’s work, this house refuses to choose between comfort and challenge, and seems intent on offering both,” Paul Goldberger wrote about the home for AD in 2019.
Photo: Luke Hayes
Zaha Hadid
“Zaha was certainly asked by many people around the globe to design their family home, but I suspect time was the real [limiting] factor,” Bidisha Sinha, an associate director at Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), told AD in 2023. Located in Belgravia, London, this four-floor home was one of only two the late visionary crafted in her career. However, it flew relatively under the radar until last year. On the other hand, Hadid’s first home, the Capital Hill Residence, received much fanfare when it was completed in 2018.
Photo: Paul Raeside
Bjarke Ingels
In 2019, AD revealed the first home designed by Danish starchitect Bjarke Ingels. “Because we had never done a private house, no one asked,” the designer said at the time. Located on a challenging plot in South America, the home begins with a triangle base and rises to a rectangular roof. “We weren’t guaranteed that it was going to be a great house, but we arrived at something full of character,” he added.
Photo: Botond Bognar
Kengo Kuma and Associates
Known as Suteki House, this home designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates is located in Portland, Oregon. The suburban homes of the 20th century in the United States were often isolated structures on a grassy plot of land. This design was crafted as a model for the suburban home of the 21st century—one that is not just surrounded by a lawn of grass, but fully in conversation with the surrounding environment. The L-shaped home frames a creek in front of it, an homage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.
Photo: Nigel Young
Norman Foster
Dolunay Villa by Foster + Partners is located along the coast of the Aegean Sea in Muğla, Turkey. Sinuous contours define the striking property, which is topped with a handcrafted undulating timber roof. A Mediterranean garden surrounds the home and is filled with plants such as thyme, lavender, and olive trees.
Photo: Courtesy of Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel
Appearing to emerge from within—or sink into—the surrounding plot, Delbigot Home was designed by Jean Nouvel in 1970 and completed in 1973. The concrete house was the architect’s first residential design, crafted when he was just 25.
Photo: Jason Schmidt
Photo: Jason Schmidt
Photo: Luke Hayes
Photo: Luke Hayes
Photo: Paul Raeside
Photo: Paul Raeside
Photo: Botond Bognar
Photo: Botond Bognar
Photo: Nigel Young
Photo: Nigel Young
Photo: Courtesy of Jean Nouvel
Photo: Courtesy of Jean Nouvel