If I had to nominate a favourite typology in domestic architecture (it’s a question we’re all asked most days), it would be the courtyard house. And this one, by São Paulo’s UNA Arquitetos, is a cracker. A good courtyard house does many things at once – holds the edges of a site, opens up a kernel of space in the middle, cradles privacy within, permits views across into other rooms and in so doing enlivens opposite ends of the home. I could go on…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – LA houses like this are what happens when modernist ideas go to the coast, unwinds by the beach, and unravels in all this louche, approachable brilliance. This is the sort of modern house you’d want to be your friend…

Villa La Banane is seriously BANANAS! First there’s the ridiculously amazing location on the island of Saint Barthélemy in the Caribbean. Then there’s a lot of yellow everywhere which is (almost) always a fabulous idea as far as I’m concerned. I should also mention it’s über-cool owners – vintage furniture collector Jean Marc Israël and Benjamin Fabbri, a former marketing director at Dior. With a combined passion for 1950s design and an eye for impeccable style, La Banane interiors are bathed in good taste at every possible opportunity…

Villa Roces is located on a large site (70m long and 30m wide) in the forest surroundings Bruges in Belgium. Designed by the Flemish studio Govaert & Vanhoutte architectuurburo, the house features a 50m long, 4.20m high timber wall which flanks the 6m wide glass box. The entire house is built around and along this wall which acts as a background for the transparent volume at the front…

I’ll preface this with a disclaimer – I’m about to hold forth on Los Angeles modernism, and I have not been to LA. One day I plan to, with the sole intention of soaking up some great mid-century modernist architecture and design. And when the day comes, I’ll be on edge. And here’s why…