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A Gorgeous, Sophisticated yet Family-Friendly Glass House

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This elegant and simple glass house from Govaert & Vanhoutte is set in a clearing, but surrounded by trees whose high canopy of leaves bathe this swimming child in dappled sunlight.

The house is a long, narrow glass box. In front is what seems to be a narrow lap pool.

It is wider than it looks as it extends an equal distance underground, beneath the concrete walkway, which acts as a pool cover, keeping warmth in.

Because half the width of the pool is under the walkway, the pool doubles as part of the front lawn too.

Bedrooms on the semi-below ground floor overlook the pool which spatially appears to extend the bedrooms viewed from this level.

The rigorously simple design makes a lovely glass house that both encourages a healthy childhood and is uncompromisingly elegant and minimal.

This kitchen cabinetry – which is simply floor to ceiling – is the most complete storage imaginable.

It makes for the most uncluttered kitchen ever! And the floor to roof-sized exit to the front lawn is simply a huge glass wall.

Here you see the genius of this narrow glass box design. The child is drawing at the far end of the kitchen counter/breakfast table.

The narrow glass house seems bigger than it is because the exterior wall behind her acts as the edge of the room. It as if she is drawing in the dappled shade of the forest itself.

It seems as if there are no intercessionary walls, just white slabs that you see round, so they seem iconic and sculptural, rather than structural.

From the outside, however, that modest exterior wall appears to act only to preserve privacy.

As you see below, the other side of the wall is faced in wood, and from the outside appears to be the wooden back of the house.

Piercing that exterior wall at the middle is this elegantly simple door in from the back of the house, entering the narrow width so you see right through to the front lawn.

The floor to roof doors are no-fuss elegant, bringing nobility and purposefulness to the glass house.

Parking is hidden under the house, which is on three levels.

At this level the pool at the bottom left is wider. At the next level, ground level, you see the concrete walkway over it.

Coming up from the bedroom floor to the kitchen and living room level is like moving through the natural setting outside.

These stairs are barely there, just jutting from the wall.

Because the house is so narrow, and glassed to the roof, dappled light fills the interior.

Almost invisible from outside – covered in reflections of the tree canopy in the clearing, the glass house just seems to disappear into its setting.