Time, Caroline, to go and see how the other half live.Talk about, "Welcome to my humble abode."
Cor! That is a whole lot of house.
He's Piers Taylor, an award-winning architect.
I mean, the depth of this wall, it's four foot thick.
After you, My Lord.
And she is Caroline Quentin,
acclaimed actress and passionate property developer.
This house has the perfect ratio of bedrooms to swimming pools.
We've been given the keys to some of the most incredible houses in the world.
If we were left alone here for any amount of time, I have a feeling...
We would ruin this house. THEY LAUGH
To discover the design innovation,
passion and endurance needed to transform architectural vision
into an extraordinary home.
Look! I'm dumbstruck.
We're travelling the globe.
Oh-ho!Meeting architects and owners to explore how their daring homes
respond uniquely to local landscape, climate and culture.
I think this is probably the greatest house I've ever been in.
Whether it is battling the elements to construct a dream home
on dramatic Scandinavian terrain...
The architect was nervous that things would go wrong.
He couldn't bear to look at it.
..pushing the boundaries of European experimentation...
I think that's it.I think it is.
When I looked at the proposal, at the beginning I was almost shocked.
..celebrating craftsmanship and beauty in Asia...
We've likened this house to dripping chocolate sauce
over vanilla ice cream.
..or going all out for glamour in America...
You just do what you do best, which is to create a masterpiece.
IN US ACCENT:Piers! Is this too Miami?
# Tone, get the plane!
# Uh, uh
# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh
# Miami, uh, uh South Beach... #
In our search for the world's most extraordinary homes,
we've come to the USA and headed straight for the Sunshine State.
# Jig it out, uh... #
Give me a word that describes Miami, Florida?
Heat.Sunshine.
Water.Money.
I've got to say it... BOTH: Glamour!
But we are looking for more than a bit of bling.
I feel like I'm in a painting.
We've been given the keys to four Florida homes
and in a place with a celebrated architectural heritage,
we will discover how some of the world's greatest architects can deliver the glitz...
Oh!This is my quiet Miami.
..with high-end design.
This is a house that opens up like no house I've ever seen.
We'll explore how Florida's modernist history
is now influencing a new generation of architects.
It's the perfect house.
For this part of the world.
Large or small, there's no doubt we're in the right place
to see how high culture mixes with popular culture,
to see houses opulent and down-to-earth.
It's extraordinarily beautiful and very, very enticing.
Our first home overlooks Indian Creek and the Atlantic Ocean.
Built on a waterfront plot the locals refer to as...
IN US ACCENT:"Prime real estate".
I don't know about you, but I feel well out of my comfort zone.
You and I, we're welly boots people, aren't we?
Very much. We live in boggy parts of the south-west of England.
Judging by the amount of incredibly smart boats and glamorous houses,
if you've got it, flaunt it - I think that's what happens in Miami.
What's curious about these houses
is that they're quite traditional houses.
They're quite ordinary, architecturally.
I haven't seen anything that's kind of really out there.
Where's the flamboyance?Exactly. Something sort of cutting-edge.
I think the question then is, if you can do anything you want...
What do you do with all those dollars?
What you do is aim high and seek out an exceptional architect.
Canal House is the result of a developer willing to value design
more than cost-cutting, to create a remarkable waterside house.
It's time to go and see how the other half live.
Rooted in an understanding of traditional modernism,
there's also something cinematic about its main elevation.
If you've got 30 million to spare, you could buy this place.
But does that sort of price tag guarantee you good design?
Cor! It's a big place.
Oh, I like what I can see through there.
There's another world through there.
The facade does make a big impact.
But what really sets this house apart is how just as much attention
has been paid to what's behind.
Where the designers have created an informal tropical garden with soft
curves and rich planting around a natural swimming pool.
You're sort of almost in nature,
even though we're very much in the city.
And a sun trap, I mean, it's incredibly bright here.
Anything? I think that's the bedrooms.
OK.So, all of this will open up and out you come in the morning
and swim in your natural pool.
How lovely. It's got fish in it, too.
I'm not sure I would really fancy a dip in there,
but it's a picture to look at.
And this looks like an ancient, decaying, dinosaur spine.
This snaking walkway is the primary entrance to the house.
Coming from the street, you're swept up over the garden
towards the main living spaces
which are concealed behind a striking perforated wall.
Presumably that is all living space up there, front to back.
We can see through it, and this is one big shade on the west side,
because the sun will set here, the afternoon sun is the really hot sun.
What's nice here is that instead of it being a blank wall,
it has texture.
Also that shaded area underneath must be lovely when it gets hot,
which it really does here in Miami, doesn't it?Yeah.
This is the Sunshine State.
This house has to deal with the heat of the tropics
as well as providing a range of living spaces,
with completely contrasting qualities.
Intimate and private, open and extrovert.
But in essence it's quite simple - two stacked rectangular blocks,
set at right angles.
The 60-metre-long ground floor contains all the private spaces,
four bedrooms that open onto the garden,
a living room and a master bedroom as well as a garage.
The block above contains the main public spaces,
a kitchen and a massive 21-metre-long entertaining room.
Enclosing the garden is a huge multipurpose exhibition space
or sports hall and for a dramatic entrance,
the curved walkway rises above the garden to the front door.
It's even bigger when you get inside than it looks from the outside.
Do you know why that is?No.
I think it's the proportion of these pieces of teak that are only
three quarters of an inch wide,
that wrap up all the way over the top and down.
They are very, very small, in a very big space,
so it exaggerates the sense of space, plus,
there is no structure in that entire opening and that's a big span,
there's nothing that brings it down to a domestic scale.
It feels like a film set where, you know,
you could easily have 30 extras in here, playing, I don't know,
people from...Scarface.
From Scarface, yeah. Something really glamorous and dramatic.
PANEL RATTLES
Mmm! Hello.
Shall we?Yes.
Gorgeous kitchen.
With its seven-metre-long island, it's certainly impressive.
But will it ever be used?
I didn't think people in Miami had kitchens,
I thought they just sent out for everything.
I don't think it's ever going to see a chopping board.
Oh, I tell a lie.
This is a box within a box, I guess.
I'm going to have a look at how it's made.
Yes, it is a box within a box, which is curious,
because it gives it a sense of scale,
but it's also people who have a sense of scale within this space,
because as a person diminishes, you will find the space increases.
That's brilliant!
How did you do that?
That's so g... I've never seen anyone do it better than that.
Oh, it's really stairs! LAUGHS
CLAPS HER HANDS
It's good, isn't it?
You come round. Come here and I'll do it.I'll watch you do it.
Come on then.OK. I'm just going to go down to the cellar.
Look at you! Ha-ha!
Do you think this is actually an architect's joke?
Do you think they've done this on purpose?Yeah, I'm sure.
This whole house, in terms of how you move through it, is a piece of theatre.
That's been set up to do that.
Very pleasing.
It's a real piece of theatre, but it is, or at least will be,
someone's home and exploring downstairs,
I want to know how it feels to live in.
There's such a sparse palette of materials in this house.
On the interior, everything is either white, stone or timber.
But instead of being some sort of punishment, some world of denial,
it's actually incredibly rich and interesting.
I think, for two reasons.
The first is that natural light comes in through the screens,
into the bedrooms, in a really beautiful way.
The other reason is that all of these bedrooms...
..are connected to nature.
And however beautiful materials are,
they are never as beautiful as natural light and nature.
The five ground floor bedrooms are linked by a 30-metre-long corridor.
This place is huge.
I need roller-skates to get from one end to the other.
There's a large private living room.
Which, compared to upstairs, is relatively snug.
The main bedroom is enormous.
And the bath is pretty impressive, too.
But it seems you can't please everyone.
Call me old-fashioned and maybe call me the country cousin,
but I think I preferred the poetry of those very intimate, smaller
bedrooms that face out onto that leafy courtyard.
If you did run out of space in the house,
there's a completely separate block at the end of the garden.
This house feels so big, I mean, there's so much space
you don't quite know what to do with it.
But there's even more. There's an exhibition space or a space for a
classic car collection, that the architect has designed here.
# Oh, what a feeling... #
It could even be a dance studio.
If that's what you want to call it.
You've got to dance like there's nobody watching.
Canal House has been built to cater for your average superstar's daily needs.
It's the work of Brazilian Marcio Kogan.
Formerly a film director, now one of the word's top 100 architects,
his characteristic rectilinear designs are recognised
around the world.
Having the shadow lines coming in...
Convincing such a renowned and busy architect to accept this project
took some persuasion from developer, Barry Brodsky.
What was your brief to Marcio? What did you ask him to do?
Well, asking an architect like that to come to Miami
to do a specific home is a lot to ask.
And we kind of negotiated budgets and details and ability to give freedom, creative freedom,
to him, in order to entice him to come down and do this.
But the way he describes things and the romance and the beauty that
he conveys to you, all of a sudden,
you just fall under a spell and you start following his vision.
Making something as complex as this
would have been impossible on a small budget.
There's been considerable expense,
from ordering over 1,700 hardwood pieces for the bridge,
to getting bespoke masonry for the facade.
Marcio loves this and he designed
this and to get this artistic brick was very difficult.
As you can see, it looks seamless, like one piece,
but all this stuff has to be done by hand and levelled,
but the masons here, it was incredibly difficult to do.
But everything is about a moment for Marcio.
It's interesting to see how the architect's earlier life in film
has influenced the design.
This front elevation has a very particular ratio.
Marcio explained to me that this was like the way movies are shot,
they're very horizontal.
So, everything was set to create a very cinematic feel
when you're sat inside,
looking outside to the ocean.
It was an enormous engineering challenge.
The span is almost 70 feet across, without a column,
and most people thought it couldn't be done.
That was another big financial commitment.
So, there's been a lot of those pills to swallow, but in
all fairness, I agreed to doing that as part of embracing his...
..creativity.
It's rare for a developer to encourage design
and not budget to lead decisions.
But Barry's willingness to spend the extra dollar
extended to the outdoor spaces, too.
He commissioned renowned landscape designer,
the superbly named Raymond Jungles, to create the garden.
I think this garden has a huge sense of energy.
Well, I would say that probably everything is in harmony here.
There's a really good sense of proportion and scale with the spaces.
There's a really good yin yang relationship between
the architecture and the garden
and I think that's the energy that you feel.
It is a good positive energy, there's nothing jarring
and I do think the architecture creates wonderful spaces
and beautiful drama in the garden.
The use of water is exceptional here,
was that an important element for you?
Well, I'll have to say, like Luis Barragan always said,
"Water is the heart and soul of a garden."
So, once again, that was part of the genius of Marcio's concept,
a bridge over the water, through the garden and into the architecture.
It's this processional movement through the gardens,
because gardens really are more about movement
than they are about a fixed perspective.
I often feel that the landscaping is neglected
or left too late in the process.
Do you think it is important that they go hand in hand, those things?
Absolutely.
And the architects that I normally work with
really understand the importance of the garden.
And the overall environment.
And what the garden can give to the interior spaces and to the setting,
but it's easy for me to do my gardens when the architecture is this spectacular.
It's fabulous.
But what this place really needs is someone to live here.
And Barry is not short of superstar house-hunters.
Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, I was here with them a couple of weeks ago.
Drake was just here.
Vera Wang. You're not tempted to move in?I am, at times, yes.
Every I come here. I never want to leave.
In supporting a renowned architect to work with creative freedom,
Barry has elevated something that could have been a simple piece of
commercial real estate into a piece of high architecture.
Even by the standards of Miami, this house is incredibly grand.
But I think despite all that opulence,
what makes it really special is that you're only ever one step away
from nature, it's always there.
Yes, the garden is beautiful, isn't it? With that water there,
just pulling nature in and again, when you look out,
you've got this wonderful canal and, of course,
just beyond that is Miami!
You know, the hottest place to go out clubbing in the world.
But with a house like this, why would you ever want to go out?
We could just finish our cup of tea and have a nice night in.
That sounds much nicer.
Changing scales completely,
our second home is proof that you don't need millions to build an architectural gem.
We've ditched the boat for something a little less showy to head for one
of Miami's oldest and more modest districts, Spring Garden.
Gosh, really nice. We're going over the river.
We're going on to another little island.
It's changed completely, the atmosphere, this is old Florida, really.
We've gone back in time.
We've crossed a bridge and gone back in time.
So tropical, this street.
So tropical, isn't it?
Beautiful mature trees.
This neighbourhood goes back to the mid-19th century,
but some of these mature trees were here long before the buildings.
Here we are in the jungle.
A suburban jungle, it's extraordinary,
to walk to your house through a tropical rainforest
and yet be minutes away from downtown Miami.
It's so peaceful.
Here we are.
It's the perfect house...
..for this part of the world.
Self-built by the two architects who live here,
Brillhart House may be one of the more modest homes we've seen,
but it's an architectural heavyweight that sits lightly
in its landscape and draws upon a rich heritage.
I think it's absolutely adorable and I love the fact
that you can see all the tropical trees behind it.
It's like a sort of tea plantation house, isn't it?It is.
I think that's because they are also simple buildings that deal
with climate in the most straightforward way.
It's also very archetypal, I can tell that this is an architect's house,
because I think they are playing with this notion of a simple pavilion,
that architects have been playing with for 70 or 80 years, which...
..looked at the houses that existed and said,
"We don't really need all that stuff,
"we don't need conventional front doors and porches
"and all the trappings of houses that we're so used to."
It's all veranda, this house.Don't you live in a house a bit like this?
I do live in a house a bit like this.
I mean there's a sort of architectural story here about
architects designing things then realising they've got to build them.
So it's materials put together in the most straightforward way
which dimwits like me can understand how to do.
And, you know, it's a sort of way of making building accessible for everybody, really.
The architect's real desire here was
to build a home that felt connected to its surroundings.
The house is single-storey,
raised on a platform 1.5 metres above the ground.
Full-width glazing front and back
enclose a large open plan living area to one side
with two bedrooms to the other.
A central corridor, or breezeway,
separates the shared and private spaces,
containing the open plan kitchen and linking the two verandas.
The back is open, to overlook the lush, verdant garden.
But for privacy and cooling, the front is louvered.
And Piers is right - this is all
about the veranda and coming straight in here,
this wonderful area is lit by the sunlight
just coming through these lovely shutters.
And the light falling on the floor is really beautiful
and I can feel the breeze
that's being brought through the house, drawn in here.
And when you open it, you get the wonderful view of the palm trees
and the fabulous tropical garden.
Behind those shutters is a transparent glass home
with large spaces that are light and adaptable.
The whole house is less than 150 metres square
but the deep verandas add half as much outdoor living space again
and because your eye is drawn to the landscape beyond,
this home feels more than generous.
Isn't it wonderful to be able to walk straight in from the outside
through the veranda and into this space?
This has no boundary or definition, which a room typically has,
but I'd say it's far better for it because of course this feels
like a piece of landscape with the air rushing through it.
It does, it's wonderful that you look out into the garden
and you're sort of floating above the surface, above the planting.
I mean, it's almost like being on board a ship isn't it?
I very much enjoy that sense
of touching the ground very lightly indeed.
This sense of floating with just a platform and some shelter.
So you've got a base and a top and I suppose you and I are sort of...
..just a sort of yummy filling in the middle of a sandwich.
Egg and cress or cucumber?
Oh, cucumber, I think. Don't you? On a veranda?
Hey, you must be Jacob. Indeed. Piers.
The owners are architects Jacob and Melissa Brillhart
who live here with their baby daughter, Sims.
BLOWS RASPBERRY
Everyone's a critic.
As architects, merely designing a house was never going to test them too much,
their challenge here was to build it as well.
It seems like it was a house that was designed
so you could construct it yourself? Absolutely.
Everything that we built was thought about in design vis-a-vis construction.
For example, the beams are 50 feet long,
there are six of them that run the base of the floor here and I knew
that's what would fit on an 18-wheeler
and we could get to the site without too much hassle.
And when you as an architect bought this land and designed this house,
was it a complex process to arrive at something so simple?
Yes. It was...
I mean, the house is 1,500 square feet interior space
and my wife is an architect too,
Melissa, and to get both of us to agree,
and to boil down the essence into what we really needed was very difficult.
And what did Melissa bring?
Sensibility. Reality.
You know, I was almost designing a house
that we almost couldn't live in and she said, "You know, we're going to live here,
"we're going to have a family,
"and you have a budget and we have to get real
"and you claim that you could build this thing so don't design something we can't do."
To root the house in its context,
Jacob and Melissa looked to an architectural style that developed
in Florida 70 years ago.
We were interested in this idea of living in a landscape and looking at glass pavilions
so we turned to tropical modernism as kind of a point of reference, for sure.
Oh, what is that?So, the South Florida architects from the '50s
and '60s looked at the international style and sort of the
glass pavilion concepts and really
sort of made their own regional interpretations of that,
but they really didn't sustain the test of time
because they were built before the advent of air conditioning.
And so a lot of them just became weekend retreats that,
you know, just weren't livable in the end but because now we have
insulated glass and better
insulation we could kind of revisit that idea... Yeah.
..in a modern context and kind of bring back this sort of old model
for today's glass pavilion.
It might look simple,
but it took Jacob and Melissa two years to complete.
Did that test you and Melissa, or... Yes. Yeah. It does.
The thing that tests...
I think tested us the most is
the time it takes to get it the way it needs to be.
And making a real pure, lightweight box is actually much harder
than it looks and you have to take into account where things line up
and the thickness of structural members
and if the bolts are going to protrude and all these things start to become real.
It seems simple but it's really...
It doesn't seem simple to me.
There was a point where I was just, you know, ready to be done with it.
"Can't we just buy a condo?" Yes, exactly.
You learn so much,
I've made so many mistakes and had great successes with this project.
But my gosh, it's the time. It just takes time.
What's your overwhelming sort of emotion about it?
Cos it's...a lot of love's gone into it, hasn't it?
A lot of love has gone into it and it feels like a home now
and on the few occasions when it gets cold enough in Miami
we light a fire and otherwise it's nice to sit outside on the front porch and now it's just...
..all we want to do is just enjoy it.
And I think that Melissa and Jacob have certainly earned the right
to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
There are very few buildings this good that are both designed
and built by same architects.
On the ground, there are these two...
..enormous concrete ground beams and what they serve to do
is to move the entire house out of really what was once a swamp.
And buildings here are out of the ground because the ground is boggy and wet.
But on top of those ground beams are then these large eye beams
that are the largest that you can transport on a public highway
here in Florida and so there's a parallel between the depth
of the house and how the material got here,
which I think is really lovely.
And then on each one of these beams is a column at the front.
These columns run along the back of the house.
In fact, there's only one at either end and then the roof beam
spans between them.
So there's nothing in my line of vision here. It's all open.
But I think what's fantastic about the house
is that you can sense when you arrive the way this house is made.
And instead of that being a thing of practical straightforwardness...
..the making of it was the real passion.
The real joy from Melissa and Jacob who made this building
with their own hands.
Brillhart House is in some ways an homage
to the idea of an American Modernist home.
Regardless of who built it,
it's also extraordinary for its purity and apparent simplicity.
Hello. You've found a spot, haven't you?
I have, this lovely old rattan chair.
I was just admiring the fact that those curtains
are made out of sacking, of sackcloth.
Whether it's sackcloth, whether it's plywood,
the more basic the material the nicer it is.
That's certainly true in this house, isn't it?
It's a very simple material but it's used beautifully.
And that's what makes the difference.It is.
There's nothing much here that you don't need.
I mean, I'd probably have a bit less,
I'd just roll out a bedroll out on this deck, have the platform,
shelter from the sun and the rain and nothing else.
I'd get rid of everything in the middle.
So, for Piers Taylor, less is more.
Caroline's right.
This subtle, modest, and beautiful home
that is delicately placed in this lush landscape
is my kind of paradise.
Our next house is another modernist-inspired home.
It's four hours north of Miami, up the freeway to Sarasota.
And there's plenty to see on the way.
This is quite a tropical area...
I'm sorry, but there's an osprey there with a fish, can you see it?
Yes, look at that.Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
BIRD SQUAWKS That's mind-blowing.
Oh, my God! CAROLINE LAUGHS
Oh! That was one of the great moments in my life.
Focus Caroline, focus.
We're looking for a house owned by a couple who retired to Sarasota
and wanted to build something different.
In a conservative neighbourhood with traditional houses,
this home was caught in a controversy
despite having roots in an architectural style
that is now widely accepted.
I want to know about modernism.
Well, modernism, in all the arts,
started in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s and in the way it was
a rejection of the past
and the modernist idea was that we needed to invent a language
that was true to the spirit of the age and it was forward-looking and,
you know, it stripped buildings of decoration
and there was this idea that buildings in a way
could be more like machines for living in
and in many ways now it's become a historical style.
That's the house we're seeing.
That's the house, that's the house!
Do you know what we could do? We could...This is it, this is it!
And you couldn't really miss it.
Spencer House certainly stands out as striking with razor-sharp lines,
crisp shadows and stark white walls,
unapologetic against the blue Florida sky.
We've been invited to explore before the owners meet us.
Right, I am going for a swim.
Phwoar!I think I'd better just park the car cos it's so tidy here.
Wow!
I guess there's no space in there.
Once your eyes have adjusted to the sheer expanse of white,
the first thing to notice is the graphic precision of the walls
and the grid of small square openings that puncture the entrance
courtyard and the rest of the house with light.
What a beautiful place to come into.
I feel like I'm in a painting but I don't think I could be anywhere else
in the world but Florida.
These white walls, this blue sky.
This type of modernism makes perfect sense here because it works.
Set on this prominent corner plot,
the architect's challenge was to build a home
that whilst filled with light would also be private.
The entrance courtyard leads straight into an open plan,
double height living,
dining, and kitchen area.
Adjacent is a covered courtyard and pool around which
there are three bedrooms and a pantry.
Through the centre of the building is a tower
that contains a mezzanine sitting room.
And above is a glass-walled studio with surrounding terraces.
Capping it all is an outside bar on the roof.
With its almost monumental exterior,
it's possible to see how this place may have raised a few eyebrows.
But inside, it's much softer.
Well, I'm right in.
I mean, there's no sense of a hallway
and those traditional European spaces
that buffer you from the street.
It's just so informal right away.
Hello. Oh, hello. Look what I found!
You found the informality.It's completely informal, it's fantastic.
I walked off the street and into the pool, without stopping.
It's extraordinary.
I know a lot of it's got to do with the climate and of course,
it's much easier when you have the bluest of blue skies
but there's something really kind of relaxing
about not having those sort of little tucked-off rooms
where there's secrecy and quiet times.
Actually, here, everyone's sort of living the same moment
of their lives at the same time.
That's why a lot of people yearn to live in big,
open spaces because you could see everybody all the time.
You know what everyone's doing.
What I really love about the view from here, Piers,
is those little glass windows,
they're sort of almost church-like, aren't they?
And actually, it feels quite church-like because churches,
of course, historically had lots of small windows that brought light
in from above and you never had a direct view out
because of course you were always referred to an internal landscape.
And this has that similar quality, it's a beautiful quality of light...
Oh, be quiet.Oh!
I'm just talking to myself.
Some homes were just meant to be enjoyed.
There's one thing better than coming off a hot street straight into a
swimming pool - it's coming out of a swimming pool
straight into a guest bedroom with an en-suite bathroom.
Oh, this is nice, look.
Sort of prehistoric fossils as bathroom tiles.
It's all to do with the water and the sea and nature.
And a lovely shower, the fish carry on swimming through here.
And then an outdoor shower too.
So I have a choice now, and I'm going to go indoors.
That's your cue to go.
Yes.
Thank you.
Two thirds of the house is on the ground floor
and has everything you could need for living.
Upstairs are more private spaces to escape to -
on the mezzanine, a living room and above that,
a glass studio where the owner builds model ships.
What's really noticeable is that as you rise through the central tower,
views become more open as privacy becomes less of an issue.
These wonderful apertures are
a key aspect of Spencer House's architecture.
The pioneering owners are Beth and Gary Spencer.
Did you decide, I want a modern sort of statement piece of architecture?
We sort of zeroed in on the modern by going to open houses.
So we would do that on weekends and we sort of gravitated
to these wonderful modern homes and the more we saw,
the more we zeroed in on a couple of Sarasota's better-known architects.
We interviewed them both and Guy was the best communicator
and the best listener so we selected Guy. Yep.
When you drive by here any day of the week...
Their architect was the award-winning Guy Petersen,
whose work is heavily influenced by a form of modernism that grew out of Sarasota.
Sarasota has a rich architectural history, doesn't it?
It does. Sarasota was on the map nationally for doing these amazing
modernist buildings in the '40s, '50s and '60s.
It was later dubbed the Sarasota School Of Architecture as a movement
and as an architect being from Sarasota,
I've always said I wasn't part of the Sarasota School
because they were a generation ahead of me.
But it was part of me growing up.
Did you feel sort of kindred spirits? Did you have the same ideas?
I mean, what did you ask him for?
Well, we didn't really ask him for anything,
we sat down and gave him a list of all the homes we'd lived in, right?
All the features we liked about them,
all the features we didn't like about them.
His big challenge was I needed privacy and Beth needed light.
They wanted a lot of natural light
but they realise they're on a busy corner
so how do you conceal yet reveal at the same time?
And so really the strategy of this house is more about opening
vertically to the sky and bringing light in from above.
And then very controlled openings to the exterior.
As you move up in the house there's these like,
here's a shadow box over here.
These projected forms.
And they become view portals too, looking at specific views,
and there were these perforated openings.
And these openings became a way of maintaining the privacy...
..and not having big shafts of light come in,
but controlled openings that allow light to just funnel
into this big open space.
There are more than 200 small squares that let light into
the house and the courtyards.
And for you the light was really important?
Very important, part of the appeal was the lot faces south,
so it gets a lot of really great sun.
So, the squares in that wall let the south sun in.
And then at night it emits light.
And has a whole different persona.
Guy may have overcome the architectural challenges
but in taking down a traditional house
to replace it with something so overtly contemporary,
Gary and Beth were opening up a whole different can of worms.
Well, when it was first being under construction...
..a lot of people didn't know what to make of it.
It was interesting because then the press got ahold of it and it became
kind of an unsanctioned beauty contest,
"Do you like it or do you not like it?"
But as we worked our way through construction
and they could see it finally get painted and get close to finished,
it became very well-received.
When you do something that's different,
people are always going to ask the question why.
"Why is it not looking like the house across the street?"
I've always told my students, I'd rather do a building
someone didn't like than a building they didn't notice.
There is the occasional misunderstanding.
When we were first in here,
I was vacuuming here one day and a woman walked up and she looked in
these windows and then she just walked in the front door.
GASPS
So I put on my best customer service face and said, "May I help you?"
And she looked startled and said, "Oh, I thought this was the yoga studio."
You should've said, "It is. Salute the sun."
LAUGHS
Today I think the community is starting to recognise the value of modern architecture
and that it does play a part in our history.
What's it like to live here?
It's like being in your own resort. BETH LAUGHS
Seriously? Yeah, every day is just a joy.
Every day?Yes, every day there's a new favourite thing.
And if he's happy, I'm happy. THEY LAUGH
There are so many things in this house to admire.
I love the fossilised fish that seem to have made their way
from the bathroom to the kitchen.
I've got to ask you about these fish.
Are these real fossils?
They're real fossils.
They come from a well known site in Wyoming.
They are 53 million years old.
And they are herring and perch.
I think they're absolutely beautiful.
I love the idea of having a shoal of fish swimming along when I am cooking.
I'm glad you like that. Yeah, lovely.
Personal touches fill this home with joy,
but never distract from the architecture.
I love this shadow box.
I mean, this isn't the thickness of the wall.
This is a bay window that projects and what it does...
What? Hang on. This isn't the thickness of the wall, it's a bay window that projects?
The wall is only that thick.
This isn't the thickness of the wall. The wall is this thick.
This is a lip. A great big lip that comes out.
Oh, yes, I can feel it! It's a big frame.
And what it does is cast a shadow on the wall.
It brings texture and relief to this composition.
What to do you think about this colour?I love this colour.
It's the colour of the sky and Florida.
It's Corbusier blue.
And it goes really well with this pink.
I know!
Le Corbusier, who created this shade of blue,
was the founding father of modernism
and it's another nod to this home's architectural roots.
It's a style that is often perceived as hard edged, even austere,
but with their architect, Gary and Beth have achieved a softened
and more inviting take on it.
Oh, you're up here. Great, you managed to get some bins.
I did.Oh, you'll be able to see them now. Look, up there.
A pair of ospreys. They are so beautiful, look at her.
There's a lot to see from here. There really is, it's incredible.
I think that's a 1950s Paul Rudolph early modernist work over there, actually.
Oh, there they go.
Our final stop is back in Miami
and we couldn't leave without paying a visit
to probably the world's most famous beachfront.
Lined with Art Deco hotels and homes to the likes of Naomi Campbell
and P Diddy, South Beach is poser's paradise.
And our final home is moments away.
Are there any more glamorous words in the English language
than Miami Beach?
There are no more glamorous words than Miami Beach.
But here we are, back from the beach and this is quite a dense city
full of life, full of people, traffic, wind.
How would you make a refuge from all this just back from the ocean?
Let's find out.
Hang on, this is...
This is it.It's very private.
Are you sure we're welcome here?
Confronted by an expanse of solid concrete,
Prairie Residence may seem
to the passer-by like an impenetrable fortress.
It's certainly a house that does little
to give away its secrets.
Piers, it's on stilts.
It's like a giant concrete tree house.
Yes, that's just dropped into the city.
Look at this. That's just a massive root ball.
It's like a piece of sculpture.
Placed right at the entrance of this property,
this strange looking fig tree is known as a Florida strangler.
I'm feeling that the rest of the world is out there.
The beach and the beach life are out beyond that and in here,
it's a sort of tropical oasis.
It feels as if this is a kind of modern version of Tarzan's hideout in the trees.
Climbing the bronze and steel staircase into the belly of this home,
it's difficult to anticipate what we might find.
Well, I've come in from the city and all the hubbub and bustle.
I feel like I'm in Sri Lanka,
not the centre of South Beach, Miami.
I'm transported from all that noise, cars,
congestion into what feels like some kind of walkway in a tree canopy.
But also, I am not really sure what's outside...
..and what is inside.
This is a house that opens up like no house I've ever seen.
This ambiguity, the blurring between interior and exterior,
only works for real when temperatures consistently hover
between 20 and 30 degrees.
But it's so cinematic. I mean, the light
coming through those trees and bouncing off this water.
It's kind of mesmeric.
The pool is not only used to reflect light into the open house
but also for its cooling presence,
using the overflow to create a striking wall of water below.
Oh, this is brilliant.
To complete that sort of jungle theme, we've got a waterfall here.
This wonderful...
..curtain of water just coming down this beautiful rock.
This is such an exciting way to enter a property.
It's extraordinarily beautiful and very, very enticing.
This home makes no apology for its opulence.
It's a truly sensual place.
When you meet a class act, you know it.
And this house is a class act.
Talking of class acts, Taylor, what are you doing?
Hello. Taking a few photos.
Have we found a photogenic house or what?
I think it's so rich, materially and texturally.
It's an experience that most contemporary buildings deny us
cos everything is just surface, everything's white.
Actually, here, every material has real substance.
One of the great joys for me is this is bronze,
and you don't see a lot of that about
because you don't get much of it to the pound.You don't.
I'm actually already feeling overstimulated.Yeah, it is.
I think I'm going to have to have a lie down.
Are you really?Cup of tea.
It is overstimulating. Everything about it.
I mean, just looking up there now.
Every bit of it's like prodding you, isn't it?
"Come and look at me, come and look at me," but that,
look at the grasses across the top against the sky.
I love that. But it's kind of like more is more. Less is less.
More is more when it's done so brilliantly.
And this is done so brilliantly.
The architect's vision was to create an escape from the craziness of one
of the world's busiest sea fronts.
His solution was to build an inward facing home on stilts.
Consisting of a series of three separate buildings around a central courtyard and pool,
the two smaller ones are self-contained bedroom suites
with double height ceilings and mezzanine floors.
The largest building contains
the main living room kitchen and main bedroom.
A lush green roof adds to the richness of the surrounding
tree canopy and to the rich,
sensual textures in every surface and every material.
SIGHS
I mean, if you are feeling overstimulated,
this is a room to come and destimulate yourself in.
Do you mean by having a lie down or something?
Yeah, I do, that is exactly what I mean.I got it first.
The attention to detail is extraordinary.
I mean, there's three different sorts of concrete in here.
The ceiling is different from the walls,
which is different from the floor.
It shows such love and affection for all the things
he's used to build the house.
I mean, there's something about the way it has been crafted
that is very special.
I mean, everywhere we look, there's real skill, care and joy.
And passion.And actually, a passion for getting it right.
Oh, Piers, look what I've found.
What have you found? A model of the house.
God, it looks so simple when you see it like this.
When it's made out of a balsa wood and cardboard.
Everything looks simple when you make it out of balsa wood and cardboard.
You'd look simple if I made you out of balsa wood and cardboard.
I look simple and I'm not even made out of balsa wood and cardboard.
This home is a showcase of high-end design.
It takes someone who relishes
perfection to commission work like this.
The owner is Hany Boutros...
..who uses the place as an escape from his day job,
running a pharmaceutical company.
I actually, always...
I fell in love with Miami over a decade ago...
..for the simple reason, it reminded me so much of home.
Where's home?Lebanon.
I was born and raised in Lebanon, so we grew up on the Mediterranean,
of course, and the water.
And to add the crazy night life.
You know, Miami's the same thing, like Beirut.
Every time I come here it's like I'm home.
That's one half. What's through this half?This is my hideaway.
Oh! Yes.Exciting.
Here you go. After you.
Thank you very much. Huge door!
Oh.This is my quiet Miami.
Your quiet Miami.
Yes. I lay there, I look at this, and I'm like, "Life is good."
Because it's quite frenetic, as a city, isn't it? Right.
But here, you feel like you're completely removed.
Like you can get away from that crazy - good crazy -
and you come home to this, which is just a relaxing moment,
a quiet moment.
There is something almost cathedral like in this bedroom,
and its really high ceilings,
and the play of light on the solid materials create a reverential feeling.
The man Hany asked to design his home was architect Rene Gonzalez,
an old friend of 13 years who shared his passion for design.
I wanted to create a place where he can come and decompress,
and really feel tranquil.
And when I thought about this project,
I thought that I wanted it to have this monastic feel,
to have this feel of a retreat.
So, the ceilings and the walls never touch.
They always are separated by skylights that bring light down
into the living spaces, and create these spaces that go on forever.
This move to raise everything up off the ground into the tree canopy,
is that about an experience of landscape,
or a more pragmatic concern?
You know, the early American settlers raised their houses
on stilts for the same reason we have to today -
to address environmental issues.
In Miami in particular, sea-level rise is a major issue,
and I think for architects,
it's a responsibility that we need to embrace,
and be the creative leaders to address.
But it feels that you've woven some pavilions among some existing trees.
Was that the case, or have you made all of this?
You know, we had this wonderful banyan tree here when we started...
So this was a virgin site?
It was a completely open site, with nothing other than this one tree.
And the rest, we brought in.
We were really interested in creating a condition where water,
the landscape and the house would really be interlaced
in a seamless way,
where you can really flow from inside to outside,
and feel like you were in the trees.
This house brilliantly shows that you don't need lots of different
materials to create a diverse range of textures.
As you notice from the house, the colour palette, the materials,
I'm very keen on earthy in the feel and the touch.
And I love... The textures...Yes. ..are second to none.Yes.
I mean, the bronze of the staircase,
which is exactly the same colour as your eyes, by the way,
is smooth and sensual.
And then you've got this, which is kind of rippled,
and I've never seen that done with marble before.
The overriding sense here is that there is nothing left to chance.
Everything has been thought about.
It was combining an architect that is, and excuse the word,
the choice of words, a detail freak.
And then you add to that a client that's obsessed with detail.
And then you trust your architect, that they can design something
that fits your personality,
and allow them to be as creative as they want to.
This is what happened.
You know, I didn't come in with a set of rules.
I just came up with a space that I would like to live in,
and then you just do what you do best,
which is to create a masterpiece.
It may be the most important house I ever design,
because it was really developed with an enormous amount of intensity and,
really, love.
I'm surprised you ever leave this room,
because the colour of your hair is like the colour of this,
the colour of your eyes is like the colour of the stairs,
everything about you is this house. Thank you. Thank you.
But it is quite rare, that. It feels, I don't know, exciting.
So, Hany, is it OK if I go and find my bedroom now? Yes.
Because yours is lovely, but I know that mine's going to be almost as good, isn't it?
Or better, maybe.Yes. THEY LAUGH
# Can't take my eyes off of you
# You'd be like heaven to touch
# I wanna hold you so much... #
This house has only just been finished,
and it's a thrill to be some of Hany's first guests.
There are lots of things I really love about this house.
But one of the things I adore...
..is that Hany has made it so generously.
The fact that these guest suites are the same size
and have exactly the same amount of detail and luxury.
It's quite something, actually.
And I find it intensely moving that the whole house, really, is about...
..pleasing people as much as possible, in every possible regard.
And I, for one, am...
..extremely pleased by it.
And it seems I'm not alone in falling under its spell.
This house has everything.
It has flamboyance, with a precision and a craft
and a care that you never see married to this theatre.
And this house moves me enormously.
And moves on my own thinking about the power of architecture.
Florida has shown us some inspiring houses.
From marvellous, sharp-edged modernism,
to the sheer indulgence of waterfront living,
and the refined modesty of the simple homage to the glass pavilion.
Whether it's this place, or maybe the heat of the night, together,
they do strange things to a person.
IN US ACCENT:Hey, Piers! Is this too Miami?
What are you doing? You're not going swimming, are you?
It's a reflection pool. You reflect.
You don't swim in it. Oh, don't be such an architect.
You're such an actress.
Next time, we're in Europe's architectural hotbed - Spain.
GASPS
We explore a land of experimentation...
Is this the future of architecture?
..as we go in search of the world's most extraordinary homes.
I've never been in a house where you enter completely in the dark.
With nothing in it to give you any sense of where you are.
And then suddenly, the light.