Inspirations

The House Within

A timber cube inside a church, a house within a ruin or a cocoon in the middle of a living space – our author highlights eight holiday homes that play with the house-within-a-house principle.

in September 2026

Agger Farm­house // North Jutland, Denmark

Five-metre-high cei­lings and an entirely glazed gable – after the old barn of the Agger Farm­house was stripped back, it was trans­formed into a light-filled loft. And right at its heart is the ‘Magic Box’: a self-con­tained volume incor­po­rating the kitchen, dining area and dressing room. Perched on its roof and sepa­rated from the rest of the space only by a glass balus­trade is the gallery bed – a place to sleep and a viewing platform in one, over­looking the property’s own lake and the dune land­scape of Denmark’s North Sea coast.

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Johannes Neun // Sau­erland, Germany

Have you ever spent the night in a church? At Johannes Neun, the former Pro­testant Church of St John dating from 1964, a timber cube stands in the middle of the eleven-metre-high church interior. Behind a trans­lucent sliding door are two bed­rooms and two sleeping berths, accom­mo­dating up to six people. Around them, the church interior remains open and expansive. Light streaming through the stained-glass windows bathes the pale timber insertion in ever-changing pat­terns of colour.

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U Mulinu Casa­nelli // Fozzano, Corsica

A new house appears to be growing out of old stone walls: U Mulinu Casa­nelli. A cube of exposed con­crete and timber has been inserted into the remains of the former wine press, once built from coll­ected stones and bricks. On one side, irre­gular, wea­thered masonry; on the other, the precise geo­metry of the new volume – it is pre­cisely the interplay between these two layers that gives the house its par­ti­cular appeal. Set on a hill in the hin­terland of Corsica’s south-west coast, it offers sweeping views across the Gulf of Valinco.

More about U Mulinu Casa­nelli

Haus VValter // Müh­len­becker Land, Germany

Inside and outside, old and new are the defining themes in the redesign of the former administrator’s house at the Summt estate. The brick ruin – all that remained of the 19th-century building – pro­vided the framework for a new structure, which architect Martin Jan­ekovic inserted within the old walls as a timber box. The clean lines and light, warm mate­rials of the two holiday apart­ments create a striking con­trast with the wea­thered brickwork. Between shell and insertion, a shel­tered inter­me­diate zone emerges – extending the living space below and forming a balcony above.

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KOKON // Tyrol, Austria

One house – four volumes. Stacked one above the other and slightly offset, they form four separate apart­ments. At the centre of each open-plan living space is a small cocoon: a timber sleeping chamber with a bathroom, standing freely in the room like a piece of fur­niture. Behind a sliding door is a double-bed alcove lined in Swiss pine, creating a shel­tered place to sleep; its extension forms a sofa, while a generous kitchen unit occupies the opposite side. Outside, the black timber façade echoes the cocoon motif with its cut-out pat­terns. As the time of day and season change, these pat­terns move through the rooms as light and shadow

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Staindlhof 1680 // Bavarian Forest, Germany

From the outside, Staindlhof 1680 evokes a bygone era – only inside does it reveal how much has changed. New rooms have been inte­grated into the old farm­house as self-con­tained struc­tures. In the hay barn, an entire house even stands freely within the old building, sepa­rated from the his­toric shell by narrow inter­me­diate spaces. Large expanses of glass make this unusual spatial arran­gement tan­gible and open up views of the old timber structure. The his­toric fabric thus remains present while a new archi­tecture unfolds within it – in a secluded location 820 metres above sea level in the Bavarian Forest.

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La Mela­grana // Noto, Sicily

Amid Sicily’s rugged, hilly land­scape, La Mela­grana rises above the ground on con­crete sup­ports. When closed, it is a simple timber box; opened up, it trans­forms into a light-filled holiday home ori­ented towards the sea. The building con­sists of two ele­ments: at the touch of a button, the movable front volume slides aside to reveal a second structure behind it – with a large glazed frontage opening onto the terrace and views stret­ching all the way to the sea.

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Dort­mannhof // Ruhr region, Germany

Dating from 1791, the listed Dort­mannhof once com­bined living quarters and barn under a single roof. When con­verting it for a family of musi­cians, Sigurd Larsen com­ple­mented the old structure with large, self-con­tained inser­tions: an eleven-metre-high music studio rises in the middle of the former stables, while a guest house with a separate ent­rance occupies the eastern section. Like over­sized pieces of inha­bi­table fur­niture, the new spaces stand within the old building – and can be dis­mantled again if required.

More about Dort­mannhof

Text: Chris­tiane Wei­demann

Photos: Sigurd Larsen (Cover image, Model Dort­mannhof); Tina Ste­phansen, Gregor Wöltje (Agger Farm­house); Katrin Kaiser (Johannes Neun); Syvain Ales­sandri (U Mulinu Casa­nelli); Jörg Metzner (Haus VValter); Lisa Medina-Walzl (Kokon); Sylvi Thierbach, Anna-Maria Saller (Staindlhof 1680); Hélène Binet (La Mela­grana), Christian Flat­scher (Dort­mannhof)