weird houses

The worlds one and only toilet-shaped house was built to mark the launch of the World Toilet Association, a campaign for more sanitary restrooms worldwide. Sim Jae-Duck, nicknamed Mayor Toilet, had the 4,508-square-foot concrete and glass structure built in his native city of Suweon, South Korea. At the center of the home is a glass-walled showcase loo that produces mist to make users feel more secure. Sim, who was born into a toilet and has made clean restrooms his lifes work, now lives in the home.

Called the Eliphante house for the look of its entrance, this sculptural home was created by artist Michael Kahn and his wife Leda Livant with found materials over a period of 28 years. Eliphante and several outbuildings occupy 3 acres of land and incorporate rocks and scraps from construction sites. There was never any kind of floor plan for Eliphante ? it just sort of evolved. Ms. Livants residence on the property is the Hippodome, a mosaic-covered creation that looks like a hippo emerging from a lake.

When two old studio buildings owned by The Art League in Houston were set to be demolished, they decided to take the opportunity to turn them into a temporary art installation. Artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck sculpturally altered the two buildings, peeling off the exterior siding of the front building to simulate the appearance of a funnel-like vortex. The opening was actually a tiny hallway (only kids could fit through it) that passed through the two structures and emptied out into an adjacent courtyard.

The shoe house of South Africa is the work of artist and hotelier Ron Van Zyl, who built it for his wife Yvonne in 1990. The shoe houses a little museum of sorts, showcasing Van Zyls wood carvings. The shoe is part of a complex that includes an eight-chalet guest house, camp site, restaurant, pool and bar.

Architect Terry Brown created this much-maligned mushroom house, an unusual piece of architecture situated in a rather upscale area of Cincinnati. Browns architectural style developed when he began experimenting with materials like wood, colored glass, shell, ceramics and various metals to create irregular shapes that mimic those found in nature. A professor of architecture and interior design at the University of Cincinnati, Brown frequently had to defend the unique design of the house against complaints by neighbors before passing away in 2008.

An optical illusion? Trick of Photoshop? Nobody really seems to know much about this supposed floating barn which was reportedly located in Ukraine and may or may not still be standing. Cantilevered barns do exist ? mostly in the Appalachian region of the United States ? but usually arent quite this dramatic looking. Real or fake, its certainly pretty striking.

The Space House in Signal Mountain, Tennessee was built by Curtis King and his sons in the 1970s and is quite a draw for curiosity seekers in the area, who have been filing by and taking photos for decades. Six concrete support pillars look like landing gear beneath the main part of the building. The Space House sold on the auction block in March 2008 but the buyer defaulted, so its being offered for whatever the public is willing to pay on December 14th.

From Poland comes another interesting building, the Crooked House. The design was inspired by the drawings of Polish artists Jan Marcin Szancer and Per Dahlberg, which have a whimsical and Dali-esque feel. Its not actually a house ? its part of a shopping complex. But, its very cool all the same, with its surreal angles and blue-green glass.

Austrian artist Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser may not be well known across most of the world, but anyone who has visited Vienna knows of his iconic creation, the Hundertwasser Haus. Its an apartment complex characterized by patchwork paint, undulating floors, the incorporation of vegetation and a fa?ade with seemingly no rhyme or reason to its structure. Hundertwasser reportedly took no payment for designing it, considering it a public service to prevent something ugly going up in its place.