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NARRATOR: There are extreme homes all over the world,
and we're taking you inside some of them
for a personal tour.
The word "extreme" means different things
to different people, but to these homeowners,
it means dreaming, daring, and innovating.
From construction to completion,
we'll take a close-up look at these spectacular homes
to find out just what makes each of them so extreme.
It's playtime all the time in this Indonesian home.
[ Shouting ]
NARRATOR: This one uses bones as a design feature.
We'll show you an island home that's gone green,
and a rotating home that rises up like a periscope.
Exciting shapes,
exceptional sizes,
and exotic locations --
These are some of the coolest homes around.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
Our first home sits on Larsen Bay, British Columbia,
30 miles outside Vancouver.
It's spectacular, but it was a tough place to build.
Most people might have thought twice
about putting a house here.
Not Peter and Gillian Taylor.
One day out kayaking,
they paddled by the rocky notch and fell in love with it.
But now they had the problem
of deciding which side to build the house on.
We were arguing. We had a fight over it.
Peter wanted to build at that end,
I wanted to build at this end,
and so we called an architect in to arbitrate,
and he said, "Ah! I will span this gully,
"and we'll have a house for Peter at that end
and a house for Gillian at this end."
It was leading architect Dan White
who came up with the 300-foot-long-bridge solution.
The construction is post and beam,
like so many houses along the coast here.
And the foundation is anchored to the granite rocks
on either side of the crevasse.
Peter is a bridge engineer
and helped with the design and construction.
Supporting these concrete beams while we poured the concrete --
that was fairly major temporary work and so on.
I did all that. I designed and built all of that.
NARRATOR: Gillian took two years off of work
to manage the project.
I was the contractor, Peter was the engineer,
we hired a foreman, and we hired all the working crew directly,
and we ran the job ourselves.
[ Laughs ]
Running a job like this for two years was stressful.
And I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
[ Both laugh ]
It's a miracle our marriage survived.
Contractors and engineers
sometimes have their differences.
The steep, one-acre lot
made access to the building site tricky.
Many of the materials had to be walked in.
PETER: One guy brought a truck down,
and then I said, "How about the next load?"
And he said, "Never again."
[ Both chuckle ]
So, we carried the rest.
You get to the house by a steep, zigzag driveway.
Immediately inside, there's a sunken living room
overlooking the bay that's made for music.
But the Taylors spend most of their time upstairs,
where the kitchen, dining room,
and another cozier living room are all located.
The more private areas -- bedrooms and bathrooms --
are tucked into the rock at either end of the home.
The couple describe it as a highly livable space,
even though the size and layout of the rooms
was dictated largely by the engineering.
Well, 90% of the time, we live on this floor.
This is the living floor.
And the dimensions of the rooms were determined
by where we could get footings into the rocks.
We had to build over this gully.
That's why this dining room is the width it is.
Exposed concrete is softened by the warm decor
and some interesting details, like this Niska totem pole.
Walls of glass on both sides flood the house with light.
On a clear day, you can see over to Vancouver Island.
And it's a great spot for watching wildlife.
We have seals and otters and mink.
A fair amount of wildlife.
Occasionally deer, occasionally coyotes.
So, we sort of feel like we're on the edge of the bush.
It's very nice.
Outside, a long stairway leads down to the water,
and Peter maintains the mother of all rock gardens.
Good thing he knows what he's doing.
I've got rappelling-secure anchors at the top of the cliff,
all the way around.
And I just rappel down and do my gardening
and then climb back up again.
Times have changed,
and, today, the Taylors would probably not be permitted
to build the house on this location so close to the water.
But here it stands --
one of the area's most beautiful and extreme landmarks.
These are actually houses.
They each come shrink-wrapped, are put in place by a crane,
and go by the name "student cubes."
This is Munich, Germany, which has two big universities
and a large student population of 71,000.
But where to put them all?
The cubes were a joint effort
between architects Lydia Haack and John Hopfner
and the technical university in Munich
to address the issue of affordable student housing.
[ Speaking German ]
INTERPRETER: The idea -- my idea --
started from the fact that accommodation in Munich
is very expensive and very hard to find.
Students often have to wait two or three years
before they can get an affordable place to live.
NARRATOR: The cubes started out as a short-term experiment,
but they're still around several years later.
INTERPRETER: We are standing in a large,
student-residential complex.
It's the largest in Munich.
In fact, it's the largest in Germany --
one of the largest in the whole of Europe.
It houses 2,400 students,
but these are the smallest houses here.
NARRATOR: Each cube measures just under 70 square feet
and has everything students need for independent living.
The design is extremely practical.
The hallway turns into a shower stall,
and a seating bench is also a chest of drawers or a guest bed.
Being small, though, doesn't mean going without.
The cubes are equipped
with high-quality kitchen and bathroom appliances.
There's a sink, a double-burner,
a microwave, and hideaway fridge.
A sliding table can seat five for dinner
and big-screen TVs are standard.
Thermal windows and foam insulation
plus air-conditioning and heating
keep things comfortable whatever the season.
Each cube takes three months to manufacture.
They're made from wood and given an artistic,
powder-coated aluminum cladding finish.
At delivery, the cubes sit into aluminum subframes
set on simple pad foundations,
and the utilities are hooked up -- Pretty easy.
And, later, if you need to move your house along,
that's no problem, either.
[ Speaking German ]
INTERPRETER: I had the idea of making mobile cubes
because it's very expensive to buy land here in Munich.
But you often find that there are building plots
that are lying empty for two or three years.
So, it's easy to tow these cubes along on a trailer behind a car
and set them up on the empty plot.
Then you can just tow them away again after two or three years.
NARRATOR: There are now seven inhabited cubes in Munich
with an average waiting list of six to seven months.
Looks like this experiment in portable micro-living
is here to stay.
You won't believe what one homeowner in Texas
used to help build his home.
NARRATOR: Welcome back.
It looks like a normal cabin in the woods,
but come a little closer,
and you see that practically every working surface
is covered with bones.
Standing in the lush hills of east Texas, outside Huntsville,
the Bone House is the masterpiece
of salvage king Dan Phillips.
When Dan was researching
materials that would be both durable and cheap,
he realized that, in a cattle-crazy state like Texas,
bones do just the trick.
Every rancher has a boneyard.
When a cow dies for whatever reason,
they drag it to the back forty,
and five years later, there's a pile of bone.
And so, we just ask a rancher, "Can I raid your boneyard?"
And they'll say, "Sure. Help yourself."
NARRATOR: The thing about bone is that it's durable and decorative.
The bone kitchen tiles stand up to heavy use.
And who knew that a rib cage
would make the perfect patio set?
The idea of "something for nothing"
fits in with Dan's own personal belief
that recycling is the future.
He's become sort of famous among the local hardware suppliers
as a one-man repository for any unwanted materials.
From his workshop --
or as he prefers, recycling laboratory --
Dan's built up a community over the years.
Self-taught, he's shown others
how to build their own homes on a shoestring budget.
And years of trial and error
have taught him what's possible --
not just with bones, but with almost anything.
Humans have been building their own houses
for thousands of years.
What we can do is just spit on our hands and go, "Pbht!
"You know, I think I'm going
to glue these bottle caps to a floor."
NARRATOR: That's a lot of bottle caps.
Dan's methods may appear unconventional,
but they've been refined by years of experimentation.
DVDs do make a perfect wall for refracting light,
and mirror shards and porcelain do make a standout bathroom.
Dan assembled a small team of builders
to put up the 1,600-square-foot Bone House.
It took a year and a half to complete.
Inside the front door is a bedroom.
Straight ahead is the kitchen.
Keep going, and there's a second bedroom.
Every square inch is put to good use, and it all works.
He composited pieces of western red cedar and walnut
for flooring
and coated it with polyurethane to make it durable.
He did spend a little money on a new sink and toilet,
but everything else is either recycled or repurposed.
Dan has even installed a 500-gallon tank to catch rain,
which he uses to flush the toilets and water the garden.
In Texas, we have water wars just around the corner.
We can live without oil, but we can't live without water.
And so, in east Texas,
where we have 45 to 60 inches of rain a year,
we can catch the rain.
NARRATOR: So, what might seem spooky to some
is simply recycling to Dan
and just another construction material put to good use
for this house of bone in the heart of Texas.
Now we jump across the Pacific to the beachside suburb
of Dover Heights, Sydney, Australia.
One architect decided these streets
needed a bit of a lift or even a lift-off.
What he built was so far out,
the local people call it "The Spaceship."
TONY: The night when I bought this block,
I came home, sat on the bed,
and I started playing around with loops of paper.
And in about half an hour,
I almost got the design of the house in a model form.
NARRATOR: The shape he came up with
is influenced by a Moebius strip --
a surface made up of a single, continuous curve
with a half-twist.
There literally is a "eureka" moment
where you hit on something,
and I usually start thinking to myself in those moments,
"Do I really dare do that?"
Because it's as shocking to me seeing it for the first time
as somebody else, and then you go, "Yeah, let's try it."
NARRATOR: Architectural 3-D design
means even the most impractical-looking shapes
can be built.
These are ideas that we've all had for a long, long time,
and we've been waiting for the technology to catch up to us.
Now, suddenly, we can do all these things,
so there's infinite possibility.
What we're seeing is the cities of the future
starting to emerge today.
NARRATOR: Construction of the Moebius House
was unconventional, too.
The design took a year to complete,
construction -- 18 months.
In some ways, this house was designed like a car.
We started with a steel structure like a chassis,
and then we put the panels around the outside.
Then all of the fit-outs and interiors and the wiring,
just like you'd make in a factory on a car.
NARRATOR: The finished house looks retro and space-age.
TONY: Well, we call it the "James Bond approach."
It's sort of a sentimentality for a future that never existed.
So, the great thing about James Bond
is it combines the future with luxury,
and that's what a really good house does.
It's got that sort of familiarity of the past,
but all of the optimism and excitement
of the future, as well.
NARRATOR: The ground floor is the kid's zone
with bedrooms and bathroom.
The main family living area is on the second floor --
kitchen, dining -- all the usual.
At the top of the house is the master bedroom and bath
and a fantastic view of Sydney Harbour.
This is also a house built
for the Australian outdoors lifestyle.
TONY: The great thing about living in Sydney
is that everything is inside-outside.
Designing houses in Sydney
is that there's really no difference
between the backyard and the living room.
And so, if there's a pool there,
then the living room's your outdoor room.
NARRATOR: Atmospheric lighting inside and out
is just another feature that makes this
the most unusual house in the neighborhood.
Space-age, retro, and functional,
Tony never forgot that this was his family home.
TONY: We also design houses for people to live in,
and we've raised three kids in this house without any trouble.
Good design has to work
whether it's modern or sculptural or not.
And this is just such a wonderful house to live in.
NARRATOR: Next up, a Japanese concept for living
right in the heart of Los Angeles.
NARRATOR: We've seen a home built like a bridge
that keeps both sides happy.
We've seen a student home where small is beautiful...
...and a home the neighbors say is more like a spaceship.
This is Echo Park, Los Angeles, California,
where you'll find a very unusual house.
Across the Pacific in Tokyo, Japan,
a narrow home is called an "eel's nest."
This L.A. eel's nest
is built on a lot measuring just 15 feet wide,
and that was the big attraction
for architect and owner Simon Storey.
SIMON: It actually happened to be
the cheapest house that was for sale
in Los Angeles in this area at the time.
So that was the initial attraction to it,
and then, of course, I saw it,
and it was only a 15-foot-wide lot,
which is incredibly unique.
The size of the lot is only about 280 square feet.
So that was just the challenge, was to put a --
or try and put -- a normal house onto a tiny lot.
NARRATOR: It may be narrow,
but what it lacks in width, it makes up for in height.
Simon demolished the original two-story house
and built skyward.
SIMON: The main challenge for the house
was just fitting the house onto the lot,
and the lot is only 15 feet wide.
And the existing house is basically the same footprint.
This house is a little bit bigger.
NARRATOR: Inside, the Japanese style isn't as obvious,
but it's still Simon's inspiration.
There's a very definite Japanese influence on the house.
They're just masters at creating amazing spaces
out of absolutely nothing.
Everything has to be very efficient,
and the challenges there
are exactly the same challenges that I faced with this house.
NARRATOR: Simon's new-house design
called for wood-frame construction
on a concrete foundation.
He also added an extra story,
making it taller than the original house.
The ground floor is a garage.
Then it's up a flight and into the living space.
Out the back, is a small terrace garden.
This area is just to create
kind of almost an outdoor living area.
It's kind of like a seamless transition
from inside to outside,
which is a very California kind of narrative for living,
which is to completely confuse indoor and outdoor.
NARRATOR: Simon did a lot of the finish work himself,
including the redwood window frames.
SIMON: There's a lot of natural light in here,
which is thanks to the big windows,
which is really important in a small space
to have, you know, very, very large windows to the outside.
And then the staircase I kept completely open, as well,
which helps light transmit
from upstairs and downstairs and vice versa.
NARRATOR: A combination of natural and artificial light
gives this space an open feel.
The lights are completely random.
I mean, they're designed, but they're random.
It's designed to be like a constellation of stars
like someone just got a whole bunch of light bulbs
and threw them up on the ceiling, and they just stuck.
NARRATOR: Up one more flight,
there's a bedroom and Simon's study.
The details are simple, but thoughtful.
He designed this wallpaper
deliberately to have a worn look.
And the light switch is inspired by the jade plant.
So, I found the plant on the street and took it home,
broke it into individual pieces,
which is the leaves and the stem.
I made castings out of rubber
and used those to make the wax pieces,
which then get assembled and turned into bronze.
NARRATOR: The eel's nest home
has taught Simon some valuable lessons.
SIMON: A lot of the projects I work on have a lot of constraints.
This one has a very small lot size,
a lot like my own house.
So, a lot of the lessons that I learned
from designing my own house I put into designing these.
There's a very -- There's an inherent simplicity behind them.
NARRATOR: On top of his own house,
there's a deck with some nice plants and the iconic L.A. view.
Up on the roof, we have the Hollywood sign over here,
and then behind, for me, over there
is the San Bernardino Mountains.
And the roof is basically designed to be like a yard.
NARRATOR: With the eel's nest,
a little less is decidedly a lot more --
a yard with a view
and Sunset Boulevard just two blocks away --
Location, location.
Our next home is in the small town of Velké Hamry
in the Czech Republic.
The first clue that this is no ordinary house
is a whirring sound.
Then it hits you -- The house is rotating.
[ Whirring ]
This is the Robo House,
brainchild of civil engineer Bohumil Lhota.
It's taken over 30 years to get the project,
quite literally, off the ground --
or out of the ground.
It's very sci-fi.
[ Speaking native language ]
INTERPRETER: I explored a lot of ideas
of living underground or aboveground
and also of living in a rotating structure.
There were other possibilities, too.
This house is a combination of all the ideas
I've looked into over the years and wanted to try out.
NARRATOR: When Bohumil first had the idea back in the '80s,
he wanted a house that was able to follow the sun
and could make the most of the Earth's warmth.
So he buried part of the house in the ground.
At a constant 41 degrees, it's cool during hot summers
and above freezing in the often brutal Czech winters.
This part contains a studio
and a gallery for Bohumil's paintings.
But go on through to the end of the gallery,
and you reach something else entirely.
This part is built
on an industrial spindle-and-clutch assembly.
Think of a giant turntable, and you get it.
It raises the house like a periscope
and can turn it 180 degrees.
The spindle measures almost 33 feet tall.
The turntable on top of it is made of steel wedges
that radiate outward like pieces of a pie.
The house sits on that.
BOHUMIL: [ Speaking native language ]
INTERPRETER: You climb up the spiral stairs,
and you get to this loft.
We call it our playroom.
This is where the building's machine room is.
NARRATOR: The machine is built
around a straightforward cogged wheel
connected to a transmission mechanism
and an electric engine.
This is simple mechanical magic
that can lift the whole building up and down.
INTERPRETER: We are now in the living room part of the building.
You can rotate it and you can also move it up and down --
a difference in height of about six feet.
NARRATOR: The kitchen and dining room are on the first floor
along with a sleeping area and shower room.
It's all very simple --
constructed from pine and polycarbonate sheeting
to keep it light enough to be lifted
and turned towards the sun -- when there is any.
Underneath the house is a swimming pool --
You'll just want to get out before the house comes down.
This house is a labor of love for Bohumil,
and he'd like to see others incorporate the design,
but he's happy to spend the rest of his days
living in this one-of-a-kind home in the Czech countryside.
Coming up, a house in Indonesia
that's quite literally child's play.
[ Shouting ]
NARRATOR: We're back on our tour
of the world's most extreme homes.
Most of the houses in this modern, gated community
in Jakarta, Indonesia, are pretty conventional,
but not the Playhouse.
When architect Ary Indra
decided that he'd like to move even closer to his sister,
he got busy with a sledgehammer and broke a few rules.
I decided to join the house
because we live next to each other,
and I think it was quite silly if we have a separate door.
That's why I just demolished the wall
and then joined the house into one house
because we're a multigeneration family,
and I think that's the norm here.
NARRATOR: The two-in-one house is now home to Ary,
his 8-year-old son, Arya, his sister, and his mom.
But that's pretty much the only normal thing about it.
The walls and even the roof are made of ferrocement.
It's super strong, which is good,
but it also absorbs a lot of heat, which is bad,
and Ary didn't want to pay huge bills for air-conditioning,
so there isn't any.
Instead, he built in lots of alternative cooling systems.
The roof is shielded by a heat-resistant membrane,
which reduces the internal temperature
by over seven degrees Fahrenheit.
Much of the exterior is covered by lush thunbergia vines
with an insulating space between them and the wall.
And the garden is planted with large shade trees.
The living area is large and open to the 32-foot ceiling.
Fans keep the air moving.
The concrete walls are either painted white
or left deliberately raw.
And the floor is all cool, white marble.
There's more ventilation
from a smart, horizontal window system
with louvers that can be opened
during even the most stifling monsoon rains.
Another unusual thing about this very personal house
is that it has two kitchens
because Ary's mom likes to have her own.
To keep the peace in the family,
he also kept two master bedrooms and bathrooms
when he connected the houses
as well as three other smaller bedrooms.
The gallery that connects them all
serves another important function.
Arya! Lunch is ready!
Come down!
NARRATOR: It gives Arya a good running start.
ARYA: Whoo!
[ Shouting ]
NARRATOR: This fun slide loops outside the house
and deposits daredevil sliders onto the ground floor.
The idea came from Ary's son -- No surprise there.
I was presenting the design of the house to the family
during the family dinner during 2009.
And Arya was there, and he started doodling
something on the plan that I show him.
And he was trying to show me that he wants to have a slide
from his room to the dining room,
and that's where the idea came from.
NARRATOR: It's been a huge hit.
Visitors between the ages of 3 and 78 have tried it out.
But Ary's favorite place is the pond outside his study.
The original idea was to breed these fish for the dinner table,
but they're so beautiful, he hasn't had the heart to do it.
Next up, an island home
where self-sufficiency and luxury living go hand in hand.
NARRATOR: Welcome back to "Extreme Homes."
Some people buy a sports car
when they have a midlife crisis.
The owner of our next home bought an entire island.
Melody Key is one of the Florida Keys --
a small one just 25 miles from Key West.
Still, it's remote.
The only way to get there is by boat or seaplane.
It's out there.
This makes Melody Key the ultimate island retreat.
It's secluded, idyllic, and that's not all.
It's also completely off the grid.
When the current owner bought the six-acre island,
he remodeled the home there
and made the entire property self-sufficient.
All of the home's energy needs are met by solar power.
In 2011, the current owner purchased the house,
and he wanted to get away from a $100,000-a-year propane bill
and decided to make the entire place total solar-efficient.
NARRATOR: The main house was covered in solar panels
and, to boost the supply,
the owner constructed a second building
and covered that, too, with another 104 panels.
The new building also contains 28,000 pounds of batteries
and the necessary inverter
plus a backup generator just in case.
It wasn't cheap to build,
but this state-of-the-art system powers the entire island,
and there's no monthly electric bill.
The island isn't dependent on the mainland
for its water needs, either.
A desalination plant can process 800 gallons a day.
That's enough for bathing,
washing clothes, and washing dishes.
Drinking water comes in bottles by boat.
Lawn maintenance on the island
calls for a vacuum cleaner rather than a mower,
and the locals seem to approve.
We don't really have enough water to just spend it
on watering grass all the time and keeping it nice and green.
And we want a nice green lawn year round,
so we put in artificial turf.
NARRATOR: There's a 2-acre grove of 400-year-old mangrove trees
and another two acres of wetland.
So, most of the island is a nature preserve.
The house looks like something out of "Swiss Family Robinson,"
but this is no flimsy beach hut.
It's built to withstand hurricanes and tidal waves.
The walls on the first floor
are designed to be taken down easily in a storm.
It's a simple job to put them back when the sun comes out.
The house sits on telephone poles,
which allow any storm surge to pass underneath.
The walls and roof
are made of water-resistant cedar and durable bamboo.
MIKE: We wanted something that would make it look more tropical
and give it a kind of a Robinson Crusoe effect.
So, we went with the bamboo,
which gives you a very long-lasting finish.
NARRATOR: From inside, the three-bedroom home
is all about the views
with glass doors giving it a permanent summery feel.
The owner lives on the top two floors.
The bedrooms, each with their own bathroom,
are on the lower level.
And you can step straight out from each bedroom
onto a balcony.
On the top floor, lies the living room,
where warm hardwood floors and tropical colors
give this room a real tropical-island feel.
There's also a kitchen
fitted out with American cherrywood cabinets,
granite countertops,
and cool travertine tiles on the floor.
And at the very top of the house,
check out the widow's walk
for a 360-degree panorama of this island paradise.
The pool measures 21x11 feet,
and was floated from the mainland to the island
like a boat.
Melody Key is a small island, to be sure,
but there's plenty of wildlife.
MIKE: I found an osprey nest
that was floating out in the water,
so I decided to recycle it
and put it on the island to give ospreys a new home.
And we've had osprey every year -- the same ones.
They're just like part of the island now.
NARRATOR: At 3,600 square feet,
the house is the largest single-dwelling residence
in the Keys.
Little self-sufficient Melody Key
has had a miraculous makeover from a salty, sun-blasted island
into an idyllic island getaway.
Our next home is built like a fortress
to protect against its harsh, desert surroundings.
NARRATOR: Welcome back to "Extreme Homes."
Out in the Idaho desert,
there's a home that looks sort of like a concrete bunker
or even a spaceship that's fallen to Earth.
But it's actually the residence of artist Jan ***.
This house is in the southern part of Blaine County,
and it's where the high desert
meets the beginnings of the northern Rockies.
And it is a very changeable environment.
NARRATOR: When Jan first started thinking about a life project,
building a new house was at the top of the list,
and she had some land that had been in the family
since the 1970s.
The location was isolated, and the climate could be extreme
with hot summers and huge snowfalls in winter,
but she loved the views.
She contacted local architect Tom Kundig,
and their two creative minds connected almost immediately.
Tom Kundig and I immediately
found a language and a commonality,
and both of us grew up in the northwest,
and both of our fathers were architects.
NARRATOR: Jan's idea of what she wanted evolved
over the 10 years it took to get the project off the ground.
JAN: I thought that I was going to build a machine for living.
However, it has turned out to be more of a shelter
and more of a philosophical statement, I think.
It's a real challenge -- in a good way --
to live immersed in nature.
NARRATOR: The house is long and low,
measuring more than 3,600 square feet.
The exterior walls surround
another 3,000 square feet of protected garden oasis.
This desert is where the deer and the antelope play,
so walls are absolutely necessary to keep them out.
It's the only way to maintain
green, growing plants in the desert.
The walls also protect home and garden
from the harsh, desert environment.
But inside, giant 8x11-foot glass panels
open up the house, visually, to the changing landscape.
The walls are re-enforced concrete
lined with gypsum wallboard then plastered and left bare.
All the uprights and roof supports are steel.
A single, central room
combines kitchen, dining, and living-room areas.
In the kitchen, Jan kept it simple.
JAN: It's meant to be very practical and very useful
but minimal and, since it adjoins the living area,
not to be too kitcheny.
But it functions beautifully.
And, of course, the light is amazing.
NARRATOR: Upstairs, there's a sort of bedroom loft
that looks over the main room.
Wooden floors and cabinets
of repurposed old-growth fir from the northwest
give the interior a warm feel.
There's Carrara marble in the kitchen and bathroom.
Comfortable decor and an early 19th-century tabletop,
passed down through Jan's family,
make this desert house feel like a home.
And when she wants to breathe some desert air
or gaze at the stars,
there's a deck just off the living room.
Artist Jan seems to revel in the harshness of her surroundings.
For her, it's the perfect home in an ideal location.
It's just a treat.
It's just a privilege to live in such a natural setting.
NARRATOR: Ask anyone in Brazil
if they've heard of musician Oswaldo Montenegro,
and the answer will most likely be "yes."
His popular songs and soundtracks
have made him a household name in Brazil.
But his home is something else.
This is Leblon, one of Rio's ritziest neighborhoods.
From the outside, these residential apartment buildings
all sort of look the same.
But inside one of them is an apartment from another world.
Oswaldo's life is about composing and performing music.
He was working on the score for a ballet about painters
when it all came to him.
OSWALDO: [ Speaking Portuguese ]
INTERPRETER: I spent three months immersed in this subject,
studying painters' lives.
I was so amazed,
I decided I didn't just want to have a painting on my wall.
I wanted to live inside one.
Paintings can bring out different feelings,
and among those different feelings,
the one I most felt attracted to
was the feeling of being in a painter's studio,
surrounded with all that chaos and all those colors.
NARRATOR: It took him 12 days to paint the entire apartment --
every square inch of it.
But no sooner had he finished than he started again.
It's clear that for him, it's as much about the process
as it is about the finished result,
and his art is not about painting pictures,
it's more an artistic expression.
INTERPRETER: It makes you excited when you start painting.
You put on some music, you dance,
you jump about, and paint.
It is an explosion of feelings,
but, to be honest, it's really an explosion
of just one feeling -- happiness.
The real reason I painted this flat
was to feel the kind of happiness you have as a kid.
NARRATOR: Floors, ceilings, and windows
have all been painted -- and the furniture, too --
even his acoustic guitar.
Only the piano escaped after a friend talked him out of it.
INTERPRETER: The most difficult parts to paint
were the ceiling -- which was really tough --
and the floor, which I kept painting
until I reached the front door,
at which point, I had to sleep outside the flat.
NARRATOR: The kitchen leads off
the living and dining room in one direction,
and a hallway leads the other way
past the bathroom to Oswaldo's bedroom.
Not everyone is as taken with the overall affect.
One of the artist's friends says it makes him feel dizzy.
But Oswaldo himself
draws inspiration from the riot of color.
INTERPRETER: I really like living here.
It makes me feel free.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, something appears to have crash-landed
in the Dutch countryside.
NARRATOR: Welcome back to "Extreme Homes."
We're heading now to a clearing in the woods
deep in the heart of the Netherlands,
and something very unusual appears to have crash-landed.
This cone-shaped building
is just outside the village of Beekbergen,
about 60 miles from Amsterdam.
Smooth and space-age on one side,
the building morphs into a thatched curve on the other.
It belongs to Anton Schouten and Hannie Kempink.
They wanted to move away from houses with right angles
and design something circular.
So they took their ideas to an architect,
and this futuristic building is the result.
They demolished a traditional box-shaped house on the site
and started to build their newer, bolder design,
which took about two years.
The walls are concrete
and coated with a highly durable silicate paint,
and a steel frame supports the sloping, thatched roof.
It sits in a field of tall grasses.
You cross a metal bridge, go through the front door,
and you're in the very open heart of the home.
The kitchen is also on this middle level.
Steps lead up to the living room,
where a functional, free-standing fireplace
catches your eye.
These were made for our house, special.
It's the only one in the world.
HANNIE: And it looks like rockets.
And it looks like a rocket, yeah.
But it's very special, and it's nice, warm!
That's most important, of course.
Big, glass windows look out on the garden and up at the sky.
Light wells and triangular windows
make the most of the natural light,
which shines in through openings in the 42-foot-high ceiling.
Steps lead down to the dining area,
where custom furniture was made to fit the curved space.
HANNIE: It was very heavy.
It's stainless steel --
almost thick like this,
so it needed six people to carry it in.
But we like it very much.
There's a master bedroom on this level, too.
And the bathroom has a walk-in rain shower.
And there's a guest bedroom and bathroom on the next level up.
A glass elevator connects all the floors
if you don't want to take the stairs.
This house is full of surprises.
The lot is sloped,
so the garage is on a lower level and opens below the house.
The swimming pool is on the top floor,
and the light under the glass roof
makes this a great spot all year round.
The couple wanted something different,
and they got it.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1 -- Blast off!
We've seen homes of all shapes and sizes
in locations around the world.
From a futuristic house in Australia
inspired by a paper loop
to an L.A. home the size of a parking spot.
A house in the Czech Republic that twists and turns,
and a space-age home in Holland.
But all of these houses have something in common.
To their owners, they're simply home, sweet home.
Thanks for watching "Extreme Homes."