In Winnipeg, Manitoba, local firm 5468796 Architecture has developed a structure that has become an unlikely icon on the Prairie city’s skyline. 62M, an innovative residential complex, puts a surprising spin – literally – on the urban condo vernacular: Comprised of 40 pie-shaped apartments, 62M is a striking circular building that floats 9.2 metres above its industrial surroundings and offers inhabitants access to sunlight and one-of-a-kind views of the city. Unexpected and exciting, the building stands in opposition to the glass rectangles that crowd so many cityscapes.

On the other side of the country, architect Omar Gandhi conceived a coastal residence for weather-conscious clients in Nova Scotia that is as unconventionally elegant as it is secure. Clad in black steel and concrete and designed to withstand exposure to severe coastal storms, the two-storey house is bunker-like at first glance, but its beauty reveals itself as one moves inside, where floor-to-ceiling windows, warm natural wood and a considered use of cobalt blue create a calm oasis to wait out and watch those tempests rolling in.

For Australian architect Kate FitzGerald and her Whispering Smith team, the solution to suburban densification is an aggressive less-is-much-more approach. To wit, her House A project just outside of Perth subdivides a plot of land previously occupied by a single dwelling, then injects a slender two-storey concrete structure that proves living large doesn’t require a lot of space. Two other houses are planned for the sectioned-off land, each promising to present new ways of living well with less.

Moving from suburban Australia to rural Portugal, House 3000 by Lisbon-based architect Luís Rebelo de Andrade is a vibrant domestic marker in a forested landscape of umbrella pines and cork oaks. Painted a flaming red, the spare, barn-like structure is a lesson in how to build a completely self-sufficient home in a way that respects the natural landscape rather than imposes on it.

Plus: Irish architect Tom de Paor’s art-house cinema more than a decade in the making; Toronto’s new Museum of Contemporary Art; how Mexico’s Teopanzolco Cultural Center pays homage to its pre-Hispanic surroundings.

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The January/February issue of Azure is available here.