Not Your Typical Front Door Design – Cool Buildings With Unique Entryways

Apartments don’t really offer a lot of options when it comes to front doors whereas houses are a lot more customizable in this sense. You can basically design the house to accommodate any type of door you prefer, including a custom door created just for that. Double-height door, pivoting front doors, doors that slide, made of glass, metal or wood and numerous other options are all possible. The following examples show just how creative you can get.

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

A huge pivot door like the one Paz Arquitectura designed for a residence located in Guatemala can definitely be a cool design feature and a great way to set the tone for a unique and memorable interior design. You can be certain your guests will remember their visit here. They might even share this detail with others making your home a real star. 

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

A front door can be memorable and special without necessarily being massive. An interesting example would be this tall glass door designed by Otto Medem de la Torriente for a house located in La Moraleja, Spain. The door gives the otherwise small and narrow entrance foyer a pretty dramatic look and also emphasizes its double-height nature in addition to letting in lots of natural sunlight. 

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

This is the PS House, a residence located in Tijuana Mexico and designed by Guillot Arquitectos. It has a double-height entrance foyer too and the front door is quite large compared to a regular one. However, it doesn’t go all the way up and this makes it seem less intimidating which is important for ensuring a welcoming ambiance. 

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

The double-height glass door perfectly blends in and gives the facade of this house built by MG design studio a minimalist and fluid look without obstructing the view. The continuous design also helps to ensure a seamless transition between the indoor and the outdoor spaces. 

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

This house from São Paulo, in Brazil has a double front door which pivot and open up the entire entrance foyer to the outside worlds, ensuring a seamless connection with the stone-paved courtyard space. The large doors contrast with the facade but also set the tone for an elegant interior. This project was a collaboration between architect Renata Furlanetto and Studio MK27

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

In the case of the Concrete Box House from Houston, architecture studio Robertson Design paid special attention to the entrance area and created a very special sequence which starts with a hidden opening between two overlapping concrete walls which leads to an entry courtyard and then to the front door which pivots and features an interesting design involving vertical wood boards within a sleek metal frame.

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

This cool Town House in Antwerp, Belgium features the world’s largest pivoting window. Actually it’s a door…two in fact. They’re almost as tall as the house itself and they open up the entire rear section of the house, bringing the outdoors in a unique and rather unusual way. These huge doors are 3 meters wide and 6 meters high each. The house was designed by Sculp[IT]

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

The Offset Printing Factory from Dongcheng, Beijing is a collection of industrial-looking buildings, one of which is this warehouse theater redesigned by studio Origin Architect. We love the rugged, corten steel exterior and especially the huge folding door mechanism which makes the building look like a huge garage. 

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

Originally built in the 1940s, this house located in São Paulo, Brazil was recently redesigned by Studio Guilherme Torres. The main objective of the project was to update and to refresh the building so it reflects its new owner’s contemporary style, hence all the cool features such as a retractable glass roof or this minimalist pivot front door which gives the house a sophisticated allure. 

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

Another super interesting update was done by studio Olson Kundig in Los Altos, California. The building is a gallery/ office space which dates back to the 1950s The new design features a facade which opens up and invites people in. The facade is basically a huge double height window wall which can be raised and lowered by operating a pedal and turning a hand wheel which activates a series of gears and pulleys.

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

House D is a residence located in Switzerland, on a gently sloping site and was designed by HHF Architects. Its interior spaces are organized on three floors, the top level featuring a low roof pitch which the architects used in their favor to give the interior doors a rather quirky appearance. The doors are have a custom, irregular shape and while they remain simple this little detail is enough to make them stand out.

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

A new workshop was designed and built in Greece for artist Alexandros Liapis. The project was done by A31 Architecture and the studio’s design approach was a simple one: incorporate the landscape into the building by exposing the space to the exterior through a fully-glazed facade wall which takes advantage of the high ceiling and remote location. One section of the facade is not made of glass but of metal and acts as a door. 

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

An abandoned has a lot of potential and there are plenty of examples which prove it. One comes from Beijing, China. OPEN Architecture transformed such a structure back in 2009. It was a very special project because the architect, the client and the user were the same one. The result was a very inspiring makeover which brought the building back to life and gave it all sorts of cool new features like this sculptural entry door which folds like a puzzle.

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

Lots of things can make an entryway stand out and look sophisticated and the door is one of them. Everything about it has to be carefully considered: the placement, orientation, size, material as well everything surrounding the door. Isn’t it cool how cozy but also stylish this design done by Bossley Architects is? The LED light strip is a particularly nice detail. 

House in Guatemala with large pivot door by Paz Arquitectura

You have to look closely in order to find the entrance to this house and that’s exactly what the designers intended: to make the front door perfectly blend in with the walls. The house is located in Barwon Heads, Australia and was designed by Auhaus Architecture