Need to keep something safe, but want to leave it on display? Just like a museum artifact, but on a much much larger scale, this boxy, two-story, glass-and-metal house contains an aged relic, preserving (while using) uncovered remnants from the elements.

A fitting home for an antique collector of any kind, to be sure, but this new construction by Architectural Bureau G.Natkevicius & Partners is particularly well-suited to the vintage books accumulated by the owner.

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The client now has a new archive within the old masonry lodge, which was once part of a medieval cannon foundry that long ago stood on much of the now-flattened the site.

What was originally thought to be a derelict building not worth saving was revealed to have been built of ancient local bricks, of great historic value (not to mention visual interest!).

As such, the new house was wrapped around the old with bedrooms above and below the main level and an open-plan,, glass-encased first floor.