'Upside Down House 2012-06-02 16.00.19' photo (c) 2012, Brian Kelley - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

This is a little different from my other “The Best…” lists.

For the sites listed in the first section of this post, I’m planning on having my English Language Learner students look through these accessible sites, identify which images they found particularly intriguing, and explain why — in writing and verbally.  It’s an opportunity to practice language-development skills, and I suspect they’ll find the content pretty engaging.  I certainly did as I was developing this list!

And for the sites in the second part, they’ll have an opportunity to design their own house…

You might also be interested in The Best Sites For Learning About Famous Buildings.

Here are my picks for The Best Images Of Weird, Cool & Neat-Looking Buildings (& Ways To Design Your Own):

IMAGES:

Here are images of “The World’s Most Creative Buildings.”

How about the 20 Most Bizarre Houses around the world?

Check-out the World’s Slimmest Houses and Buildings.

50 Strange Buildings Of The World is another amazing list.

And next is 50 Strange Buildings of the World Part Two.

15 Beautiful Buildings Carved from ‘Living Rock’

How about 8 Of The Best Treehouses In The World.

10 Most Creative Apartment Blocks contains images of some pretty strange apartment buildings.

World’s Wildest Houses

The Recycled Houses is the title for a neat New York Times slideshow on houses built out of recycled materials.

It’s hard to believe people actually live in these bizarre homes is a collection of photos.

The World’s Coolest Buildings is the name of a slideshow from “Travel & Leisure.”

10 Houses to See Before You Die shows images, and provides text information, on ten intriguing or weird or beautiful….houses.

“10 Unbelievable Upside Down Houses” are images of….houses built upside down.

40+ Fabulous Fairy Tales Inspired House Designs is a pretty neat photo collection of….fairy tale inspired houses.

Top 10 Precarious Buildings is a fun TIME Magazine slideshow.

“10 of the smallest homes in the world” is the title of a slideshow from The Mother Nature Network.

12 upside down houses shows images of…houses that are upside down.

“10 Most Bizarrely Shaped Buildings on Earth” show images of some pretty strange looking buildings.

21 Most Strange and Creative Work done by Architects Part-1 is a post showing exactly what the headline says it is.

10 Buildings Shaped Like What They Sell is a series of photos described accurately by the headline.

Chinese Architect Builds Egg House on Sidewalk to Escape Insane Rents is a Fast Company article with photos. It’s interesting — to say the least.

A billionaire from India has just moved into the world’s first billion dollar home. I’m adding some images of it to this list. I think it fits into the “weird” category:

Check-out a slideshow from The Los Angeles Times

A video from The Sydney Morning Herald.

15 Bizarre Buildings

7 Coolest ‘Weird Buildings’ (Thanks to Interesting Pile for the link)

Buildings that break the box is a pretty neat slideshow from Salon.

Walls have eyes: houses that look like people — I kid you not — the title for a slideshow from The Independent newspaper.

The Cube Project Squeezes Bachelor Pad Into Charmingly Tiny Box is a video and short article from TIME Magazine.

The world’s strangest buildings is a BBC slideshow.

Massive Tree House is a TIME Magazine slideshow.

The world’s 18 strangest homes is another slideshow.

Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter is a Wall Street Journal slideshow.

Are these the ugliest buildings in the world? is a slideshow from The Telegraph.

Are these the world’s most unusual buildings? is a slideshow from The Telegraph.

Forget Big-Box Stores. How About A Big-Box House? is from NPR.

Gastro-Architecture is a fun interactive from The New York Times.

America’s ugliest buildings is a photo gallery from The Mail Online.

Architect designs ‘world’s smallest house’ is from CNN.

A Grounded Flying Saucer in Puerto Rico is a NY Times slideshow of a very strange house.

7 Buildings That Defy The Laws of Physics is from Atlas Obscura.

15 Buildings That Don’t Look Like Buildings is a slideshow from TIME.

11 of Europe’s most bizarre buildings is from CNN.

8 buildings shaped like animals is from TIME.

Designs of the Year: 76 eye-catching creations is a photo gallery from The BBC.

Upside Down Houses is from The Atlantic.

10 of the Strangest Looking Homes in All of Europe is from Housely.

This year is the fiftieth anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s death.  I’m adding slideshows highlighting his work to this list:

Frankly Speaking is from The Washington Post.

Fallingwater is the famous house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. You can now see an amazing animation of the home.

Here’s an interactive map with images of Wright’s most famous houses and buildings.

Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive is a NY Times interactive.

Unusual Homes Around the World is a photo gallery from The Atlantic.

8 of the World’s Most Unusual Homes

From Visually.

40 Of The Most Evil-Looking Buildings That Could Easily Be Supervillain Headquarters

The 25 Most Significant Works of Postwar Architecture is from The NY Times.

DESIGN YOUR OWN:

There are some sites where students can design their own homes.

Build a House at ABCYA.

Other suggestions are, as always, welcome.

If you found this post useful, you might want to look at previous “The Best…” lists and also consider subscribing to this blog for free.