There's absolutely nothing like having a home with lots of natural light, and if that's your goal, the more windows the better. But besides being a bad place to throw stones, glass houses aren't the best choice for things like home theaters, bedrooms, or any kind of room you'd like to keep private. You get to have both a light-filled dwelling and a shady batcave with the Sliding House: a home that transforms from greenhouse to barn at the flick of a switch.

Created by dRMM Architecture in the U.K. as a retirement home, the Sliding House is actually three buildings lined up with each other (a garage is off to the side), with the glass one on the end. When it's time to reveal it, the timber exterior slides over the other two, which are painted red to give the whole complex the appearance of a countryside barn. A concrete base helps hide the sliding mechanism.

We think the whole concept is fantastic, fulfilling our evil-lair and transformers desires all at once. Mount some badass gun turrets underneath the exterior, and we'd never leave.

Kultureflash, via Gadget Review