Halfway between a brutalist building and an experimental futurist design, William Pereira’s Geisel Library dominates the University of California at San Diego interior.
The 8-story building sees the sequence of levels overlap and increase in size. If the plan recalls a cruciform structure, at the center of which are gathered the lift systems and services, in section, the building recalls the development of a tree. The similarity is also underlined by the pillars outside the building, which define a portico on the ground floor and inclinedly support the growing overhang of the floors of the first floors.
An architecture of glass and reinforced concrete, where the load-bearing structure is rooted like an exoskeleton in the context, while the glass floors lightly fill the space. 

The WoZoCo residences symbolize Nordic experimentalism, which has characterized the MVRDV studio for thirty years. In this project, not only is the residence enriched with colorful colors that design kaleidoscopic facades, but the overhang becomes the central theme of the architecture. As autonomous volumes, some floors see entire apartments overhang, creating marked overhangs that do not seem real. Wall beams fit into the main body of the overhanging elements, with a depth similar to that of the main building itself. To underline this invention of form, the overhangs are covered in wood on all facades, contrasting with the continuous glass from which they remain suspended. 

As described by the designers, the Busan Cinema Center is an architecture that becomes an intersection between public space, cultural space, entertainment, and technology, generating a landmark for the South Korean city.
The large overhanging volume undoubtedly characterizes this intervention, which becomes a large wavy covering for a covered square. Here, the wavy surface is covered with LEDs that transform the surface into a public and iconographic giant screen, which hosts artistic lighting.

We find a reticular structure inside these volumes that leaves space for common areas, fulfilling the horizontal and vertical distribution between the complex's buildings. 

Characterized by an overlapping of volumes, whose section recalls the archetype of a house, the VitraHaus is part of the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein. The project hosts the Vitra company exhibition, therefore developing on five levels. The volumes are thus juxtaposed to create walkable galleries in which the points of contact and intersection of the various architectural bodies determine the vertical distribution. The overlapping and rotation of the same generates an expressive and dynamic space in which the sequence of overhangs builds a permeable scheme. In this way, a primordial idea of living is resolved and played in the composition, opening toward the landscape and generating an articulated and contemporary project. 

Built in the English countryside of Suffolk, the Balancing Barn takes on the typical and simple forms of the barn, then uses a reflective sheet metal cladding to play out the contemporary character of the architecture.
The work, 30 meters long, sees half of it suspended in an overhang with respect to a significant slope of the land. The volume thus remains suspended in mid-air, on the edge of a Mannerist game of balance. To underline this idea, a slight swing is attached to the suspended front, whose movement recalls a dynamism hidden in the architecture itself.

The construction of the work was made possible thanks to the use of a central core in reinforced concrete anchored to the ground and the presence of light materials for the overhang and heavy materials for the remainder. 

On the top of a hill, The View Hill House project towers over the Australian landscape. The simple shapes comprise two overlapping parallelepipeds covered in metal sheeting. Rooted to the ground we have a volume in Corten, on which rests and overhangs a volume covered with sheets of matt black aluminum. The overhang reaches 6 and 9 meters on the two fronts, unbalancing the composition in a dynamic equilibrium. Both volumes thus have large openings on the short sides, placing themselves in visual continuity with the rural landscape. At the same time, the architecture stands out on the horizon line, which in the simple shapes sees the overhang as a sign of recognition. 

With Caterpillar House, we are moving to the outskirts of Santiago de Chile. Here, the house for an art collector uses five prefabricated containers to reduce costs and construction time, transforming their reuse into a poetic form of space.
From the street, some volumes are placed on the slope, then reaching the central body of the house, from which, on the second floor, three important parallelepipeds emerge resting on a metal beam to mark the edge of the main body.

The project thus emphasizes the scanning of the space into bands, in which not only is the program of the house distributed, but it also becomes a method to increase the natural ventilation of the space. With an almost industrial character, the Caterpillar House by Sebastián Irarrázaval simultaneously brings the overhang to the domestic scale in a dynamic but welcoming composition. 

A monolith in reinforced concrete and glass remains suspended in the landscape. Through a stepped concrete path, you reach the base of the Solo House, which meets the architecture through the corner of the blind base. In this way, you perceive the upper floor as entirely projected from the base, giving the project a character that is both primitive and contemporary.

The simplicity of the shapes and finishes makes the house appear as an outcrop of the land itself, where the building remains in balance between the base and the natural slope. This inhabited platform contrasts with the solidity of the ground floor, characterized by the succession of sixteen columns of considerable size arranged around the perimeter.

At the center of the house, a courtyard with a swimming pool recalls Mediterranean architecture, creating an almost metaphysical space in which the overhang also becomes a symbolic gesture of connection with the sky and the territory. 

Built in the verdant landscape of Pearl Spring, near Nanjing, China, Steven Holl’s project appears as a polycarbonate volume that winds through the sky and the mountain mist.
The architecture, more than other examples by Holl, echoes the architect’s watercolor paintings. In this museum, the overhang becomes the architecture itself. The support elements blend in with the brown colors of the landscape, as well as the volume resting on the ground, thus highlighting the suspended disarticulation. The usage of polycarbonate visually lightens the work, concealing the dense system of steel beams and pillars that anchor to the vertical load-bearing elements.

The museum thus appears as the juxtaposition of sky, the elevated volume, and earth, the arrangement of the ground and the body of the auditorium, almost transforming the architecture into a constructed transposition of a conceptual work. 

Villa Méditerranée, built along the edge of the port of Marseille, sees a unitary volume modeled to create a 36-meter overhang.
Towards the sea, the architecture has an almost modernist facade treatment. Punctuated by reinforced concrete slabs, the rigor of ribbon windows and larger openings describes the entire system. Like a continuous band, the system wraps around the volume, allowing the overhang to bend the geometric logic, thus transforming a portion of the facade into the lower finish of the overhang. Laterally, however, the museum opens entirely through a glass system, which thus punctuates the entire volume. Below the monumental overhang, a water pizza characterizes the open space, concluding the work itself in an open but covered space between the sea and the coast. 

Built in the Netherlands, Villa Kogelhof draws a suspended horizon in the Dutch countryside. A pure parallelepiped, in which two horizontal reinforced concrete slabs contain a fluid space, whose transparency is guaranteed by a continuous glass strip on all sides. Almost Miesian, the project, which also redesigns the external space according to vegetated and cultivated bands, raises the space of the house, which thus remains suspended. The villa thus rests on two elements: a translucent access volume, which contains the stairs, and two V-shaped pillars, which sink into the ground. Finally, a body of water, transversal to the house, concludes the exact geometry of the space between landscape and architecture, below which the space for the garage and storage has been created. The house thus remains in its formal purity, an object suspended in the flat horizon of the countryside.

If the CCTV Headquarters cantilever in Beijing marked one of the visionary works of the Oma studio at the beginning of 2000, one could look at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange with similar eyes. Although more regular in shape, the building presents an imposing skyscraper whose base, usually rooted to the ground, is instead raised, generating an overhanging volume. Almost like an autonomous building, the cantilever presents a roof garden that designs a new ground, an artificial landscape from which the skyscraper rises. The latter is characterized by a simple facade in which the repetition of a square module becomes the compositional solution. The projecting volume, instead, presents giant-sized lattice beams running on the facade and in the base portion of the skyscraper, showing the structural strength connected to the presence of the large cantilever. 

The project was born to create a new hub for the University of Luxembourg and wanted to design a landmark for the city. Its simple shapes see the intersection of two volumes: a blade in height, which reaches 85 meters, and a long parallelepiped to generate a sequence of open but covered spaces. Here, the overhang determines a suspension of the volume and the possibility of designing a dynamic and iconic space together. Its construction was possible thanks to pre-stressed reinforced concrete floors, which guaranteed the possibility of having large cantilevered surfaces. Finally, the facade is solved with a system that wraps both the described bodies, giving uniformity and permeability to the architecture. 

Dubai is undoubtedly one of the places where landmarks have gradually overlapped and accumulated. An example is the recently completed project by Nikken Sekkei, who designed two skyscrapers connected by a thin volume wedged in a timid balance between the two towers. The theme of this connection in height, which gave life to an architecture in which the overhang becomes the element of recognition of the project itself, derives not only from a linguistic desire but also from an urban necessity. The lot on which the two towers stand sees a road artery cut the property in half, generating a fragmented and divided space on the ground. To overcome the problem, the studio developed a bridge at a height that reunites the architecture and helps the stability of the two towers concerning wind currents.