The TUIN (garden) building

Rotterdam designer Reinier de Jong says that housing in big city centres seems to consist of small apartments. Highrise equals apartments. Or so it seems. However many cities economically really need well-to-do middle class dwellers. They flee to suburbia as soon as salaries go up and kids arrive. So we will diminish the suburban sprawl that is swallowing up our precious land.
The project TUIN (garden) combines high-rise with a typical suburban housing typology: a two storey dwelling with garden. A height of seven metres and a depth of one metre of soil guarantees a true garden. Enough for sunlight, rain and wind to enter and nourish trees, shrubs, flowers and grass.

Nicolas G. Hayek Center

With so much new, high-profile construction going on in Tokyo, it takes a special building to stand out as truly exceptional.
The Nicolas G. Hayek Center, the new headquarters for Swatch Group Japan (designed by Shigeru Ban) is just such a building. Located in the posh Ginza district and named after the company's founder, the building focuses on Swatch's luxury labels — Breguet, Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot, Omega (plus a Swatch presence for the masses) — each with its own retail space.
Each shop has a hydraulic glass elevator that lifts you directly to the shop's entrance and doubles as a showroom, offering a glimpse of what to expect when it stops and you step out.
Add to that a wide-open exterior lobby and beautiful wall-mounted garden — environmentalism is a signature of Ban's work — and you end up with a shopping center that's truly ahead of the times.

via Times

The Chapel House

Another great conversion by ZECC Architecten, this time an apartment in a converted chapel located in Utrecht, Netherlands. It’s on the second floor (added?), and because there were no windows at floor height, the firm designed one to be cut into the front on the street side to bring in more light - it vaguely resembles a Mondrian painting.

Before...

After...

Together with the original stained-glass windows up on high, and the white-painted interior, the whole effect is simply amazing.

The bedroom and bathroom were left dark.The original organ remains as a reference to the history of the building - it’s a nice conversation piece, that’s for sure…..
via Materialicio

Wall stair...

From the portfolio of Aaron Tang a proposal for a staircase made of simple mechanical hinges and pistons, that folds flush against the wall to allow easier access a lower space.
The Wall-Stair
Using simple mechanical hinges and pistons, this inventive staircase easily folds flush up against a wall to expand a lower space and/or to restrict access to an upper floor. The mechanics within the design allow any person to easily open or close the staircase from upstairs or downstairs. Inner pistons help slide the stairs back up swiftly to create a flush wall. The pistons also act as a gradient to lower each step individually after the stairs have been pulled out, creating a gradual, elegant wave-like pattern as the steps individually lock into place.
This project originated from a door project in which I was asked to define what a door was and could be. I defined a door as "an element of a wall that allowed passageway to another environment when opened and restricted passageway when closed."

Water Tower house

A good example of conversion architecture by ZECC Architecten are a old Water Tower converted into a residence in Soest, Utrecht, Netherlands.

Water Tower before...

The ZECC Project...

Water Tower after...

Brother-Claus-Chapel by Arch. Peter Zumthor

Germany, Mechernich-Wachendorf, the Brother-Claus-Chapel is sanctified to the holy Niklaus von Fluehe, so called Brother Claus1417-1487. The chapel was built 2005-2007 with Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. On his own ground donated and built by farmer Hermann-Josef and Trudel Scheidtweiler, the whole family and helpers to praise god and in honor to Holy Niklaus von Fluehe.

Sin Den - the black house...

Located in Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Sin Den was desgined by Klein Dytham architecture for a young couple and their baby. Part house, part ‘cutting-edge’ salon, the building is meant to attract ‘those who have their own style and seek a perfect hideaway’.
From the exterior the house/salon is meant to stand out and draw attention to itself. Filling the 50 square meter site with what is essentially a black box, the designers were trying to create a strong graphic image on the otherwise simple and massive box - displaying the creativity and uniqueness of the home’s inhabitants.
The interior of the building is, apparently, quite the opposite - creating what Klein Dytham describes as the ‘perfect interior for a family home’ through a simpler design, with ‘natural’ colors and spaces flooded with natural light from the large windows cut in the ‘box’.