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House in Juso by ARX Portugal and Stefano Riva. Slideshow: Lisbon architects ARX Portugal and Stefano Riva have completed a top-heavy house in the village of Aldeia de Juso with a concrete upper storey settled over the glazed walls below. Named House in Juso, the building has two storeys above ground and one below. A rectangular concrete shell wraps around the non-rectilinear upper floor of the building to create an enclosed opening beside one of the bedrooms and two private decks. Formed within a timber cast, this thick band of concrete has a textured surface that reveals the grains of the wooden boards that once surrounded it. Glass walls surround the ground floor living and dining rooms, which open out onto a garden and swimming pool. You can see a couple more projects by ARX here, both of which also feature openings in the roof.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra. Here's a lengthier description from the architects: House in Juso In Level -1, the areas are laid out (as the regulations so demand) under the contour of the ground level. Bal House / Terry & Terry Architecture. Architects: Terry & Terry Architecture Location: 266 Santa Margarita Street, Menlo Park, USA Completion Date: July 2011 Gross square footage: 2000 sq. ft.. Design Team: Alex Terry AIA, Ivan Terry Engineers: Santos Urrutia Structural Engineers Inc.

Photographs: Bruce Damonte This project was designed for a retiring couple, and necessitated the need for accessible space. The project ties the new addition in the rear garden area to an existing mid century ranch house by way of a transparent hallway that provides accessibility to the existing structure and allows the garden to extend into the core of the house. The new addition comprises two floating volumes. The result of the main space produces large transparent openings or voids that open out on to a deck at the rear garden. The original structure, which houses the music room and two bedrooms/bathroom, was retained.

Ex House / GarcíaGermán Arquitectos. Architect: GarcíaGermán Arquitectos Location: Castillejo de Mesleón, Segovia, Spain Project Team: Jacobo García-Germán, Marta García Jiménez, Verónica de Miguel, Clara Aramburu, Pablo Fernández-Villaverde Construction: KLH (cross-laminated panels), Altermateria (panel installation)Paisajes con Madera (facades), Schüco-Alucer (alluminium windows), Intemper (green roofs) Project Year: June 2011-January 2012 Project Area: 135 sqm Approximate Construction Cost: 980 e/sqm Photographs: Jorge López Conde The term “Ex” refers to a vital process developed by our client through an abandonment of downtown Madrid and its disadvantages leaving behind a world of urban routines. This displacement aims to achieve a feeling of retreat and isolation inherent to the rural setting of the Somosierra mountain range, where the house is located, but taking advantage of its close proximity to the city, with the property at just 1km. distance from the N-1 highway and one-hour drive from Madrid.

Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum / Kengo Kuma & Associates. Architects: Kengo Kuma & Associates Location: 3799-3 Taro-gawa Yusuhara-cho, Takaoka-gun, Kochi Prefecture, Japan Client: Tomio Yano, Town Mayor of Yusuhara Site area: 14,736.47 sqm Completion: 2011 Photographs: Takumi Ota Photography This is a plan to link two public buildings with a bridge-typed facility, which had been long separated by the road in between.

The museum technically bridges communications in this area. It functions not only as a passage between the two facilities but also as an accommodation and workshop, ideal location for artist-in-residence programs. In this project, we challenged a structural system which composes of small parts, referring to cantilever structure often employed in traditional architecture in Japan and China. It is a great example of sustainable design, as you can achieve a big cantilever even without large-sized materials. * Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address. Lamego Multi-Purpose Center. Shanghai Museum of Glass.

Shanghai’s shiny new Museum of Glass opened last week as part of Shanghai’s campaign of becoming a globally important cultural and creative centre by launching 100 museums in a decade. Shanghai-based German architectural firm Logon handled the architecture and exterior of the museum. Germany’s Glashütte Lambets supplied the enameled glass used for the museum’s façade inscribed with glass-industry terms in ten languages. COORDINATION ASIA, also based in Shanghai, was in charge of the overall museum concept, art direction, design and supervision of the museum interior.

It was also the chief consultant for curation, marketing and operation, as well as coordination of an international team of architects, artists, designers, filmmakers and multimedia specialists. COORDINATION’s Tilman Thürmer tells TCH that they used black lacquered glass for the interior (cases, floor, furniture, walls), but left the existing structure untouched.

For The Love of Wood. Wood is both universal and unique. No other material is as deeply embedded in the history, culture and life of humans worldwide as wood, yet every single piece of wood is unique. The color tone, texture, durability, flexibility and even sound qualities of different tree species have puzzled and challenged artists, architects, designers, builders and artisans for thousands of years. Still today, nothing matches wood in versatility or beauty, so it is great to see how today’s designers and architects continue to face the challenge of wood, and use it creatively to interpret sleek, modern designs. They use wood to meet their current needs and desires for which wood is ideally suited. People also look for sustainable alternatives, eco-friendly options, greener solutions. We especially love the influence of Scandinavian and Japanese traditions that we can detect in today’s wood architecture and design.

Scandinavian building and design traditions are based solidly on the use of wood. The New Stuttgart City Library - Germany. Korean architect Eun Young Yi’s proposal was selected in 1999 from 235 competition entries as the plan for the new central library of the City of Stuttgart. The building of the 80-million Euro (about $108 mil. US) Stadtbibliothek am Mailänder Platz began three years ago and the opening ceremonies took place last month.

Yi has created a monolithic cube with two floors underground and nine above. Essentially all of the building, both inside and out is white. The main library floors circle an open-plan with the levels connected by open staircases. Books line the outer walls of each floor. As a cool nod to the fact that the building is a storehouse of words, the word “library” is installed in four languages on the outside walls. Yi’s company, Yi Architects is based in Cologne and Seoul. 7th Street Residence by Pulltab Design. 20+ Beautiful Modern Staircases. We’re constantly running across photos of truly jaw dropping staircases. So much of the time, stairs look as if they were ignored until the last minute of the design process, but not in these cases. Check out some of our favorite staircasess that we’ve come across: Let’s start out with a staircase we’ve talked about before: Ribbon Stairs.

Designed by HŠH Architects to mimic a delicate rippling ribbon, these stairs are beautiful but maybe a little scary to run up and down when you’re in a hurry. Italian company 14 Ora Italiana has a collection of wood grain porcelain tiles that were inspired by the works of Andy Warhol. Photo by Filip Dujardin These stairs belong in House G by Maxwan Architects + Urbanists, in which a barn received a complete makeover. The Grove Park project from Bell Phillips Architects features a staircase that is “created from a complex geometry of folded triangular facets which appear to float effortlessly within the space.” Photo by Christopher Duff Photo by Daici Ano. Dove House by Gundry & Ducker. London architects Gundry & Ducker have added a blackened larch extension onto the rear of a Victorian terrace in south London.

The stained timber structure doubles the size of the existing kitchen, adding extra width as well as depth. Skylights on the pitched roof of the new structure increase natural light inside the house. The larch walls extend beyond the house to enclose a matching gabled playhouse and a garden terrace. The project was named as one of the two best new extensions in London at New London Architecture's Don’t Move, Improve!

Awards last week. Gundry & Ducker also recently completed a restaurant interior for an Italian chain - check it out here. This project was one of two winners of New London Architecture's Don't Move, Improve! Photography is by Joe Clark. Here's a description from the architects: Dove House A larch clad extension to a Victorian Terrace House in Wandsworth. The existing garden was small and surrounded by unattractive tall fencing. Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum / Kengo Kuma & Associates. Kettle Hole House.