Hasta La Ideas

The floors of this house by Tokyo studio HUG are connected by the steps of a courtyard that climbs over a roof (+ slideshow).

Starting just above ground level, the staggered terrace steps up on top of a metal-clad garage to connect the double-height living room of the residence with a first floor bedroom.

Parapet walls surround the courtyard on two sides to screen it from the street that runs along the front of the house.

More Japanese houses on Dezeen »

Photography is by Satoshi Asakawa.

The text below is from HUG:

Terrace Step House

The site is surrounded by fields and located within the comfortableness of light and wind.

Therefore, the main idea was to focus on the exterior space, and create a house holding an atmosphere of “outside” more than “inside”.

Main feature of the house is the large 50 sq m terrace steps.

The terrace steps connect the first and the second floor, and links to the living room, bedroom flatly.

The inner spaces unite with the terrace, and blends in with the outer space.

Second floor section of the terrace steps is located on top of the parking lot of the front road.

This location able to cut views from the road, but let in the light and wind into the linked living room, and create a flow throughout the outer space.

The pathway of the inner and outer spaces unite by looping dimensionally, and connecting the skip-floors organically.

The terrace steps are an extension of the interior, a large pathway, a stage, an open square, and a main feature of the house.

This house holding the vagueness of both inner and the outer space is filled with light, wind, and the comfortable life of “outside”.

Chilean architects Surco Studio have completed a rusted steel and concrete entrance and administration block for a school in Chile that was severely damaged by an earthquake.

Sheets of weathered steel overhang the concrete exterior walls to frame the entrance to the building, which leads in towards the school’s reception, as well as to new classrooms.

Located at a crossroads in the city of Linares, the school is named Liceo María Auxiliadora and the new building displays a statue of the Virgin Mary in the window above its wooden entrance.

Exposed concrete walls also feature inside the two-storey building, while large areas of glazing separate rooms from the double-height foyer.

Other projects we’ve featured in Chile this year include a house made from prefabricated modules and a library filled with daylight.

See all our stories about Chile »

Photography is by the architects.

Here’s some more explanation from Surco Studio:

Administration Curricular Building Liceo María Auxiliadora de Linares

The project is part of the reconstruction of a building belonging to “María Auxiliadora High School” who was seriously damaged by the earthquake of 27 / F. It was located on the corner facing the main square of Linares, Seventh Region,Chile, in an important position within the city.

The opportunity to rebuild on the same site enabled with the sort proposed building a facility that grew without apparent order program according to the years; In this way was concentrated in the new building all the administrative and curricular program, before dispersed in school, as well as wards of agents and the main entrance to the school, thus replacing poor access and a few classrooms, for a more public one condition under its own logic to where it belongs.

Moreover, the building seeks, through architecture, a reading of the next emblematic elements that may influence your decision, where a rusty steel pediment stands up to the patina of brick Cathedral of the city and, on the opposite axis, a deciduous plant wall accompanies the green of the Plaza de Armas. The intersection of the two fronts forms a double height access that holds a picture of the virgin becoming a kind of urban cave.

Thus, the corner has been dematerialized in access with double eaves height, welcoming to pedestrians and mediating between the scale of the city and the gymnasium. On the other hand is looking to continue with the axes of existing buildings hiding, somehow, the trapezoidal layout of the city of Linares, which prevents the pursuit of orthogonality at the apex.

The double-height access to and qualified in turn penetrates inside the building, creating multiple views among the various levels and venues, also becoming the gateway to the former chapel.

The solution also had to fit a limited budget for government funds allocated to reconstruction work, for which completion tasks eliminated, making the expression of each raw material, concrete, steel and wood, along with the design structural building, equip themselves with the work atmosphere and thus the final image.

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Name of the work: Administration Curricular Building Liceo María Auxiliadora de Linares.
Authors: Surco. Juan Paulo and Felipe Alarcon Carreno
Location: Linares, Maule Region, Chile.

Promoter: Hosted by the Ministry of Education Reconstruction Plan. “Breakdown Plan 1″
Land: 367.7 m2
Constructed area: 735.4 m2

Click above for larger image

Year of project: 2011
Year of construction: 2011
Predominant materials: Reinforced concrete in sight, Steel, Glass DVH, Corten steel and radiata pine wood.
Photographer: SURco.

Click above for larger image

The Tower Studio est un projet architectural étonnant. Construite sur l’île Fogo au large du Canada, cette structure noir offre un design peu commun et une vue incroyable sur le lac. Le contraste avec la nature de ce bâtiment pensé par l’architecte norvégien Todd Saunders, est à découvrir dans la suite en images.

Back in the 1980s, architect and developer John Portman’s firm was slammed by the mushrooming S&L crisis. “I said to hell with this, I’m getting out of here,” he explains in Ben Loeterman’s new documentary John Portman: A Life of Building. Best known for revolutionizing modern hotel architecture (and the Hyatt brand) with soaring atria, Portman decided to head east—way east—and lined up some projects in Shanghai, only to watch as China suddenly coped with its own dose of chaos in the form of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Luckily, Portman is patient (his Marriott Marquis in Times Square opened in 1985—after a dozen years, three mayors, and countless delays), and his Shanghai Centre was the first of an ongoing series of ambitious projects in Asia. Today, at age 87, he’s something of a celebrity in China, where his name is far better known than it is in the United States. Loeterman’s documentary, now rolling out to public television stations across the country, helps American audiences catch up.

The film offers a glimpse into Portman’s life and work that is made mesmerizing by dramatic time-lapse footage that captures daylight washing over the facades and spaces of Portman-designed buildings from Atlanta to Beijing. Viewers learn about his formative trip to Brasila in 1961 and undergraduate encounter with Frank Lloyd Wright (his advice to a young Portman: “Go seek Emerson”) and how he rattled the American Institute of Architects by acting as both architect and developer, an idea that came to him at the age of 29, when he had opened an office but was struggling to get work. “I came to the conclusion that if I got the land and I was able to design the concept and able to get the financing, there was no damn question about who was going to be the architect,” he explains to students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

When you’re the Queen, every day is like your birthday, so when your big day (or at least the cross-your-fingers-that-it’s-sunny June Saturday on which your subjects celebrate it) is imminent, you don’t jot down a wish list and hope that someone has the good sense to order a sheet cake adorned with a frosted corgi or two. Instead, you summon your most trusted advisors (and/or corgis) and hash out your annual list of “birthday honors”—orders of chilvalry such as Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. All the more pressure if it’s a Jubilee year.

Near the top of this year’s list, released Saturday, is Zaha Hadid, who has been awarded the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to architecture. “It is a tremendous honor for me to receive this award. I would like to thank all my colleagues and clients for their hard work and support,” said Hadid in a statement issued today by her London-based firm. “I am delighted that architecture has been recognized in this way. My father went to the London School of Economics in the 1930s, and everything he learned at the time is why I have always leaned towards the UK.” Her projects in the UK include Evelyn Grace Academy in London, the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, and, most recently, the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics. Also making this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honors list were Mulberry creative director Emma Hill (named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, or CBE), Sarah Burton, creative director of Alexander McQueen, who was selected as an Officer (OBE), and jewelry designer Lara Bohinc, who earned a Member (MBE) distinction.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.