Snøhetta has revealed visuals for a major new opera house in Shanghai, featuring a spiralling stepped roof that will connect the upper levels of the building with a riverside plaza. More
Vine Architecture Studio has refurbished a rooftop apartment in east London, with features including a yellow spiral staircase and generous rooflights that fill the interior with daylight. More
MAD has revealed visuals of a "theatrical" spiral staircase set to create a panoramic viewing platform for a historic warehouse on Rotterdam's waterfront. More
Black and white stairways splice and spiral through the Studio Libeskind-designed MO Museum of modern art in Vilnius, Lithuania. More
Shanghai-based studio ATAH's arts centre in the Chinese city of Shaoxing is a glazed cylinder intersected by a spiralling walkway that doubles as a stage. More
Portuguese studio Promontorio has transformed a 1980s office building in Lisbon into a high-tech headquarters featuring a spiralling concrete staircase. More
Balint Alovits' photography series Time Machine features architectural staircases in Bauhaus and art deco-style buildings in Budapest, Hungary. More
A concrete staircase spirals between the austere concrete floors of this house designed by Kazunori Fujimoto Architect & Associates for a seaside spot in Japan's Hiroshima Prefecture. More
A glazed ramp spirals around a courtyard at the centre of this house in the Portuguese town of Estoril, connecting the various living spaces and a garden roof terrace. More
Parisian studio Karawitz has completed a housing block overlooking the Ourcq canal, which features balconies framed by light-grey boxes and an external corkscrew staircase. More
Hidden behind a bookcase in a secret room, a fireman's pole offers a fast escape route from the top floor of this Berlin home by local studio NOWlab (+ slideshow). More
Graduate shows 2015: a pair of Royal College of Art graduates have created a new way to climb trees – strapping steps around the trunk to form a spiral staircase up to out-of-reach branches. More
This McDonald's restaurant featuring a perforated golden facade and a grand spiral staircase was designed by Dutch firm Mei Architects to replace "the ugliest building in Rotterdam" (+ slideshow). More
Bored with the dismal view from the office window, Polish studio Zalewski Architecture envisioned a grassy suspended walkway that would allow them to take a stroll without leaving the building. More
A metal staircase twists though a triangular well in one corner of this six-sided timber cabin by ALT Architekti, which is raised on stilts over a hillside in Central Bohemia (+ slideshow). More
Two curving staircases encircle the exterior of this wedding chapel by Tokyo-based architect Hiroshi Nakamura, meeting at a rooftop platform that overlooks the Hiroshima coastline (+ slideshow). More
A spiral staircase rises through the trough-shaped floors of this concrete residence in Japan by local studio Takeshi Hosaka Architects (+ slideshow). More
Norwegian architect Tron Meyer has designed a spiral staircase made entirely from laminated wood carved into curving steps that optimise the space for walking on (+ slideshow). More
Stairs and bookshelves wrap around a triple-height atrium inside this university library, which Danish architecture studio Adept describes as a "spiral of knowledge" (+ slideshow). More
A spiralling staircase with a stripy central balustrade unites the refurbished spaces of this city hall in the French commune of Le Pré Saint-Gervais by Paris firm Zoomfactor Architectes. More