Jewellery by Dina González Mascaró, an Argentinian Vancouverite. Her shop on Main Street in Vancouver, Jeweller Bau, is itself a sculpture. Website, blog and Flickr. And this is her CV:

Here are three converted churches which seem much more successful than most of the examples in the last post. Above is a 19th century chapel in the Flemish village of Bazel which has been converted into 2 loft-type houses. Thanks to the amazing Office for Word and Image OWI for permission to reprint this photo here – Verne is the photographer. When a church is divided into separate storeys, the space seems to become automatically easier to live in. This seems obvious now but when I set out it seemed a shame to alter the building so radically. As it turns out, though, a 30-40′ cathedral ceiling is not exactly cosy. 

Above, a converted church in Kensal Green, London, via casa sugar and lightlocations. 

A conversion in Brisbane, from desire to inspire. Very, very shiny! The solution to the problem of churchiness here has been to make everything a uniform white, and I can sympathize with that solution. My experience with hanging art in a church space is that it can look a little odd when it flanks arched windows, and that’s why in my little church, the art is still on the floor, stacked against the walls. The more photos of church conversions I look at, the more challenging the whole project seems. If anyone has a favourite church conversion can you send it on?

Museum designed and built as if by archeological time. The Ningbo Historic Museum was designed by Wang Shu of Amateur Architecture Studio. Photos by Iwan Baan, via archdaily.

Selgas Cano is a Spanish architecture firm, and this long glass tube in a little wooded ravine is the Madrid office they’ve built for themselves. The shutters over the clear roof are retractable (see the photo of the pulleys at bottom). The building seems to have inspired some wildly varying reactions from those who either find it beautiful and inspiring or who feel it’s a cramped, claustrophobic, unventilated bunker or train car – see the archdaily link to see what I mean. The superb photos are by architectural photographer Iwan Baan. Via archdaily via kenmat and maxchad. PS Both fans and detractors of this space may want to read a recent Scientific American article on the neuroscience of how room design affects work, creativity and mood. Two relevant points are that low ceilings facilitate detail work while high ceilings facilitate abstraction; and that views of nature improve creativity, focus and memory. This space offers all of those advantages – natural views, as well as ceilings that are both low and high, depending on the retraction of the roof and on which part of the room you’re in.