1. That makes my brain hurt.
2. It doesn't look all that sturdy.
3. How do you get furniture up those stairs? I hope there's an alternate way to the next floor.

Nicely weird, and it looks enjoyably disorienting to walk up/down (dark passage).

how is that "inside out"? its just a spiral staircase, enclosed..

I can only say "Labyrinth"

...I wonder if that is a suspension-staircase, or if all the weight is held by the center post.

It is kind of nice, but surely not 'avant-garde'; the 'avant-garde' is a redundant concept in our post-modern era- a throwback to modernist notions of constant forward 'progress'.

I think it would make much more sense, if the inner part was higher up, and the outer part just above the ground. I'm feeling a bit of vertigo just looking at the thing. Can I has handrail?

The link to the article is worth clicking for the pictures. The exterior of the building is painted the most arresting blue color. Every square inch of it. Look carefully at the bottom of the staircase. For some reason it is suspended and does not touch the floor. Cool! This is safer for children than an open spiral. No sideways falls.

@ #5
Although I would agree this staircase is not avant garde, I would argue that modernism isn't necessarily dead. Sure, postmodernism is in full swing, but it doesn't exist without the reactionary basis to modernism (i.e. classicism, ideals, united narratives). Future historians will refer postmodernism as a mutation, or an evaluation of modernistic concepts-- not a separately defined era. Because, to delineate different eras is a form of progress-- hence modernism's continued existence.

Anyway, in short, this staircase violates safety standards. :]

doesn't avant garde refer to the house in that sentence?

#3 - the bottom is enclosed, the top is open.

#3 - apparently I'm a goon. ignore me. you're right, it's all enclosed, i guess it's inside out because normally spiral staircases are open.

Mainja, apparently we made the same mistake.

Is it just me or does that look photoshopped?

Yeah, it's photoshopped, you can tell by the pixels. (Just kidding).

I don't know if I'd call it inside-out at first glance, but it is weird and wonderful. The more I look at it the stranger it seems.

#13 Mebaja, it's just you. It's not photoshopped.

you forgot to link to materialicious that first blogged the stair:

http://www.materialicio.us/2007/07/20/didden-village-mvrdv/

The project itself is titled "Didden Village", it's not the name of the place in which it's situated. A rooftop extension that mimics a village, made up of several smaller "houses" rather than one single structure.

MVRDV are great, their Dutch pavilion for the Hannover Expo in 2002 was amazing.

If you look at the slide show, you can see that the staircase is actually two enclosed staircases that spiral around each other, double helix style.

But without adequate storage space under the staircase, where are you supposed to put all your unwanted children?