Lightwells

Colourful restored tile flooring and wooden ceiling beams add character to this Barcelona apartment refurbished by local studio Nook Architects.

London studio Amin Taha Architects has updated a 1950s terraced house in the city's Bayswater neighbourhood, adding a basement level topped with a rugged concrete soffit and a lightwell set into a courtyard garden.

A triangular lightwell covered in scale-like shingles extends from the roof of this living room that architect Nuno Melo Sousa has added to a house in Penafiel, Portugal.

London studio Amin Taha Architects has updated a 1950s terraced house in the city's Bayswater neighbourhood, adding a basement level topped with a rugged concrete soffit and a lightwell set into a courtyard garden.

Japanese architecture studio Chop + Archi has used a trio of courtyards to make the most of the sharp "dead space" corners of this house, located on an almost triangular plot in Tokyo.

Japanese architecture studio Chop + Archi has used a trio of courtyards to make the most of the sharp "dead space" corners of this house, located on an almost triangular plot in Tokyo.

Reclaimed brick walls help this home of modest proportions blend with its historic context in London's Clerkenwell, where it stands on top of a former 19th-century prison.

Curving balconies featuring tropical planting wrap a lightwell in the core of this narrow home in Ho Chi Minh City that is just 3.5 metres wide.

The renovation of this Montreal townhouse by local firm Naturehumaine centres around a triple-height atrium that brings daylight into living spaces on all floors.

Casey Hughes Architects has renovated and extended a 1950s house in Los Angeles, adding a tall metal-clad volume featuring a pair of high windows.