MVRDV has built a tower block in Pozna?, Poland, that looks like a huge staircase from one angle, while from another it looks like it's about to topple over.

The 16-storey Ba?tyk tower is the first building in Poland by Rotterdam-based MVRDV, and was completed in partnership with local firm Natkaniec Olechnicki Architekci.
The tower features a dramatically staggered form. The aim was for it to appear to change shape, depending on the viewing angle.

From one side, the building's offset floors resemble a broad staircase climbing up towards the sky. But from the other side, a tiered cutaway in the base of the structure makes the building look precariously unbalanced.

Described by MVRDV as "one of Pozna?'s most talked about new buildings", Ba?tyk is a 25,000-square-metre mixed-use building containing offices, shops, a restaurant and other amenities. The staggered floorplates not only made it possible to create generous terraces for many of the office floors, but also allowed the building to keep its distance from the busy Rondo Kaponiera road intersection.

"When we came to Pozna? for the first time, the goal was clear, we were to realise a representative office building with public functions on the first two layers and at the top," explained MVRDV co-founder Nathalie de Vries.
"We realised that if we could control the footprint of the building, we were able to create a new square between Baltic and Concordia," she continued. "We...