At the heart of the Historic Jeddah Waterfront Regeneration Initiative, the Culture Square stands as a bold statement of renewal, an intersection where memory, art, and urban transformation converge. The project reimagines the northern edge of Al Arbaeen Lagoon, facing Al-Balad, Jeddah's storied historic district, and forms part of a larger vision to turn the lagoon's perimeter into a sustainable, mixed-use urban hub.
Nearly three years after artificial intelligence captured the world's attention, architecture is still searching for stable ground in the conversation. Between confident claims and cautious trials, many professionals still question whether—and how—AI is truly changing everyday practice.
The EUmies Awards are organized annually by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe and the European Commission, with the support of the European Union's Creative Europe Programme. Based on the principle that "architecture is not merely a technical or aesthetic matter, but a cultural, environmental, and democratic issue," this 19th cycle of the Prize brings together 410 works from 40 countries and 143 regions across Europe. Beyond recognizing contemporary architecture projects, the Awards also aim to reflect European values such as cultural diversity, sustainability, democracy, and solidarity. This year, most nominated works (23%) are residential projects, including both collective and single-family housing, followed by cultural (13%) and educational (12%) programs. The selection shows a balance between transformations of existing buildings (44%) and new construction (56%), while 12% of the nominees are transnational works and 33% of the studios are 10 years old or younger, underscoring the growing visibility of emerging practices.
Solem forest is a small residential area on the outskirts of Oslo, just east of the city's main water supply, Maridalsvannet. The property is situated in a lush landscape on a gently sloping ridge. Good sun conditions, large pine trees, surrounding forests, and a few dispersed wooden houses give the place a distinctive character.
This week's architectural highlights traced the intersections between heritage, climate awareness, and contemporary design practice. As the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale approaches its closing, projects exploring collective intelligence and material experimentation offer reflections on small-scale responses to global challenges. In Egypt, the completion of the Grand Egyptian Museum marks a long-anticipated moment in cultural preservation, while new competition initiatives in Jordan extend this dialogue toward sacred and archaeological contexts. Complementing these developments, the recognition of Abdelwahed El-Wakil with the Tamayouz Lifetime Achievement Award highlights the continued influence of tradition-informed design across contemporary practice.
Chimneys are among the most quietly persistent elements in architectural history. Yet their presence persists in nearly every cultural and climatic context, serving as a technical feature and a spatial, atmospheric, and symbolic device. It populates dense city skylines and anchors rural horizons alike, its vertical silhouette as ordinary as a window or a doorframe. This apparent ordinariness is deceptive. The chimney is one of the few architectural components that links the intimate scale of interior life with the expansive forces of the environment. For architects and designers, the necessity of the chimney presents a choice: to let it recede quietly into the building's functional fabric or to amplify it as a central, expressive element that shapes a project's identity.
Set against the wild limestone cliffs and dense coastal forest of Punakaiki, Punangairi redefines what a visitor centre can be. Designed by Sheppard & Rout Architects, in collaboration with Ngāti Waewae, the project moves beyond tourism infrastructure to become an act of cultural and ecological restoration.
Cobbadah Beach House is a multi-generational home located at Tugun, a laid-back surf beach on the Gold Coast in southern Queensland. The house is situated on the ridge of a densely vegetated bluff above a beach, with panoramic views to South Stradbroke Island to the north and Coolangatta headland to the south.
Dedicated to high-end lighting specification, the UK's trade show LiGHT 25 will return to the Business Design Center in Islington, London, on November 19–20, 2025. Following LiGHT 24, which attracted more than 5,500 visitors, this year's edition will feature an expanded program of innovation, education, and networking opportunities. Key highlights for 2025 include the introduction of the Technical Zone, the return of the Associations Lounge, and a new large-scale immersive light art installation.
The Shanghai Baoshan Long Beach Winder Tower Complex is strategically located at the Yangtze River estuary beside the Wusongkou International Cruise Terminal—Asia's largest and the world's fourth-largest home port. DLR Group won an international design competition with a vision to transform the industrial port into a new waterfront landmark. The complex is 2M SF, bringing together a 180-meter observation tower, a 120-meter Grade-A office building, an 80-meter five-star hotel with 300 keys, a 1,027-seat concert hall, a tunnel operations center, and retail.
This project involved the reconstruction of a house on a flagpole-shaped lot in a subdivided residential land. The buildable area was surrounded by apartments and tightly clustered private homes.
The practices conducted in Turkey in regard to stray animals are focused primarily on providing much-needed care to abandoned, injured, ill, disabled, or destitute animals with the intention of releasing these animals back to their natural surroundings at the end of their treatment. With the spatial arrangement of the open and closed spaces focusing on the interaction between humans and dogs while at the same time reinforcing the theme of adoption, the facility sits on a 110.000 m2 site located in the Gökdere district of the town of Bornova in Izmir. Being the first of its kind, this facility was not only designed as a temporary care center but also a center for rehabilitation that is predicated on the interaction between humans and dogs, providing a space that promotes the idea of reciprocal rehabilitation and can be seen as an alternative space for families to spend quality time and reinforces human-dog interaction.
The plot, of regular shape, is located in a residential neighborhood. The implantation strategy consisted of positioning the built mass to cover the entire front of the lot, from the eastern to the western boundary, freeing a large central patio as an organizing nucleus of social life. The house establishes controlled interior relationships towards the street while opening widely towards the backyard, taking advantage of the northern orientation, and promoting a gradual transition between the urban and domestic realms.
In cities, containers filled with construction debris and discarded furniture are evidence of constant interior renovations driven more by aesthetic trends and marketing strategies than by real functional needs. This same superficial impulse is also reflected in public spaces and buildings, where many interventions prioritise image over fundamental aspects such as accessibility, comfort, or future adaptability.
Located directly in the city of Mainz, this sustainable timber structure replaces an existing semi-detached house, which could not be reused due to its minimal ceiling heights, damaged structure, and harmful substances.
The Nedarag Guesthouse is a non-profit project situated in a remote village of roughly 200 households from the Sunni-Baluch minority in southeastern Iran. In Iran's centralized and religiously homogeneous development system, ethnic and religious minorities are systematically excluded. In villages like Kahnanikash, this marginalization is particularly severe due to the local practice of Zekri—a religious belief seen as heretical by the central government.
Egyptian architect Abdelwahed El-Wakil has been named the recipient of the 2025 Tamayouz Lifetime Achievement Award. The recognition was announced during the Tamayouz Excellence Award Ceremony in Baghdad, held as part of the inaugural Arab Architecture Festival. The recognition highlights his contributions to the revival of traditional Islamic architecture, as well as his contributions as a researcher, educator, and mentor whose work has influenced generations of architects across the region and beyond.
CLUSTER (Cairo Lab for Urban Studies, Training and Environmental Research) in collaboration with THISS Studio and Orient Productions have completed an independent outdoor community arts space in Cairo, located in Giza's Agouza Children's Park, one of the city's few remaining publicly accessible green spaces. Titled Pergola and perched close to the Nile river front, the bright red, ten-metre tall structure offers a new beating heart for an emerging cultural scene in Cairo. Inspired by public bandstands and similar sheltered spaces, Pergola addresses the increasing gentrification and commercialisation of Cairo's public space and neighbourhood parks, offering an alternative approach to urban development anchored in art and cultural programmes. The project positions design as a tool of resistance and preservation as unchecked development, often in favour of foreign investment, is increasingly at odds with cultural preservation and community spaces.
Construction of Zaha Hadid Architects' Yidan Center in Shenzhen, China, has reached full height. The new landmark will serve as the headquarters of the Chen Yidan Foundation and the Yidan Prize, organizations dedicated to promoting lifelong learning and innovation in education. The center will host facilities for academic research, cultural events, and exhibitions, supporting the foundation's mission to advance global education. Located adjacent to the Qianhai Museum, the Yidan Center helps define a new cultural quarter in China's third-most-populous city.
Few commissions allow architects to focus on non-human users, and fewer still involve horses. While domestic pets like cats and dogs are common muses, the particular needs of horses present a unique challenge when designing stables. Since the horses, who are the stable's primary inhabitants, cannot articulate their needs, design relies on the rigorous requirements dictated by human caretakers, requiring a balance between streamlined human operations and maximized horse comfort and safety. Architects often seem to address this through three core principles: Equine Comfort & Well-being, Contextual Materiality, and Operational Efficiency. Thus, the resulting layouts are characterized by rigorous zoning that clearly separates the programs into residential (stalls), service (tack, storage, wash, feed), and training spaces (arenas, walkers). The designs also address visual well-being: Horses are social animals, so they strategically position stables to promote sightlines between animals and to the exterior, often employing louvered or open-frame systems. Furthermore, lighting is kept diffuse using materials such as translucent panels to prevent sharp, stress-inducing shadows in arenas. Similarly, circulation paths are designed for the safe, efficient movement of both people and animals.