Archi News

Studio VAARO's Rathnelly House is a comprehensive and formally expressive renovation of an Edwardian-era semi-detached house in midtown Toronto. The project not only enhances functionality and spatial fluidity but also expands the home significantly from within while respecting its existing footprint. The clients, a professional couple with a young child, sought both a pragmatic and aesthetic transformation: to increase usable floor area, raise ceiling heights, and expand storage, all within a welcoming and distinctive design mediating between openness and seclusion. Extensive structural interventions enabled a fundamental reordering of space. The result is an expansive plan that adds 140 m² (1,500 ft²), increasing the functional area of the home by almost 60%.

There is growing awareness around sustainability—and the environmental cost of prematurely demolishing safe, structurally sound buildings only to replace them with new construction. In the broader race to reduce carbon emissions, corporations and institutions are placing greater emphasis on ESG performance (environmental impact, social responsibility, and governance). Many now require carbon accounting, set "carbon-neutral" targets, or purchase carbon credits to offset footprints.

In early 2023, LUXELAKES planned to launch a new project in Wuhan. Having collaborated on multiple previous projects—such as Dotsss Children's Museum, Edenland Architectural, and CPI Planning in Chengdu, as well as The CAPE Commercial District and Qilou Historic Street Planning in Hainan—we were already familiar with each other and worked together seamlessly. As a result, we collaborated again to design a restaurant within a children's playground. During the preliminary planning phase, the restaurant was named "The Brave Cabin," as it was surrounded by challenging recreational climbing equipment. We hoped the building would inspire children's courage to overcome difficulties. With an indoor area of less than 200 square meters, the building has a relatively small footprint. Our goal was to create ample semi-outdoor spaces where visitors could relax in the shade. Additionally, thanks to its prominent location at the island's gateway, the building is visible from a distance to arriving visitors.

RSHP has announced the completion of the Barangaroo South Masterplan in Sydney, marking the realization of a 15-year redevelopment that has reconnected the city's north-western harbour edge to its urban core. Once a disused container port, the 22-hectare site has been transformed into a mixed-use, carbon-neutral precinct, integrating commercial, residential, and public spaces along the waterfront. Developed in collaboration with Lendlease following an international design competition, the masterplan is organized into three zones: Barangaroo South, a high-density extension of the Central Business District; Barangaroo Reserve, a reconstructed natural headland that reintroduces native landscapes to the harbour; and Barangaroo Central, a low-density residential area linking the northern and southern ends of the development.

Situated near a sparse forest with intriguing vistas over the suburbs of Nicosia, this house stands in a deliberately ambiguous way: Rather than adopting a conventional residential typology that opens outward to offer uninterrupted views of the surrounding landscape, it rises as an austere, introverted box. Is it a building, a sculpture, or a container? The proposal constitutes an elaboration of the primordial dwelling-box and its reinterpretation in relation to contemporary modes of domestic living.

With just a few days left before the six-and-a-half-month 19th Venice Architecture Biennale comes to an end, it is possible to look back on some of the most notable contributions within its thematic framework. Marked by the largest call for participants to date, the Biennale's diversity of topics and the range of installations on display go beyond easy recapitulation. As part of that reflection, several initiatives can be highlighted as illustrative of the principles reflected in the curatorial theme, "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective." The concepts interwoven in Carlo Ratti's title form a call to address the urgent need for substantial solutions amid the accelerating climate crisis, positioning the Biennale as a platform for diverse design proposals and experiments organized around three forms of intelligence: natural, artificial, and collective. Beyond the national pavilions and numerous collateral events held throughout Venice over the past six months, among the more than 700 participants are projects that, through practice, embody four shared intentions: opening conversations about the future, proposing systemic responses to local realities, placing technology at the center of design innovation, and pursuing material research rooted in local sensitivity.

As the late urban planner Jaime Lerner once argued, the future of architecture lies not in building new cities but in updating those that already exist. In a world where resources are finite and urban space is increasingly saturated, his statement feels more urgent than ever. It calls for architects to look inward, to rethink what truly needs to be built, and to recognize the creative potential of what is already there. Within the constraints of existing structures lies an opportunity to design differently: to repair, adapt, and reuse. Or, as French poet Louis Aragon would have it, to reinvent the past to see the beauty of the future.

Architecture has entered a pivotal moment. As cities continue to grow under the weight of climatic and social pressures, the materials and systems that shape them are being redefined. Artificial intelligence and robotics, once used to accelerate construction processes, are now being rethought as tools for cultivation. Printed structures that grow, breathe, and decay. Cultivation, in this context, refers to designing with biological materials, where growth and decay are active parameters, merging digital precision with ecological intelligence. This evolution shows the shift from efficiency to empathy, where architecture becomes an agent of active repair. The introduction of mycelium and other natural materials into 3D printing presents a new paradigm in architecture: the logic of the living. A place where computation and fabrication meet biological adaptability.

The Christinger Residence offers around fifteen rental apartments designed for seniors. The project originates from the bequest of Mrs. Christinger, who donated to the municipality a 1,933 m² plot of land and the villa that had been built there in the 1940s. Upon receiving the testament, which dedicated the property to the benefit of the municipality's senior citizens, the municipality initiated a reflection on the type of housing for a population experiencing declining autonomy.

The Coonawarra Willam Aquatic Centre redefines how wellness, education, and culture can coexist in a single, integrated environment.

The architecture and construction sector currently accounts for the highest carbon emissions among all global industries. Architecture, which has evolved alongside humanity for over 10,000 years, entered the 20th century prioritizing efficiency and economy above all else, adopting concrete and steel as its near-exclusive materials. This pursuit of industrial optimization, while enabling rapid development, also detached architecture from its ecological roots and intensified the environmental burden of the built environment.