"The most sustainable building is the one that already exists." This statement, made by the director of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Carl Elefante, brings an inconvenient truth. In this context, the Carcará House is a pilot project that aims to reduce the extraction of raw materials, transportation distances, and the amount of waste generated by the construction industry, expanding the concept of sustainability.
Rising from the ground as a cultivated landscape of learning, the Uzbekistan Pavilion "Garden of Knowledge" at Expo 2025 Osaka translates national transformation into a spatial and material narrative.
Located on a parklike site in a northern suburb of Detroit with the River Rouge running through it, this 4,000sf Y-shaped home opens to an elaborate landscape that the homeowner has cultivated for over 40 years. A former curator of Asian art and gallery owner, the homeowner wanted to incorporate her unique collection of handcrafted objects into the residence, which is further inspired by her family's heritage in the lumber industry.
Cities around the world share a common goal: to become healthier and greener, supported by civic infrastructure that restores ecosystems and strengthens public life. The question is how to reach this. Global climate targets, local building codes, and municipal standards increasingly guide designers and planners toward better choices. Still, many cities struggle to translate these frameworks into everyday, street-level comfort and long-term ecological protection. What happens if the city is no longer treated as a traditional city, but as a national park?
Moored at Rijnhaven port in Rotterdam, Powerhouse Company's floating office for the Global Center on Adaptation is a building for a new age. Self-sufficient and carbon-neutral, it will float – rather than flood – if water levels rise due to climate change. Fun as well as functional, it also forms a key element in a newly redeveloped port environment by providing public waterside space – and even a swimming pool.
Fishing Village Under Aircraft - Gaoqi Village is located at the northernmost point of Xiamen Island. Historically, it served as the nearest ferry terminal for travelers arriving in Xiamen from the mainland by boat. In the 1980s, the urban airport was constructed near the village. Restricted by the height limitations imposed by flight paths, this fishing village under the aircraft managed to avoid demolition and disappearance among the rapid urbanization. It has preserved its original morph and continued to develop traditional fisheries today. With population of over 20,000, the village suffers from the shortage of public facilities. To address this issue, the local government plans to restore and renovate the abandoned Lins-Courtyard, transforming it into a community service center that will benefit residents in the surrounding area.
The LUC Lifestyle is envisioned as a contemporary destination that seamlessly blends food and beverages, fashion, fragrance, aesthetic dental care, and traditional Balinese craftsmanship into a single elevated experience. Its core design idea is to create a vibrant hub that reflects the dynamic, international energy of Canggu while honoring the island's cultural identity. This vision guided not only the lifestyle concept but also the architectural language that defines the entire development.
Roots and Context. The "Mirador School La Jalquilla" project is located in San Ignacio, in the Ceja de Selva region, on the border with Ecuador, in Peru. This region, with an economy centered on coffee cultivation, faces significant challenges due to its isolation and resource scarcity. The project aims to revitalize local knowledge and traditions, integrating the rich biodiversity and Andean and Amazonian cultures into its proposal. It benefits more than 110 primary and secondary students, in addition to providing sports and public infrastructure for the community. The school stands as a comprehensive path that promotes educational development, fostering well-being, and strengthening ties with the natural and cultural environment.
Cabin Fever is an international summer school and festival launched by the Hungarian architecture studio Hello Wood, known for its design-build approach and community-focused, sustainable projects. Since its founding in 2010, Hello Wood has become a global platform merging hands-on education with socially engaged architecture. The 2025 edition, powered by VELUX, explored how light and space shape human experience — placing presence, intimacy, and connection at the centre of architecture. This dialogue with VELUX reflects a shared conviction: that the future of building lies in responsibility — in creating spaces with care, with awareness, and with light — offering meaningful alternatives in an overstimulated world. 2025 Concept, Location, Participants. From 23–31 July 2025, the festival took place in Česká Kamenice, Czech Republic, on the grounds of a former textile factory and wartime labour camp — a place that embodies both the weight of memory and the potential for transformation. Under the theme "Quality Time – Connection to Each Other", participants were invited to explore how design can strengthen our relationships with each other and with the places we inhabit.
On the banks of the river in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Montreal, Mise à Jour Studio undertook the
comprehensive transformation of a heritage home. Formerly divided between a residence and a medical office occupying nearly half of the ground floor, the intervention opens up the spaces and enhances visual connections to the river, while bringing new light into the heart of the house.
It was July 1969, and people on planet Earth were about to witness a historical moment for humanity: the first time a human being stepped on the surface of the Moon aboard the Apollo 11 mission. After this event, NASA landed five more times on the lunar surface, with the last one being Apollo 17 in 1972. Since then, humans have not attempted to return to the Moon until this year, 2026, when they will launch the Orion spacecraft as part of the Artemis II Mission. Planned to set off between February and April 2026, Orion will not yet land people on the Moon, instead it will make a flyby, in order to allow testing of the software and systems. This will set the base for an actual human landing on the Moon's South Pole as part of Artemis III sometime between 2027 and 2028, eventually opening a brand new era in Extraterrestrial architectural design.
This house is an apartment, studio, garage, and workshop all in one. And the home of a cat.
The town of Qingjiang lies between the northern foothills of the Yandang Mountains and Yueqing Bay, with the Furong Pond area at the heart of its regional ecological corridor. Against the backdrop of growing suburban agro-cultural tourism, the project centers on Furong Pond, establishing two key landscape nodes: one at the Ecological Island Wharf and the other at Qingyang Park on the opposite shore. By reviving a short-distance ferry route, the initiative aims to create a distinctive water-based ecological and cultural destination for Qingjiang.
The Reimei Kobashi footbridge, which connects Kachidoki Station and Harumi 3-chome in Tokyo's waterfront district, opened to the public on March 25, 2024. This footbridge crosses the Asashio Canal to Grand Marina Tokyo, with a soft arching design reminiscent of gentle waves rolling over the water's surface.
Leaving behind the urban fervor of Quito requires a slow decantation, a change of pace where asphalt finally yields to the vegetation of the dry steppe. In the Guayllabamba valley, architecture does not seek to conquer the land but to coexist with it; the House in the Forest arises from this premise, not as an imposed structure, but as a device for inhabiting time. The project is best understood under the logic of the "nest": a structure that weaves intergenerational memories and, instead of settling heavily, decides to levitate over a landscape that it barely disturbs.
One of the many misconceptions that has preoccupied the world of architecture in recent decades is that architecture's noble existence occurs only in the built world.
Bosrijk is a residential area west of the city of Eindhoven, located on a former military defense site. Housing in Bosrijk is designed as 'sculptures in a garden'. For a small plot next to an existing natural rainwater infiltration facility, the office designed a sculpture with five single-family homes, in which the idea of 'living in a forest landscape' was the leitmotif.
Shou Sugi Ban is a traditional Japanese technique for wood preservation that involves charring the surface of timber to create a protective layer. While its origins are rooted in practical durability, the method has been widely adapted into the modern built environment and shapes a unique and distinctive aesthetic. It is a material of contradiction: it remains bold in its visual language due to its dark tones, yet it simultaneously borrows from and complements its natural surroundings, allowing houses to settle quietly into their sites.
Sumayya Vally, Counterspace pays homage to lost gathering spaces across the Muslim world at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar. Architect Sumayya Vally, Counterspace presents In the Assembly of Lovers, an installation commissioned for the inaugural Art Basel Qatar, taking place in Doha from 3–7 February 2026. Curated by Egyptian artist Wael Shawky, the fair explores the theme 'Becoming' – a meditation on humanity's ongoing transformation and the evolving systems that shape how we live, believe, and create meaning.
What matters more: looking to the past or to the future? Recognizing established trajectories or fostering paths still under construction? Perhaps this is not a question with a single answer. Traditionally, architecture awards have operated as devices of consecration, recognizing completed works, established careers, and already tested solutions, most often through a retrospective lens. But what would happen if recognition ceased to be an end in itself and instead began to operate as a catalytic agent, investing less in what has already been done and more in what is still yet to unfold?