Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art has commissioned architecture and urban design practice AD—WO to reimagine the Heinz Architectural Center. The practice, led by Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood and one of the winners of the ArchDaily 2026 Next Practices Awards, was recognized for exploring relationships among people, place, history and material culture, bringing an interdisciplinary approach to the architecture experience. The Heinz Architectural Center is the museum's forum to present, explore and incubate architectural ideas, currently located in the institution's main building, which dates from 1907. The new design aims to transform the Center into a contemporary facility that brings together exhibitions, collections, research, learning and public engagement. AD—WO is working with R3A as architect of record, Buro Happold for engineering and sustainability, Tillotson Design Associates for lighting and VizzAcoustics for acoustics.

Direct contact with a material allows one to appreciate textures, compare finishes, and observe how its appearance changes under different lighting conditions. At an exhibition, these possibilities are complemented by exchanges with manufacturers and professionals, helping to understand applications and resolve questions about their use. This relationship between material exploration and architectural practice was one of the central pillars of the seventh edition of Obra Blanca, which drew more than 23,000 professionals to Expo Santa Fe in Mexico City.

Inhabiting a space involves multiple economic, social, cultural, geographic, political, and environmental factors. Beyond these considerations, however, it engages with processes, boundaries, and possibilities that have repeatedly become subjects of architectural inquiry. "We are builders of a society," declared Solano Benitez during his lecture titled The Place of Architecture at the Buenos Aires International Architecture Biennial. Through a series of international lectures, exhibitions across different locations in the city, and activities open to all generations, the 20th Buenos Aires International Architecture Biennial examined the value of inhabitation, recognizing architecture as the discipline that gives meaning to how and where we live and, consequently, how we exist within society.

Across its six main venues and numerous partner institutions, a common theme emerges: human existence explored through different ways of inhabiting, sharing knowledge, contrasting experiences, and debating the contemporary challenges facing architecture.

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A canyon is a space no one designed. Its walls expose layers of rock deposited over millions of years, and the passage between them exists because water slowly wore that rock away. Glaciers shaped valleys in a similar way, leaving slopes behind as the ice retreated. Long before architects began shaping spaces, the Earth was already producing them.

Architects have long looked to the ground for geometry. A cliff can suggest a section, a cavity a room, and layered rock a way of stacking material. Some architects build directly into an existing formation, occupying a slope or a cavity on site. Others study a formation and reproduce some of its characteristics elsewhere, from precise geological data to the general experience of a landscape.

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Wood has been used in buildings for thousands of years. It is natural, renewable and versatile, but its response to moisture requires consideration in design and specification. Changing moisture conditions can cause it to swell and shrink, while prolonged moisture exposure can create conditions for fungal decay. Historically, using wood outdoors has therefore meant choosing naturally durable species, protecting the material or designing around the way wood behaves. Wood modification offers another approach: changing certain properties of the material itself.

RAMSA (Robert A.M. Stern Architects) has unveiled the design for a new Welcome Hall at the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science and Industry (Griffin MSI) in Chicago, Illinois. The project involves reopening the building's historic North Portico as a year-round entrance and introducing a new glazed volume connecting the portico to the museum's exhibition spaces. The proposal is part of a master plan completed by RAMSA in 2024 that examines the use of the museum's existing exhibition and public areas.

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Architecture is, above all, a material reality. The materials that surround us are the result of a chain of constructive, economic, aesthetic and, in more contemporary examples, environmental considerations. Decisions are shaped by available technology, manageable technique, time-related expectations and regulatory frameworks. To face the pressures on our built environment, those multidimensional conditions must change through what we call innovation: the tangible creation of new products and strategies with problem-solving capabilities. Matter is the general term for physical substance that has mass and takes up space. When matter is given a specific type, form, or useful application, it becomes material. Material transformation therefore requires going beyond recycling and reuse: combining existing matter to create new materials that open up new possibilities for construction. The research presented below suggests that demonizing existing materials is unnecessary as long as this capacity for innovation exists.