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The ArchDaily 2026 Building of the Year Awards is Now Open

January 27

A new year has begun, and with it, a new edition of the ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. For 17 years, we have handed over the reins to you, our readers, to choose the best architectural projects of the year, and you have consistently delivered. With a brand new set of over 3,000 projects from around the globe, it is now time to get lost in our projects library and start making your selection.

From a tiny library in rural Myanmar, awarded in the first ever edition of the Building of the Year in 2009, to an innovative waste-to-energy plant in 2025, the winners of the Awards have always been surprising, inspiring and, most importantly, a reflection of the current architectural landscape. Anyone can register for a free ArchDaily account and vote, and we invite you to delve into the catalog of projects published in 2025—all of which are eligible to participate under one or more of the 15 available categories—to choose your favorites.

The Margaritas House / Trópico Arquitectura

January 27

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Architects: Trópico Arquitectura
Area: 280 m²
Year: 2023

Office by Nature / Studio Massimo

January 27

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Architects: Studio Massimo
Area: 1000 m²
Year: 2026
Manufacturers: FritsJurgens, Bark House, Bro|Porte

Kolberger 5 Residence / Studio Mark Randel + David Chipperfield

January 27

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Architects: David Chipperfield, Studio Mark Randel
Area: 2453 m²
Year: 2022
Manufacturers: FX Rauch, Holzwerk, Masei, Otto Stumm, Steininger Steinmetz, +4Sunshine, Viabizzuno, Vola, Woeretshofer-4
Professionals: IG Brettfeld und Albrecht, Ingenieurbüro Bittner, Rattiflora, Schmidt Bauphysik, Ingenieurbüro Pilar von Pilchau, +1

Building with the “Blue Note”: Tension, Deviation, and Structure in Architecture

Subscriber Access | January 27

By operating with only five notes, the pentatonic scale establishes a stable and intuitive musical system in which structural clarity allows for variation without the risk of excessive dissonance. From this consolidated structure, which forms the basis of countless musical styles, especially popular music, the blues introduced a decisive inflection by incorporating additional notes into the scale. Without delving into excessive technicalities, these are subtle tonal deviations, small dissonances often associated with a more melancholic sound, known as blue notes. Played fleetingly rather than as emphatic accents, they briefly tension the system, adding expressiveness and depth while keeping the underlying structure intact.

If in music the blues scale operates through a subtle deviation that "seasons" the underlying structure, a similar principle can be identified in architecture. Although comparisons between different artistic languages are always delicate, it is possible to recognize projects that find their expressive strength not in rupture, but in localized inflections introduced within clear systems, whether of modulation, subtraction, materiality, or typology. Localized displacements and asymmetries function as internal tensions that do not compromise the coherence of the whole, revealing how expressiveness can emerge from controlled deviation rather than from permanent exception.

Noon Repose Pavilion / CLAB Architects

January 27

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Architects: CLAB Architects
Area: 350 m²
Year: 2025

Active Envelopes: Integrating Solar Energy into Architectural Design

January 27 | In Collaboration

When developing an architectural project, there are multiple possible points of departure. Some architects begin with volume, gradually carving form in dialogue with its context. Others start from the longitudinal section, while some organize the project around the functional layout of the plan. There is no right or wrong method, but rather distinct approaches that reflect different ways of thinking about and making architecture. Since the widespread adoption of solar panels and photovoltaic energy, however, a recurring pattern has emerged: these systems are almost always introduced later in the process, framed as technical optimizations or responses to regulatory and energy-efficiency requirements. As a result, they tend to be treated as secondary elements, often relegated to rooftops or less visible areas and detached from the architectural language of the building.

MVRDV and Buro Happold Reveal Design for the Lampegiet Theatre in Veenendaal, Netherlands

January 27

Designed by MVRDV in collaboration with Buro Happold, the new Lampegiet Theatre in Veenendaal, the Netherlands, is scheduled to replace the existing theatre building from 1988. Approved by the Veenendaal City Council in January 2026, the project is expected to begin construction in 2027 and reach completion in 2029. Conceived as a contemporary cultural venue that responds to both current performance requirements and the city's historical identity, the new theatre introduces a compact, multi-volume composition wrapped in a porous ceramic facade that allows the building to act as an illuminated urban landmark.

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Clay Rise Home / Templeton Ford

January 27

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Architects: Templeton Ford
Area: 205 m²
Year: 2024
Manufacturers: Dreadnought Tiles , Ibstock, Michelmersh, Relentless Microne, Sahtas
Professionals: ADEPT Consulting (UK) Ltd &, Wells Sustainability, Liberty QS

Construction Advances on Herzog & de Meuron’s Timber-Structured Memphis Art Museum Ahead of 2026 Opening

January 27

Pritzker Prize-winning architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron has released new images showing construction progress on the Memphis Art Museum, set to open in December 2026. Currently operating as the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the institution is both the oldest and largest art museum in Tennessee, United States, with a collection of more than 10,000 works spanning from ancient to contemporary art. Commissioned in 2019, the project marks the museum's relocation to a new site in Downtown Memphis along the Mississippi River bluff. The first images of the new cultural campus, designed by Herzog & de Meuron with architect of record archimania and landscape design by OLIN, were released in 2021. The 123,500-square-foot museum will expand gallery space by 50 percent and introduce extensive free, publicly accessible areas conceived as an open invitation to the city.

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From Desert to Forest: 8 Unbuilt Houses Designed as Contemporary Retreats

Subscriber Access | January 27

Residential architecture remains one of the most active fields for unbuilt architectural exploration, offering a lens through which architects rethink how domestic space can respond to landscape, climate, and contemporary patterns of living. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected proposals bring together a range of residential projects that engage with houses, villas, and retreats as sites of withdrawal, mediation, and everyday inhabitation. Rather than treating the home as a fixed or isolated object, these projects approach it as a spatial framework that negotiates exposure, privacy, and connection to place.

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