ArchDaily is proud to reveal the winners of the 5th edition of Next Practices, recognizing 20 groundbreaking architectural practices from around the globe. These firms embody the creativity, innovation, interdisciplinary approach and social responsibility that are shaping the future of architecture and expanding its horizons.
Launched in 2020, ArchDaily's Next Practices Awards spotlight forward-thinking architecture professionals who are expanding architecture's role in addressing today's most urgent issues. The program provides a platform for emerging firms that redefine the boundaries of the discipline.
Over the past four editions, the initiative has recognized architects, designers, artists, planners, scholars, and other visionaries whose work responds to contemporary challenges in the built environment, fostering a global conversation about architecture's role in society.
With a strong commitment to geographical diversity, the program has showcased 85 practices from 32 countries, amplifying voices from around the world. Each brings a distinct perspective rooted in local realities while contributing to a shared global discourse. Across the winning practices, recurring values emerge: contextual sensitivity, sustainable material use, co-creation with communities, experimental and interdisciplinary approaches, memory and heritage, social responsibility, and human-scale interventions. Together, these strategies confront pressing global challenges with originality, critical insight, and solution-oriented design.
The 2025 Edition
This year marks a significant evolution for the initiative. Now officially recognized as the ArchDaily Next Practices Awards, the program reflects what is next: the ideas, practices, and projects that should be brought forward. 'Next' embodies practices that find solutions to today's urgent challenges while anticipating the needs of tomorrow. By spotlighting these practices, we hope to highlight the paths that can lead to a more meaningful and resilient future for architecture and beyond.
For this 5th edition, the selection process was further strengthened. For the first time, an external jury was introduced, complementing a rigorous internal evaluation led by the ArchDaily editors. Throughout the year, our international editorial network nominated standout practices on a weekly basis, building a diverse and inspiring longlist. This list was then carefully reviewed, discussed, and voted on internally before being presented to the external jury, bringing new depth, transparency, and credibility to the final selection.
The external jury for this edition consisted of: Josephine Michau, Founder and Director of the Copenhagen Architecture Festival (CAFx), Gabriela Carrillo, Founder of Taller Gabriela Carrillo, Lucia Pedrana, Co-Director at the European Cultural Centre, Vinu Daniel, Founder of Wallmakers and winner of the first edition of Next Practices in 2020, and Eloisa Ramos and Moreno Castellano, Founders of RamosCastellano Arquitectos. We sincerely thank each and everyone of the jury members for their valuable time and expertise in shaping this year's selection.
The 20 Winning Practices: Toward an Architecture of Care
The 20 winning practices of this 5th edition reflect a broad spectrum of geographies, disciplines, and methodologies, each contributing a unique perspective to contemporary architectural discourse. Despite their variety in scale, form, and context, they share a set of values that redefine architecture's purpose. Together, they show us that the future of the discipline lies in diversity, responsibility, process, community, sustainability, and dialogue.
Grounded in the realities of place, their projects embrace sustainable materials and circular practices, embed communities in design and construction, expand architecture's reach through art, performance, research, and technology, and reframe preservation as a future-oriented act.
Ultimately, their work is defined by care, for context, for community, for memory, and for ecology.
The winners were announced today, September 19th, 2025, during an exclusive event at the inaugural Copenhagen Architecture Biennale, hosted at the CAFx Headquarters in the city's Meatpacking District.
Please find them below in alphabetical order.
1110 Office for Architecture | Japan
Founded in 2017 by Hiroto Kawaguchi, 1110 Office for Architecture is an Osaka-based practice exploring architecture as a platform for everyday life. With a focus on sensitive renovation, material restraint, and contextual integration, the office engages existing structures to balance preservation and transformation. Projects such as A 101 Years House, Dog Villa, Terraced House, and TCT Gallery exemplify Kawaguchi's approach: uncovering value in what already exists, extending landscapes into architecture, and crafting adaptable spaces that support diverse uses. Avoiding grand gestures, the office's work emphasizes light, flexibility, and continuity, strengthening dialogues between past and present, community and place.
Ambulance for Monuments (Ambulanța pentru monumente) | Romania
Responding to the urgent decline of Romania's built heritage, Ambulance for Monuments or Ambulanța pentru Monumente is a nationwide initiative that combines emergency interventions with hands-on training and community engagement. Established by Asociația Monumentum in 2016, the network of ten regional NGOs is enabling over 115 restorations of churches, fortresses, bridges, and manor houses. The model blends traditional craftsmanship with civic participation, offering both immediate repair and long-term capacity building. Celebrated internationally, the initiative not only preserves endangered architecture but also fosters pride, continuity, and collective ownership, returning cultural heritage to the center of community life.
Arquivo | Brazil
Arquivo is a Salvador-based practice founded by architects Fernanda Veiga, Pedro Alban, and Natalia Lessa, committed to making reclaimed building materials a central part of Brazilian architecture. By diverting more than 300 tons of materials from landfills, the group promotes circularity, sustains endangered craft traditions, and creates new opportunities for collaboration across disciplines. Their projects demonstrate the architectural and cultural value of reuse: in Casarão 28, over one hundred salvaged elements from thirty demolition sites were integrated into the renovation of an eighteenth-century ruin; while the Carcaré House, designed with young architects and master carpenter Seu Antônio, transformed forty-three reclaimed windows into striking façades. Beyond practice, Arquivo engages in academic research such as Storages of the Jorge Machado Moreira Building at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, training students to design with existing resources. Together, these initiatives position reuse as both a sustainable necessity and a living cultural archive.
CatalyticAction | Lebanon, United Kingdom
CatalyticAction is a design and architecture organisation founded in 2014 by architects Joana Dabaj and Riccardo Conti, based in Beirut and London. Using participatory approaches, it empowers vulnerable children, young people, and their communities to co-create inclusive and sustainable environments. With 52 built projects and 27 research initiatives, the organisation has engaged nearly 4,000 participants across Lebanon, Italy, Jordan, Iraq, and the UK. Early work such as the Ibtasem Playground in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, built with Syrian refugee families, established its co-design methodology. Other notable projects include Safe Spaces for Girls in Beirut, addressing gender inequality through collaborative interventions, the revitalisation of Beirut's Public Stairs, and Mauj in El Mina, which reactivated the corniche with inclusive, sea-inspired installations. Alongside practice, resources like the DeCID Handbook extend its impact globally, guiding NGOs and governments in participatory design.
Civil Architecture | Bahrain, Kuwait
Civil Architecture, founded by architects Hamed Bukhamseen and Ali Ismail Karimi, is a cultural practice based in Manama and Kuwait City working at the intersection of buildings and books. The studio reimagines the civic role of design, engaging architecture as a tool to register time, narrate histories, and reframe environmental and cultural contexts. Their practice positions architecture as more than shelter or economic surplus, instead treating it as a medium for inhabiting the world with precision, curiosity, and care. By engaging overlooked traditions and collective memory, they seek to align built form to cycles of nature, cultural shifts, and layered histories. Through this approach, Civil Architecture advances a vision of design as a cultural register and instrument of civic life.
Daryan Knoblauch | Germany
Daryan Knoblauch, founded in 2023 in Berlin, operates at the intersection of architecture, performance, and technology. The studio frames architecture as a tool for reflection, experimentation, and critique, employing a methodology of "functional misuse" to reconfigure prefabricated systems and found components in unexpected ways. Key works include Free Air, winner of the Mies van der Rohe Foundation's pavilion competition in Barcelona, which transforms an ephemeral pavilion into a sensory interface that filters polluted air while visualizing the invisible. Other projects, such as Content Cage in Copenhagen and the Rainproofing Device in Switzerland, merge stagecraft with critique, exposing systems of control, surveillance, and memory. Across cultural centers, pavilions, and devices, the studio reimagines architecture as both infrastructure and provocation.
Deir ez-Zor Heritage Library | Syria
Founded in 2021 by architect and heritage specialist Lamis Bakjaji, the Deir ez-Zor Heritage Library is a grassroots initiative dedicated to preserving the architectural memory of a city devastated by war. Using photogrammetry and community engagement, the team has created over 25 geo-referenced 3D models of traditional buildings, including the Capuchin Church, the Omari Mosque's minaret, and the Souk al-Khashabin timber market, later lost to the 2023 earthquake. With support from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, the project expanded to document more than 170 buildings along the city's Main Street. Beyond archiving, it supports adaptive reuse projects, such as converting the Latin Church complex into a school and housing, while training youth and women in conservation, turning memory into a tool for inclusive recovery.
Dele Adeyemo | Nigeria, Scotland
Scottish-Nigerian architect, artist, and theorist Dele Adeyemo explores how racial capitalism has shaped urban space, while celebrating radical practices of Black social life. His work spans film, installation, and writing, mobilizing what he calls the Black radical spatial imaginary. A landmark project, The Cosmogony of (Racial) Capitalism, presented at the Istanbul Design Biennial, traced the plantation as a prototype of extraction, juxtaposing Yoruba cosmologies with European cartographies. His long-running project Wey Dey Move, including an 86-minute experimental documentary filmed in Lagos, investigates dance, ritual, and improvisation as spatial technologies of resilience. Exhibited internationally, including at Het Nieuwe Instituut, his practice reimagines African urban futures through indigeneity, cosmology, and embodied knowledge, positioning design as both critical inquiry and world-making tool.
Estudio Ome | Mexico
Mexico City–based Estudio Ome is a landscape architecture practice rooted in ecology and artistic sensitivity, founded in 2018 by Hortense Blanchard and Susana Rojas Saviñón. Guided by the question of whether intervention truly improves a place, their work combines botany, archaeology, and agroecology with deep observation and care. Early projects such as Forest Garden and Lava Garden explored how to regenerate steep forest slopes and volcanic terrain without erasing their natural character. In public projects like Pilares in Iztapalapa, they introduced native vegetation to soften urban architecture, while Common Landscape at Laguna cultural center unfolds as a slow, evolving masterplan. Across their work, Estudio Ome creates landscapes that reveal and regenerate, allowing time, collaboration, and nature to shape the outcome.
Géométral | France
Paris-based Géométral, established in 2022 by Clément Masurier, develops narrative architectures where fiction, context, and material expression converge. Each project is both story and structure, shaped by drawing, teaching, and research. On Porquerolles Island, Barba Jupiter is a painter's studio-house that reinterprets Mediterranean archetypes of stone walls, vaulted openings, and broad roofs, while absorbing sun, wind, and horizon. On Ré Island, Les Bômes unfolds as a linear family home that adapts to seasons, opening entirely in summer and enclosing warmth in winter. Both projects reveal the studio's sensitivity to landscape and atmosphere, resisting monumentality in favor of spaces that feel inevitable—intimate extensions of place, weather, and memory.
Hand Over | Egypt
Established in 2016 in Cairo, Hand Over pioneers sustainable architecture through earth construction, reimagining traditional methods as tools for resilience and social impact. Specializing in rammed earth, adobe, and stabilized blocks, the studio integrates research, participation, and local materials into a design-build model. Its first project, El Ezba, replaced unsafe housing with an earthen home that shifted community perceptions of sustainability. Recent works include the Al Aziziyah Medical Center in Fayoum, addressing rural healthcare needs, and the Wadi Gharba Community Center in Sinai, built with residents to host clinics, workshops, and markets. From schools to public facilities, Hand Over demonstrates that earth architecture can embody durability, ecological performance, and social meaning across Egypt.
IGArchitects | Japan
Founded in 2020 by Masato Igarashi, IGArchitects explores how structure, proportion, and light can define architecture that is minimal yet generous. Their work reduces buildings to their essence while creating frameworks open to interpretation and change. In Skeleton of the House, only structural components remain, inviting inhabitants to adapt and grow the home over time. In Okinawa, the One-Legged House hovers above the landscape on a single column, its broad roof sheltering and blurring boundaries between inside and out. The pyramidal Pyramid Hat nods to traditional tombs while animating interiors with shifting light. Across projects, IGArchitects balances refinement and restraint, crafting enduring spaces that evolve with life and remain rooted in human experience.
Juliana Ayako | Brazil
Since founding her Rio-based practice in 2018, Juliana Ayako has explored architecture as a situated and temporal act shaped by topography, ecology, and collective processes. Her houses balance clarity with adaptability: Casa Vargem Grande negotiates steep terrain through simple structural gestures, while Casa na Árvore elevates living above the ground to preserve vegetation and airflow. In the public realm, her work at Parque Realengo introduced Market Square and a Multipurpose Canopy, anchoring community life while remaining open to future transformation. Across scales, Ayako treats architecture not as a finished object but as a framework for negotiation, privileging openness, reversibility, and social engagement to create meaningful spaces that evolve with time and care.
NAAW – New Almaty Architects Workshop | Kazakhstan
Based in Almaty, Kazakhstan, NAAW was established in 2019 by Elvira Bakubayeva and Aisulu Uali to explore cultural memory and contemporary life through architecture. Their work blends research, craft, and sensory experience to create immersive yet restrained spaces. In Medeu, Auyl restaurant evokes the Kazakh steppe through domed forms, clay gradients, and collaborations with artisans, embedding gastronomy in cultural narrative. Fika Café and Julius Café revive Soviet-era buildings with careful restorations and new layers of warmth, while Pasta la Vista channels playful Memphis-inspired design. Whether working with history or contemporary culture, NAAW treats architecture as cultural storytelling layered with material honesty, historical awareness, and poetic restraint, expanding Kazakhstan's architectural narrative.
PK_iNCEPTiON | India
In 2015, architect Pooja Khairnar founded PK_iNCEPTiON in Nashik as a practice rooted in context, adaptability, and social responsibility. Guided by the idea of a "generic essence," the studio balances tangible function with intangible experience. In Community Canvas, a rural school expands into a shared hub for education, festivals, and civic life. House of Overlaps integrates public and private uses through transitional courtyards, while the Rural Library reclaims a collapsed plinth as an inclusive learning space tied to temple and community. House 20x22 reimagines compact urban housing through layered courts inspired by Wadas. Across projects, PK_iNCEPTiON demonstrates that architecture can be inclusive and adaptable while maintaining craft, precision, and resonance with local context.
Región Austral | Argentina
Córdoba-based Región Austral was founded by Soledad Patiño and Stefano Romagnoli to address climate change, equity, and resilience in Latin America's urban and territorial landscapes. Their approach connects strategy with implementation, research with design. In Buenos Aires, the Urban Activation Plan transformed Olympic housing into a vibrant neighborhood, beginning with a participatory plaza. The Playón Network in Chacarita strengthened connectivity and resilience in underserved areas through micro-interventions in public space. On a regional scale, the Centre for Innovation in Sustainable Agriculture (CISA) integrates research, ecology, and adaptive reuse. Their policy report Ecological Design: Strategies for the Vulnerable City further amplifies this work, positioning design as a civic tool for equitable, climate-responsive transformation.
SEALAB | India
Founded in 2015 by Anand Sonecha, Ahmedabad-based SEALAB creates architecture through patience, community dialogue, and local craft. Each project begins with deep site reading of its climate, memory, and traditions, before unfolding into modest but resonant interventions. At Sabarmati Ashram, the Jai Jagat Theatre is a single wall that defines a public stage and meeting place among neem trees. In Gandhinagar, the School for the Blind engages senses of touch, scent, and sound to aid navigation. Projects like participatory housing in Vastral and the Gram Setu Community Centre in Valuna empower communities through mud construction, vaulted roofs, and recycled materials. Across its portfolio, SEALAB crafts grounded, human-scale spaces that strengthen resilience and social life.
SSdH | Australia
Melbourne-based SSdH was established in 2020 by Todd de Hoog, Harrison Smart, and Jean-Marie Spencer to deliver thoughtful architecture across scales. Their work balances pragmatism, clarity, and long-term value, often through adaptive reuse. In Stewart, modest interventions transformed a 1970s brick home, enhancing light and flow while preserving character. Kerr St, within a heritage chocolate factory, redefined compact living through layered materials and functional adaptability. Dunstan expanded a worker's cottage with a garden-connected pavilion, while Studley Grounds introduced a modular canopy that gave identity to a hospitality venue. Whether new or adapted, SSdH's projects enrich daily life, respect existing fabric, and show how resource-conscious design can elevate the everyday.
Studio NEiDA | Togo, Germany
Based between Berlin and Lomé, Studio NEiDA was launched in 2023 by Jeanne Autran-Edorh and Fabiola Büchele to explore architecture as cultural infrastructure. Their work spans design, curation, and research, linking local craft with global critique. Across projects, NEiDA creates politically engaged, materially grounded works that bridge cultures and disciplines. In Togo, the Adakpame Guesthouse uses compressed earth blocks and courtyards to reinterpret vernacular living. In Ghana, the Falcon Cinema proposes a cultural hub for African film heritage through rammed earth and palm-thatch design. NEiDA also curated Togo's first Venice Biennale Pavilion (2025), reframing architectural heritage, and presented Out of Fashion: The Waste Lab at the Milan Triennale, transforming discarded denim into monumental installations.
Yong Ju Lee Architecture | South Korea
Seoul-based Yong Ju Lee Architecture, founded by Yong Ju Lee, merges computational design, material experimentation, and ecological cycles to expand architecture's civic role. His projects balance digital innovation with cultural storytelling. The celebrated Root Bench (2018) transformed a park into an organic seating landscape, generated through algorithmic design. Machum House (2023) reinterprets Korean joinery with over 470 robot-carved timber elements assembled without nails. Experimental works like Decomposition Farm: Stairway integrate bio-systems, where mealworms consume foam waste and generate moss growth, while Moss Columns (2024) use biodegradable PLA to host living systems. Across installations and prototypes, Lee envisions adaptive, participatory forms where architecture is dynamic, ecological, and deeply public.
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Stay tuned on ArchDaily for in-depth profiles of each winning practice and exclusive coverage from the launch event in Copenhagen.
And a heartfelt thank you to the entire team who made this edition possible:
- Concept Design of Next Practices: Christele Harrouk, Daniela Porto, Hana Abdel, and Romullo Baratto.
- ArchDaily Jury: Agustina Iñiguez, Camilla Ghisleni, Christele Harrouk, Daniela Porto, Dima Stouhi, Eduardo Souza, Enrique Tovar, Hadir Al Koshta, Han Shuang, Hana Abdel, Jonathan Yeung, Kiana Buchberger, Maria-Cristina Florian, Miwa Negoro, Mohieldin Gamal, Moises Carrasco, Nour Fakharany, Paula Pintos, Romullo Baratto, Susanna Moreira, Valentina Díaz, and Victor Delaqua.
- External Jury: Eloisa Ramos, Gabriela Carrillo, Josephine Michau, Lucia Pedrana, Moreno Castellano, and Vinu Daniel.
- Video: Miguel Tarazona.
- Motion Designer: Evghenia Goras.
- Graphic Design: Jorge Miñano and Javiera Contreras.
- Marketing Campaign: Dima Stouhi, Jesuina Januario, Melodie Berzia, and Vera Line.
This article is presented by Buildner. As sponsor of ArchDaily's 2025 Next Practices Awards, Buildner—the world's leading architecture competition organizer—helps architects get what they enter competitions for: recognition, opportunity, and progress.
Exercise your creativity now: the Buildner UNBUILT Award 2025 is open to all, with a €100,000 prize fund. Submit your unrealized designs and celebrate your creativity now - unblt.com
