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Since its launch in 2020, the ArchDaily Next Practices Awards have spotlighted forward-thinking architecture practices that are redefining the boundaries of the discipline. Over five editions, the initiative has recognized 105 practices from 44 countries, amplifying voices from around the world and fostering a global conversation about architecture's evolving role in society. 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.

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 illuminate the paths that can lead to a more meaningful and resilient future for architecture and beyond.

Nairobi's architectural identity was transformed by Kenya's independence in 1963. As the new nation sought to define itself, the city became a testing ground for a modern architecture that could embody progress while responding to African culture, climate, and local conditions. This opened a period of architectural experimentation, with different approaches emerging to the relationship between modernity, identity, and place.

The Kenyatta International Convention Centre is perhaps the clearest expression of this moment. Its architecture brought together modernist principles with references to African forms, establishing a distinctive response to the ambitions of a newly independent nation. Around it, Kenyan and international architects developed other interpretations of modernism, from the sun-shading facades of Reinsurance Plaza to the sculptural silhouette of Nation Centre, alongside religious, educational, and civic projects that expanded the architectural vocabulary of the city.

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Danish architecture practice AART has won the international competition for Rigets Skatkammer (The Royal Treasury), a new 1,300-square-meter underground extension to the museum at Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen. Developed in collaboration with VEGA Landskab, Fogh & Følner, and Artelia, the proposal places approximately 600 square meters of new exhibition space beneath the historic moat, while partially re-establishing the water surrounding Christian IV's Renaissance castle. The project is intended to provide new visitor facilities and exhibition spaces for the Royal Danish Collection, which includes the Danish Crown Jewels and historic costume collections and currently attracts more than 500,000 visitors annually.

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The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has confirmed that it will open to the public on September 22, 2026, releasing new images of its completed building. The date aligns with the announcement made by the institution nearly a year ago. The museum is housed in a building with a sculptural, curved silhouette designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, with landscape architecture by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA and Stantec serving as executive architect. The project was approved in 2017, with construction beginning the following year; the opening was originally planned for 2025. The museum sits within an 11-acre (4.5-hectare) site in Los Angeles's Exposition Park and comprises a 300,000-square-foot (27,900-square-meter) structure featuring galleries, two theaters, a retail store, a library, a café, a restaurant, and event spaces.

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Every housing crisis eventually becomes a land question, and every land question eventually becomes a values question. The United States' West Coast has arrived at that point. As cities from Los Angeles to Seattle search for parcels to build the affordable housing they have promised for years, they keep landing on the same answer: the park or the greenbelt. What looks like a zoning decision is a referendum on which form of wellbeing a city is willing to sacrifice for another.

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In compact homes, the kitchen is rarely only a room for cooking. It often operates as an edge: a service wall or a boundary between domestic work and social life. Its importance lies not only in food preparation, but in how it organizes the rest of the home, particularly due to limitations of plumbing and ventilation requirements. Before a living room can feel open, the kitchen often has to absorb the practical intensity of daily life: water, heat, smell, appliances, groceries, and storage.

This is especially visible in dense East Asian interiors, where domestic space is frequently shaped by limited area, changing family structures, hybrid work, and the cultural specificity of cooking. The open kitchen may be framed as a lifestyle feature, but in many apartments it is also a planning problem. It has to negotiate domestic labor, support informal gathering, and sometimes, as space-saving strategies, replace the hallway or foyer. More than a design gesture, the kitchen edge is therefore a spatial agreement between service and living.

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