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Cabins offer architects opportunities to experiment playfully with architectural form, materials, landscaping, and spatial configurations. Their compact footprints, relatively simple programs, and close proximity to the natural surroundings allow for unconventional design approaches and the ability to test experiential, architectural ideas. Often constructed as spaces of rest, cabin architecture encourages architects to prioritize the experience of inhabiting a space, exploring how individual design elements contribute to the character and atmosphere of the interior.

Natural light plays an important role in shaping this experience, particularly in compact spaces where the placement of openings will significantly influence spatial perception. While conventional window openings establish visual connections with the surrounding landscape, skylights introduce daylighting from above and create a unique opportunity to observe seasonal variations and the movement of shadows during the day. Beyond providing natural light for the inhabitants, well-designed skylights create a dynamic relationship with natural light and establish a closer connection to the surrounding environment and day.

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Some architectural projects only survive as drawings, competition entries, or models in archives. Others were built, but not as first imagined, and the completed building gradually replaced the original proposal in collective memory. Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral is familiar to many, but less well known is his Warrant Design, the spire-topped proposal approved in 1675 that he subsequently reworked as construction progressed. London was also once offered a very different monument: Thomas Willson's vast pyramid-shaped necropolis for Primrose Hill, designed to accommodate millions of burials and dominate the city's skyline.

The Sharjah Architecture Triennial (SAT) has announced the opening programme of its third edition, Architecture Otherwise: Building Civic Infrastructure for Collective Futures. Curated by writer and anthropologist Vyjayanthi Rao, with Associate Curator Tau Tavengwa, the Triennial will take place from November 14, 2026, to April 14, 2027, with its six-day opening programme running from November 14 to 19. Co-curated by Rao and Sharmeen Inayat, SAT's Research and Civic Engagement Curator, the programme brings together participatory projects, live performances, film screenings, lectures, and discussions across the Emirate of Sharjah, culminating in a two-day international conference on November 18 and 19.

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This week started with World Cities Day, which this year, in line with World Architecture Day, was an occasion to spotlight deficient access to adequate housing, secure tenure, basic services, and affordable living conditions worldwide. Once again, we are faced with a call to approach architecture and urban design differently, making design a social tool rather than merely a market tool. Examples of sensible approaches can be seen in this week's announcements: waste-based materials, adaptive reuse of industrial heritage, and the recognition of the evolving nature of drawing. The controversial proposal to replace Milan's San Siro Stadium with a new design by Foster + Partners raises questions about notions of value and beauty in the contemporary world, while at ArchDaily, we invite students to imagine new forms of urban life through architecture. To reasonable conflicts, creative solutions. Finally, in this week's radar, we received news from the XIV Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BIAU), held this year in Brasília; a new curved timber-and-concrete building by OODA in Lisbon; and a masterplan by SOM for a brand-new city in Egypt.

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Videos

"We can really bring a hospitality look into a workplace, which is something that our clients have been asking for, for many years," says Mark Harder, a design director at Gensler. The warmth of wood, the texture of leather, and the tactile surfaces found in hotels and restaurants are also sought in offices, airports, and shared corridors. Bringing these qualities into different settings, however, requires considering how materials will respond to everyday use.

Located on the Caribbean coast of Central America, Belize is a small country with an intriguing history. It is bordered by Mexico to the north and Guatemala to the west and south, with the Caribbean Sea along its eastern edge. Known as British Honduras for most of its past, it was formally made into a British colony in 1862, long after its Central American neighbors had won their independence from Spain. As the territory transitioned toward independence, it adopted two symbols of its emerging identity: a new name, Belize, and a new capital, which was built not just to govern the new nation, but also as a way to prevent hurricanes from putting the country's institutional stability at risk.

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