This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.
Who designs architecture today? In a professional landscape increasingly defined by collaborative workflows, generative software, and distributed teams, the figure of the architect as a singular creative author feels both anachronistic and inadequate. This article argues that architectural authorship is no longer an individual act, but a collective and distributed condition shaped by institutions, technologies, and shared forms of labor. The transition from individual to collective authorship is not simply a consequence of larger offices or digital tools; it signals a deeper structural shift in how architecture is produced, communicated, and validated.
The phenomenon known in biology as convergent evolution describes how distant species can develop similar structures when confronted with comparable challenges. Dolphins and ichthyosaurs, for example, are separated by millions of years of evolutionary history, yet both evolved nearly identical hydrodynamic bodies. Architecture has its own parallels: A-frame structures emerged independently in both the European Alps and Japan, even without direct cultural exchange, as spontaneous responses to snow, wind, and material scarcity.
https://www.archdaily.com/1037027/converging-trends-in-2025-architecture-circularity-biomaterials-and-carbon-conscious-designArchDaily Team
Bolete Lounge BIO®. Image Courtesy of Andreu World
What is the current global outlook on the recyclability of materials used in architecture? To what extent are contemporary societies truly committed to reducing environmental impact? In the effort to live in balance with nature, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources is one of the key strategies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and addressing global warming. Looking to nature for inspiration as a way to protect it means creating designs that incorporate sustainability, circularity, and recyclability from the very first sketch. From building systems to surface finishes, the use of biomaterials in architecture reflects a mindset rooted in long-term responsibility for a material's full life cycle.
Amateur Architecture Studio, Ningbo History Museum, 2008. Image Courtesy of Louisiana
Born in 1963 in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, architect Wang Shu has dedicated his career to defining a contemporary approach to building that is deeply rooted in China's cultural and material history. In 2012, he was recognized with the Pritzker Prize, becoming the first Chinese citizen to receive the distinction. The award jury acknowledged his body of work "for the exceptional nature and quality of his executed work, and also for his ongoing commitment to pursuing an uncompromising, responsible architecture arising from a sense of specific culture and place." In 2027, along with his wife Lu Wenyu, Wang Shu will be a curator for the Venice Architecture Biennale.
It is a vast rural expanse spread across the planet, assuming different expressions depending on context—from Asian rice fields to African agricultural settlements, from small European farms to the large estates and agro-extractive communities of the Americas. Yet, beneath this plurality, is there something that unites them? And, more importantly, how might architecture illuminate this quiet thread?
Liminal Air Space-Time by Shinji Ohmaki, Noor Riyadh 2025. Image Courtesy of Noor Riyadh
Noor Riyadh 2025 brought large-scale light installations to public sites across the Saudi Arabian capital, temporarily transforming transit hubs, historic districts, and significant landmarks into illuminated urban environments. From November 20 to December 6, 2025, Riyadh became a citywide gallery of light, motion, and shifting perception. The festival's fifth edition featured 60 artworks by 59 artists from 24 countries, including more than 35 new commissions, responding to the theme "In the Blink of an Eye." Through light as both medium and concept, the installations reinterpreted the capital's rapidly evolving architectural landscape and reflected how perception shifts in spaces shaped by heritage and ambitious urban development.
This past year marked a period of introspection for architecture. As 2025 unfolded, the discipline, confronted with evolving environmental and social realities, entered a broader turning point in how it understands its role and how users engage with it. Throughout the year, exhibitions shifted focus away from buildings as isolated objects toward a broader understanding of relationships between ecology, equity, everyday life, and collective imaginaries. Across institutions and cities, they operated less as showcases and more as discursive platforms: places where architecture was not only presented, but also imagined, questioned, and collectively redefined.
While exhibitions have long functioned as sites of discourse, politics, and community, this role became more explicit in 2025. As Carlo Ratti noted in an ArchDaily interview during the pre-opening of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025, exhibitions today can "hybridize the way that people come together," an ambition that echoed across cities and institutions as exhibitions evolved into spaces for debate, experimentation, and collective reflection. Exhibitions are places where architects and designers meet, where conversations unfold openly with the public, and where ideas emerge through spontaneous exchanges among passersby. Exhibitions became spaces where architectural discourse extended beyond professional circles, opening conversations to broader publics through everyday encounters, shared experiences, and informal exchanges.
Creating living spaces in a world between on and off. Image Courtesy of GIRA
Across recent architectural discourse, interior design has been centered on how spaces shape psychological and atmospheric experience, and on what gives interior environments their emotional resonance. Attention has shifted toward small details rather than relying primarily on form or structure. Light, for instance, is not only a technical requirement but also an architectural material in its own right. It can structure space, animate surfaces, define textures, and shape atmosphere while influencing well-being. At the same time, the characteristics between minimalism and maximalism shape how atmospheres are perceived, prompting reflection on how approaches to simplicity or exuberance might influence mood. Rather than existing as opposing aesthetics, these tendencies explore how interiors interact with mental states, reflect personal identity, and respond to the subtle shifts in the way people inhabit and experience space.
La Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudi. Image by Maksim Sokolov, via Wikimedia Commons, License CC BY-SA 4.0
As 2025 concludes, we look ahead to 2026, a year scheduled to deliver a diverse range of significant architectural projects across the world. The year is particularly notable for the completion of new infrastructure and cultural buildings, including long-term projects. Europe will be in the spotlight of the new year with the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. This event will feature projects such as the Olympic Village by SOM and the Winter Olympics Arena by David Chipperfield Architects. Also in Milan, BIG is set to complete construction of the City Wave project as part of a new business district in the city. At the same time, after more than 140 years of its establishment, the architects around the world will also be watching for the long-awaited completion of Antoni Gaudí's La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, announced for 2026.
Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan and one of the oldest cities in Central Asia, has long been shaped by a hybrid culture. Located at a strategic point along the Silk Road, the city developed an architectural tradition defined by inner courtyards, domes, decorative ceramics, and Islamic geometric patterns. The annexation by the Russian Empire in the 19th century introduced administrative buildings, orthogonal squares, and straight avenues, creating a dual urban fabric — between the “old” Eastern city and the “new” European one — in which contrasts and overlaps became the norm.
During the Soviet period, when Tashkent became the capital of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and received intense migration from across the union, the city was transformed into a modernist showcase. The coexistence between Islamic heritage and the ideology of socialist progress found a new inflection point with the 1966 earthquake, whose destruction triggered a large-scale reconstruction effort involving architects from across the USSR. Massive housing complexes, cultural institutions, and monumental buildings emerged, reinterpreting local motifs through ideological and technological language. It was in this context that the Palace of Peoples’ Friendship took shape.
As the year culminates, it's once again time for the ArchDaily team of curators to reflect on the best-performing projects of 2025 and consider what readers were most interested in. Through this diverse overview, we assess the cross-continental similarities and differences in trends and construction development. This year brought us many grand cultural and public spaces by Lina Ghotmeh, BIG, Zaha Hadid Architects, DnA, and Serie Architects, who populated events like Expo Osaka and the Venice Biennale, as well as a surprising number of museums and public or landscape works in China and the rest of the Asian continent. However, while these were sought-after projects, the leading works remained, unsurprisingly, residential projects.
More specifically, the houses that were most viewed on the ArchDaily global site were concrete houses that bore considerable injections of greenery and landscape focus. They propose layouts highlighting voids and double heights, as well as inner courtyards or large openings to the exterior. While some references did suggest traditional or vernacular elements, modernist revivals were still predominant. Material trends are much more tame, with a recurrence of raw concrete use, as wood and stone were common accent elements. Still, the more interesting thing about the works this year is the efforts brought by architects in situating and setting the projects within their surroundings, bringing special attention to landscape and how projects merged with nature.
Cities are slowly reshaping themselves. Walkable streets, bike-friendly networks, and mixed-use neighborhoods are becoming planning priorities as climate goals, changing lifestyles, and remote work reshape daily patterns. Yet even as these people-centered ideas gain momentum, most cities still rely heavily on private cars, creating a tension between the urban futures we're designing for and the mobility habits that persist today.
This tension has pushed architects and developers to rethink one of the hardest pieces of the urban puzzle: parking. Mixed-use buildings are multiplying, stacking homes, workplaces, and services into tighter footprints, and every square meter has to work harder. The challenge is no longer simply where to put the cars, but how to integrate parking in ways that support density, livability, and long-term adaptability—allowing cities to evolve without letting vehicles dominate their form.
In recent years, this long-standing relationship began to shift. Architectural images did not simply become more refined or technologically advanced; they took on new social and institutional significance. As images moved beyond professional contexts and entered wider public circulation, their role expanded. They were no longer only methods of communication within the discipline, but also objects of public interpretation, discussion, and, at times, dispute. This marked a subtle but important change in how architectural visuals were understood and used.
Earlier this month, news of Frank Gehry's passing prompted an outpouring of tributes to the architect behind flamboyant museums, concert halls, and sinuous residential complexes. Rather than revisit that well-charted terrain, it is worth pausing on a more contemplative work in his oeuvre: Maggie's Cancer Caring Centre in Hong Kong. Quiet, optimistic, and calibrated for everyday resilience, the building reflects multiple registers of Gehry's intent: a commitment to positivity and survival—and, more personally, an architect's own reckoning with loss and end-of-life care.
The remark reframes Maggie's Hong Kong as more than a commission; it suggests a design process shaped by grief and turned toward comfort, dignity, and the possibility of hope—an ethos that aligns closely with the organization's mission.
NPO Aoyama Design Forum (ADF), a non-profit organization, has announced the ADF Design Award 2026, celebrating architecture that does more than please the eye—it aims to make a meaningful impact on society, culture, and the environment. The award aims to recognize outstanding works that challenge existing conventions, demonstrate innovative thinking, and enrich people's lives through visionary, responsible design. Architects and designers around the world are invited to submit their proposals on a unique platform that fosters connections, promotes the exchange of ideas, and encourages meaningful cross-cultural collaboration.
Where cities were once shaped by simple structures that could adapt to new uses, they are now packed with rigid dwellings—often designed with a single use in mind and fixed in both layout and lifespan. As climate deadlines tighten, communities demand more resilient, resource-conscious spaces, and work and living patterns continue to shift, this rigidity is becoming a liability. When buildings refuse to bend, they are often treated as disposable, triggering cycles of demolition, downtime, and loss. Adaptability, once considered an added convenience, is becoming an imperative—something the inaugural Adaptable Building Conference (ABC) in Rotterdam aims to put front and center.
.jpg?1478078308 "Hangzhou Xiangshan Campus. Image © Iwan Baan")
