On the southern edge of Vienna, a cluster of monumental terraces rises above the cityscape, their stepped balconies cascading with greenery and their rooftops crowned with swimming pools. This is the Wohnpark Alterlaa, one of the most ambitious social housing projects in postwar Europe. Designed by Austrian architect Harry Glück and built between 1973 and 1985, the complex was founded on a provocative principle: municipal housing should not only provide affordable shelter but also offer the pleasures and amenities usually reserved for the wealthy.
With more than 3,000 apartments housing nearly 9,000 residents, Alterlaa was conceived as a city within the city. Alongside its residential towers, it incorporates shops, schools, medical services, and cultural facilities, ensuring that daily life can unfold entirely within its boundaries. The project reflects a moment of optimism in Vienna's urban policy, when housing was understood as infrastructure for collective well-being rather than as a commodity.
Today, interdisciplinary learning and exchange are more important than ever in addressing increasingly complex environmental, social, and urban challenges.
Each summer, the University of California, Berkeley's College of Environmental Design (CED) becomes an intensive laboratory for architectural, landscape, and urban exploration. Through two complementary programs—Design + Innovation for Sustainable Cities (DISC) and the Summer Institutes—Berkeley offers an immersive curriculum grounded in disciplinary rigor, intentional exchange, and a shared institutional culture. Together, these programs reflect CED's long-standing multidisciplinary structure, with architecture, landscape architecture, city planning, and urban design thriving and collaborating under one roof.
The circular economy, including the reuse of building materials, is fast becoming a key component in the fight against carbon emissions. This involves designing to minimize waste and utilize materials that can be reused at the end of the building's life. On the opposing side, the reuse of materials from partially or wholly demolished buildings can also reduce waste and carbon emissions that would have resulted from using virgin materials. Sustainability purposes aside, the reuse of building materials has a centuries-old history, both for symbolic reasons and simply out of necessity.
The opening of the new Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris last October sparked renewed questions around the role, form, and future of museums. As cultural institutions continue to proliferate worldwide in this digital era, the museum itself appears increasingly in need of redefinition. Rather than offering a single model or solution, Architecture for Culture: Rethinking Museums, written by architectural historian and curator Béatrice Grenier, argues for a more contextual and plural understanding of what a museum can be: an institution shaped by its environment, its public, and the specific cultural questions it seeks to address.
ArchDaily had the opportunity to discuss these ideas with the author against the backdrop of the Fondation Cartier's newly inaugurated home on Rue de Rivoli. Housed within a restored Haussmannian building that once accommodated the Grands Magasins du Louvre, the space has been radically reimagined by Jean Nouvel as a dynamic, transformable architecture.
Which materials have taken center stage in the architectural discourse of 2025? Which projects have rediscovered new construction practices and methods through material innovation? While the future of building materials still appears uncertain, year after year, experimentation and research continue to reveal diverse practices, initiatives, and efforts dedicated to understanding their value and responsibility within the built environment. From agricultural waste that reduces carbon footprints to recycled plastics given new life, and living materials that engage with emerging technologies while reconnecting with nature, 2025 has highlighted and strengthened the role of architects as mediators between materials, disciplines, knowledge, and interests from diverse origins.
In the mountainous regions of Vietnam, the borderlands of Thailand, and the rugged Western Ghats of India, building school projects remains a challenge defined by logistics. In areas where infrastructure and industrial supply chains are limited or distant, transporting each kilogram of material can significantly increase costs and logistical complexity. During 2025, several school projects in rural contexts in Asia showed how the architect's role often shifted from a designer of form to a strategist of procurement. The primary challenge was not merely aesthetic but a matter of durability: using locally available materials and protecting them from monsoon rains, high-velocity winds, and sometimes seismic instability.
In contemporary architectural discourse, scale is often mistaken for influence. Large firms, landmark projects, and master-planned developments dominate visibility. It goes on to reinforce the idea that architectural ambition is measured by size, reach, or spectacle. Yet across India and similar contexts, a quieter but equally consequential body of work is emerging. It is led by small but mighty practices operating with limited resources, close client relationships, and an intimate understanding of local conditions.
Health has become a central concern in architecture, planning, and design, driven by a growing awareness of how the built environment influences physical, mental, social, and environmental well-being. In 2025, this awareness moved beyond specialized building types or performance metrics and became central to architectural decision-making, informing how spaces are conceived, built, and inhabited across diverse contexts. Architects are no longer treating health as an external requirement but as an integral condition of everyday life.
There is not enough that can be said about the benefits of incorporating plants in interiors or Plantscaping. Integrating vegetation indoors serves many purposes, whether practical, aesthetic, or psychological. Although there are basic requirements for incorporating greenery into Homes, well-thought-out plant selections and placements are characteristically different across the world. By going over recent interior works, a few recurrent plantscaping design patterns arose, each reflective of distinctive climates, building styles, and traditional building techniques.
While the type of the chosen plants varies depending on favorable conditions for growth and local availability, the main distinctions are related to the direct environment and display method in which the vegetation is set, as well as its intended purpose. While plants are there to offer mental wellness to some, they are essential for cooling to others, or could even be meant for small-scale farming.
As the solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, it also draws attention to something architecture has long negotiated but often overlooked: time. Beyond form or function, buildings and spaces are continuously shaped by cycles of light and darkness, seasonal shifts, and environmental rhythms that affect how they are inhabited.
In recent years, a growing number of architectural projects have begun to work explicitly with these cycles. Rather than designing spaces to function in a single, fixed way, architects are creating environments that change throughout the day, across seasons, or in response to natural phenomena such as the sun's path, lunar phases, wind patterns, or circadian rhythms. These projects operate in dialogue with time, appearing, transforming, and activating differently depending on environmental conditions.
The 2025 Osaka Expo has captured widespread attention—not only for its architectural ambition and spectacle, but also for breaking records and generating controversy. Its most iconic feature, a monumental timber ring designed by Sou Fujimoto, has already made headlines as a Guinness World Record-breaking wooden structure. Built on the reclaimed island of Yumeshima, the site has attracted praise and critique in equal measure. Beyond its awe-inspiring 2-kilometer circumference—parts of which extend dramatically over the water—the structure has also drawn concerns, including questions about health & safety, extreme heat, and swarms of insects that may affect the visitor experience.
This year also marks a significant anniversary: the 55th year since the 1970 Osaka Expo, held under drastically different socio-economic conditions. Comparing these two expos—both hosted in the same city—offers a rare opportunity to reflect on how the rhetoric, curatorial themes, and architectural ambitions of world expos have evolved over time. From "Progress and Harmony for Mankind" in 1970 to "Designing Future Society for Our Lives" in 2025, the shift in thematic focus reveals changing global priorities. Meanwhile, the scale and nature of architectural involvement have also transformed, from the futuristic visions of Japanese Metabolism to a more internationally dispersed group of designers concerned with sustainability, technology, and civic engagement.
Detail of the Garifuna Kiosk Network. Image Courtesy of 24 Grados Arquitectura
How can architecture restore relevance to forgotten places? What dialogues can emerge when buildings and landscapes are treated not as blank slates, but as layers of memory, identity, and potential? For the Honduran architecture firm 24 Grados, these questions shape an approach rooted in adaptation, reuse, and contextual design. Their projects range from the restoration of old Spanish plazas and cultural centers to interventions in natural parks and coastal villages in Honduras. Each one is grounded in the belief that design can reweave relationships between people, place, and heritage.
MVRDV and Delft University of Technology Release _Le Grand Puzzle_, an Urban Study of Marseille in the South of France. Image Courtesy of HÇläne Bossy, Manifesta
In architecture, most practices revolve around delivering projects to clients. Offices are shaped by deadlines, budgets, and clear briefs. While this structure produces buildings, it rarely leaves space for architects to question broader issues — about how we live, how cities are changing, or what the future demands of design. But alongside this production-focused system, a quieter movement has emerged: studios, collectives, and foundations that prioritize research, experimentation, and reflection. These are the architecture think tanks — spaces designed not to build immediately, but to think first.
The idea of a think tank is not new. Traditionally found in politics, economics, or science, think tanks bring together experts to study complex problems and propose solutions. In architecture, their rise reveals a tension at the heart of the discipline. If architecture is to remain socially and environmentally relevant, can it continue to rely only on client-driven practice? Or must it carve out space for slower, deeper inquiry?
Castles and fortresses often rise from strategic, commanding positions when standing alone or integrated into urban and rural landscapes. From above, they overlook the city, bearing in their imposing structures the weight of history. With their original functions now limited to contemplation, these spaces have been undergoing revaluation and reintegration into everyday urban life. Once symbols of military or political power, they are now taking on new roles through contemporary interventions that engage with their heritage without erasing their past.
Park Hill, a large social housing complex in Sheffield, stands out as one of the most ambitious examples of modernist architecture in post-war Britain. Designed in 1961 by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith, its innovative concept of "streets in the sky" aimed to combine high-density housing with the community spirit of traditional neighborhoods. By the late 20th century, the complex had fallen into severe neglect, marked by social problems and structural degradation that undermined both its functionality and reputation. Gradually, Park Hill became synonymous with the failure of modernism, carrying a heavy social stigma and marginalizing its residents.
Starting in the 2000s, significant efforts began to reverse this narrative through a two-phase revitalization process. The first phase, led by Urban Splash in collaboration with the architectural firms Hawkins\Brown and Studio Egret West, focused on preserving and enhancing the building's historical elements while introducing modern interventions to create a livable, functional, and attractive space. This stage demonstrated the potential of adaptive reuse in revitalizing communities and reclaiming architectural icons. The second phase of the renovation, carried out by the firm Mikhail Riches, sought to build on this initial work by introducing new elements that deepened the connection between the existing spaces and contemporary living. With an approach that combined historical sensitivity and architectural innovation, Mikhail Riches continued the process of transforming Park Hill into a landmark example of how modernist architecture can be adapted to meet current needs without losing its original identity.
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Second Prize Winner: Branch. Image Courtesy of Buildner
Buildner has announced the results of the Howard Waterfall Retreat architecture competition, an international design challenge developed in close collaboration with the Howard Family Trust. The competition invited architects and designers to propose a multi-generational family retreat set within a privately owned, forested landscape in Northwestern Pennsylvania, centered on the dramatic presence of Howard Falls and the surrounding gorge.
Rather than prescribing a singular architectural solution, the brief emphasized a careful dialogue between architecture and nature. Participants were asked to consider how a retreat could balance shared and private living, respond to steep topography and water systems, and integrate sustainably within a sensitive ecological setting. The project also called for an interpretation of family legacy, encouraging designers to acknowledge the history of the site and the original summer cottage while imagining a retreat capable of evolving across generations.
Heritage restoration has always been an intricate process that requires delicate balancing between preserving the integrity of historic materials while integrating contemporary techniques that can enhance accuracy, efficiency, and resilience. With the restoration process of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada's capital city, this intersection of tradition and technology is now on full display. The East Block, built in 1865, offers a compelling example of how digital tools can support the efforts of heritage restoration and contribute to a centuries-old craft such as stone carving.
In a global landscape marked by accelerated change, 2025 emerged as a decisive year for architecture—not only because of the major events that animated the international circuit, but above all because of the voices that stood out within them. From the Venice Architecture Biennale to Expo Osaka, pavilions and installations from the Global South ceased to function as mere exhibition gestures and instead asserted themselves as territories of memory, resistance, and imagination, articulating narratives that expand the horizons of contemporary architectural debate.
Across these works, tradition and future move side by side: ancestral materials reappear in reimagined forms, historical wounds are given sensitive expression, and social urgency is translated into proposals that challenge established ways of building and inhabiting the world.
India's built environment has, in recent years, gained visibility through a growing number of transformative architectural and infrastructure projects. Cities and towns scale faster each year, despite looming concerns around climate and economic volatility. The nation has shown resilience in balancing rapid urbanization with resource constraints; this is no small feat. India's architectural practices rarely rely on novelty alone; they are built on systems that have existed for centuries. Through ArchDaily's Building for Billions, recurring stories have highlighted the social intelligence and adaptive capacity embedded in these practices, revealing an architecture that operates less as isolated form and more as infrastructure.
Living in residences designed by renowned modern architects is a dream sought after by many. Projects that have become iconic are major attractions for new residents who value both the authorial signature and history of the building, as well as the innovative architectural solutions that have contributed to the prominence of such projects.
As for the work of Oscar Niemeyer, fluidity and flexibility may best express his plans and typologies. These features provide great potential for the architects working on renovations within these buildings. São Paulo’s Copan Building is a prime example: its 1160 units, spread over six blocks, vary from 25m² studio apartments to larger units of over 150m². Niemeyer’s extensive portfolio includes other residential landmarks in São Paulo — like the Montreal, California, and Eiffel buildings — plus others in Belo Horizonte and Brasília, even reaching as far as Berlin with the Interbau Apartment House.
Scandinavia is shaped by environmental conditions that test both human endurance and architectural ingenuity, with long winters defined by limited daylight, low sun angles, deep snowfall, and cold winds that transform everyday movement, gathering, and habitation into deliberate acts. In this context, architecture is never neutral, and hospitality is never incidental. Buildings that welcome visitors across cities, forests, and coastlines must respond directly to darkness and cold, not by denying them, but by creating interior worlds that offer orientation, warmth, and psychological relief. The act of welcoming in Scandinavia is therefore inseparable from the climate, grounded in the understanding that shelter, light, and human presence are fundamental resources in Arctic environments.
In much of China, concrete remains the dominant construction material. Despite growing concerns over its environmental impact, concrete continues to align with the priorities of many developers and clients—it is fast, cost-effective, and highly durable. As a result, most building types in China still rely heavily on concrete. This reliance is further reinforced by China's position as the world's largest producer of Portland cement. A deeply entrenched supply chain, rooted in raw material manufacturing and economic infrastructure, ensures that concrete remains the default choice in the construction industry.
Yet historically, Chinese architecture was built upon a rich tradition of timber construction. The Forbidden City is a prime example: not only is it emblematic of China's architectural heritage, but it also remains one of the largest and best-preserved collections of ancient wooden structures in the world. This legacy prompts an important question: does timber construction have a meaningful future in China's contemporary building industry?
As Syria is emerging from over a decade of conflict at the time of writing, it is an opportunity to rediscover its architectural gems. Just to the north of the country's principal port city of Latakia is a Modernist creation that is the Center for Marine Research. Its pyramidal structure is situated on a prominent headland surrounded by sea on three sides. To the east is a bay with hotels and beaches while to the north and west is the open Mediterranean Sea reaching Turkey and Cyprus beyond. Despite its importance both as a research institution and as a piece of architecture, it lies abandoned and isolated today.
AI Generated Image (Gemini). Concept by Eduardo Souza (ArchDaily)
Few plants have accompanied humanity as closely as cannabis. Used for millennia to make textiles, paper, and medicines, it has quietly shaped everyday life and built environments alike. Hemp, its non-psychoactive variety, is one of the earliest cultivated crops and a material of remarkable versatility: strong, breathable, and renewable. From ropes and sails to insulation and biocomposites, hemp’s fibers have been helping humans build for thousands of years.
