Howl's Moving Castle. Image Courtesy of Studio Ghibli
Every evening when we get home, without ceremony, we perform a small rite. We arrive at a door, we open it, and we step through into a space that belongs to us in a way no other space does. It is such a mundane act that we rarely notice it has a structure at all, and yet philosophers and anthropologists have written entire books describing these psychological structures. Interestingly, visual works such as the animated worlds of Studio Ghibli seem to reflect this dynamic to create worlds which contain architecture and layouts that provide a path to escape by tapping into our memories in a legible yet enchanted form.
Obsolete buildings. Image Courtesy of Matt Van der Velde
Sustainability in architecture is often discussed as though it were a universal standard—and, in principle, it should be. Buildings are increasingly evaluated through energy performance, embodied carbon, certification systems, material efficiency, biodiversity, and whole-life impact. Yet the rules determining what must actually be done remain highly local. A project designed in London, New York, or Copenhagen may be shaped by stringent energy codes, environmental review, disclosure requirements, planning controls, and increasingly ambitious carbon targets. The same practice working elsewhere may encounter a very different regulatory landscape.
This creates a difficult question for international architecture: when sustainability is not enforced to the same degree by law, what standards should architects carry with them?
While complex, layered with meaning, and categorized into various forms, heterotopia, a concept developed by the philosopher Michel Foucault, can broadly be understood as the manifestation of alternative realities. Unlike utopias – idealized, unreachable non-places – heterotopias are tangible, real-world spaces that operate according to their own internal logic, offering a lived alternative to dominant spatial and cultural paradigms.
Escapism, in an architectural sense, is not merely about fleeing standard realities; it is a critical tool for reimagining them under different cultural, social, and environmental conditions. Temporary installations serve as fertile testing grounds for these spatial possibilities. Often framed as sanctuaries or refuges, these works intentionally detach from pre-conceived norms – whether by seeking a return to a primal way of living or by provoking radical perceptual shifts.
What can a textile do that glass, wood, concrete, or metal cannot? Architectural composite fabrics don't replace conventional building materials. Instead, they can complement them and often add another layer of performance to the building envelope. Their application changes with context. A composite membrane can become an exterior shading system for a tropical conservatory, an interior skin that shapes acoustics and spatial experience in a museum, or part of a facade strategy that improves the environmental performance of an existing building.
Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, sits at over 2,300 meters above sea level on a plateau at the edge of the Great Rift Valley escarpment. Although situated in a country not known for large visitor numbers, the city has gained fame for its unique architecture. In July 2017, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed as "Asmara: A Modernist African City," the first modernist urban site anywhere to be listed in its entirety, and Africa's first explicitly modernist World Heritage Site. Its heritage value came about as a result of a complex convergence of two aspects of Eritrea's history: an intense period of colonial construction as Italy pursued its imperial ambitions in Africa, and a long period of relative isolation that insulated the city from redevelopment.
Guangzhou Yunxi Botanical Garden / AECOM + Architectural Design & Research Institute of SCUT + Guangzhou Landscape Architectural Design & Research Institute . Image Courtesy of AECOM
First Prize Winner: Helical. Image Courtesy of Buildner
Buildner is pleased to announce the results of its Architect's Chair Competition Edition 5, the fifth edition of the annual international competition inviting architects and designers worldwide to create a signature chair that reflects their individual design philosophy and vision.
Chair design exemplifies the interdisciplinary nature of architecture, bringing questions of proportion, structure, material, ergonomics, and craftsmanship together at the scale of a single object. This year's submissions explored a broad range of approaches, from highly minimal, structurally efficient solutions to designs rooted in cultural references, material experimentation, and new fabrication methods.
This guide covers a workflow that moves from project parameters to generated floor plans, 3D perspective views, exterior design exploration, and site context visualization, using AI tools in place of preliminary CAD and rendering work.
The Continuous Monument- 1969. Image Courtesy of Superstudio
Ask an architect what the hardest problem in the discipline is right now. The block of unmaintained postwar housing two streets from their office rarely comes up. What comes to their mind is the pressure differentials on Mars, or the tensile loads on a floating platform; because unclaimed ground has no one to negotiate with, no history to answer to, no tenant to remember the last renovation, which makes it considerably easier to design for.
Architects think of themselves as solving a harder problem than the one next door. A project, like The Line, a 170-kilometer city meant to house nine million residents, with a site with no prior claimant, is not architecturally harder than a site with a hundred years of tenancy, contested ownership, and a planning department that remembers the last three developers who used the word "community" and meant something else. It is, considerably, easier. No one to persuade, no history to answer to, no argument to lose. Which raises the question of whether the harder problem is sitting two streets from the office, unsolved, and the easier one is the one getting the renderings and the funding rounds; then 'ambition' is the wrong word for what is happening. Something is being avoided, and we need to start thinking about what.
The relationship between humans and wood has endured since the Greco-Roman era, when a variety of techniques were developed to maximize its unique properties and characteristics. Beyond its warmth, texture, and natural appeal, wood has proven its ability to meet a wide range of technical requirements while adapting to diverse environmental and geographic conditions, maintenance demands, and fire-resistance standards. In response to the evolving needs of the built environment, interior and exterior finish materials that replicate the appearance of wood have emerged as viable alternatives. Among them, Wood Finish Aluminum offers a durable, high-performance solution for long-lasting projects, providing a textured wood-look appearance while maintaining minimal environmental impact.
ArchDaily is proud to announce the winners of the 2026 Next Practices Awards, recognizing 20 emerging and forward-thinking practices expanding the possibilities of architecture today.
Now in its sixth edition, Next Practices continues to look beyond conventional definitions of the profession to identify the people, ideas, and methodologies driving the discipline. The 2026 edition is our strongest and most globally representative to date, bringing together different approaches, scales, and contexts that broaden our understanding of how and by whom architecture is being practiced.
From extreme climates to rural communities, informal cities, and territories affected by displacement and environmental vulnerability, this year's selection engages with a wide range of realities. Drawing from engineering, ecology, digital fabrication, material research, vernacular and Indigenous knowledge, advocacy, and critical research, these practices reflect what is "next": the capacity to respond to specific conditions and actively shape the world around them.
A cave in Maharashtra can now be entered without travelling to it. Through a virtual reality experience developed around Ajanta, visitors can move through a digitally reconstructed version of the caves from somewhere else entirely. The project raises an architectural question: if architecture is experienced through movement, scale, sequence and perception, what happens when those experiences can be recreated outside the physical site? IITM Pravartak's Digital Ajanta project uses 3D scanning, filming, modelling and virtual reality to document the caves and translate that record into an immersive experience.
What happens when architecture is asked to create a room without boundaries? Convention halls, stadiums, factories, and logistics centers all begin with the same architectural challenge: creating large, uninterrupted interiors that can accommodate movement, visibility, and changing uses. The larger the span, the greater the structural demands, and the greater the architectural possibilities.
Long-span architecture is not a recent ambition. For centuries, architects have sought ways to enclose large public spaces, from the monumental dome of the Pantheon to the iron-and-glass halls of London's Crystal Palace. Each breakthrough expanded the possibilities of architecture, replacing thicker walls and denser structural systems with lighter, more efficient ways of spanning distance. Today, steel continues that evolution, making it possible to span distances that would be difficult to achieve with conventional structural systems while keeping large public spaces open, flexible, and adaptable. Steel's high strength-to-weight ratio makes longer spans possible with fewer columns and lighter structural systems, while prefabricated components simplify construction and reduce on-site work.
Wellbeing is no longer confined to exclusive resorts, spas, or hospitality settings. Today, it has become an essential part of contemporary living, inspiring homeowners to create private spaces dedicated to relaxation and personal care. Collections such as LEMI's Home Spa Collection explore this growing interest in residential wellness through a selection of massage beds and relaxation loungers.
Lagos is a city shaped by time, human interaction, the forces of nature, and its evolving, sometimes uneasy relationship with all three. Nowhere is this more visible than when the rain comes.
Eko sits on a floodplain. Its geographical condition predates the city itself, reaching back to a time before the first road was laid, the first boundary drawn. The drainage systems, the developments that have gradually become privatised waterfronts, are all built on a landscape that has always been, at its foundation, in continuous conversation with water. The flood is not an anomaly; it is the land insisting on a dialogue that was always going to return.
Casa Sobre el Arroyo, Amancio Williams. Image via World Monuments Fund
What happens to a house when the life it was designed for ends? In Casa sobre el Arroyo, the answer developed gradually as the building changed use, ownership, and condition over nearly eight decades. Even as these conditions changed, the structure, circulation, and relationship to the site remained central to how the house was understood and, eventually, restored.
Designed by Amancio Williams and Delfina Gálvez Bunge de Williams beginning in 1943 for Amancio's father, Alberto Williams, Casa sobre el Arroyo grew directly from the conditions of its site in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Rather than treating the Las Chacras stream as something to work around, the project uses it to organize the house itself. A reinforced concrete arch crosses the water and lifts the living spaces above it, turning the stream into part of the experience of moving through and inhabiting the house.
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Dornbracht Atelier Edition The Knot in collaboration with AB Concept. Image Courtesy of Dornbracht
Symbols have always traveled through architecture. They appear in carved stone, woven textiles, painted ceilings and walls, door hardware, and everyday objects, carrying the beliefs, rituals, and histories of the cultures that first created them. Across contemporary interiors, designers continue this dialogue with place by revisiting historical symbols and translating them through new materials, manufacturing techniques, and architectural forms.
The Ruyi knot is one such example. For centuries, the interwoven motif has been part of the Chinese knotting tradition, symbolizing continuity, harmony, and good wishes. Its gently looping geometry has appeared across decorative objects and ceremonial crafts, demonstrating how cultural references can become part of a design vocabulary that extends far beyond ornament.
Nestled at the foot of the Alborz mountain range, Tehran grows beneath a ridge that protects and suffocates it at the same time. The same landscape that blocks the winds and traps pollution over the city also holds, along its slopes, centuries of disputes over this strategic territory. It is a capital built on unstable ground, both geologically and politically. Active seismic faults run beneath its avenues, while above them accumulate the traces of successive reconstructions, demolitions, and forced reinventions. Thus, the city continues to expand, a silent witness to a country that, for more than two centuries, has constantly negotiated between memory and erasure.
Filippo Brunelleschi and the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, completed in 1436 in the Italian city of Florence, represent an important chapter in the history of architecture, often associated with the growing distance between drawing and building. This separation, gradually consolidated over time, finds a decisive turning point in the Renaissance. Drawing becomes an instrument for anticipating and asserting authority over construction. The building site, once a space for invention and decision-making, came to be understood primarily as a place of execution.
Over the following centuries, this distance becomes increasingly pronounced, particularly with modern construction. Industrialization, technical specialization, and corporate organization fragment the building process into increasingly distinct stages. Those who design rarely build; those who build do not always participate in decision-making; those who finance, manage, and inhabit occupy positions that are even further removed from one another. The efficiency of this model made it possible to build at scale, but it also concentrated knowledge and decision-making power in the hands of certain agents.
This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.
For centuries, most of the world has looked at itself through a 16th-century instrument of spatial representation. On September 4, the United Nations General Assembly voted to change that, adopting a resolution that asks governments, schools, media organizations, and technology companies to retire the Mercator projection wherever the relative size of countries actually matters, in favor of equal-area alternatives like the 2018 Equal Earth projection. The vote passed 164 to 1. The United States was the sole vote against.
In broad terms, a structure is a testament to its time. An architectural project's proposal and material scale often exceed the lifespan of a single human being, becoming, in this way, part of a historical narrative. This cross-cutting characteristic is particularly evident in specific project typologies: memorial sites, cemeteries, museums, and even educational and community centers. Lately, this value has extended not only to buildings but also to construction techniques, ancestral forms and geometries, and to nature itself. This historical value and its symbolic connotation are represented in this selection of five buildings designed by ArchDaily readers, still unbuilt, in Kosovo, Canada, China, Egypt, and Bangladesh.
Historically, the way we design has been closely linked to the way we build. Architecture moved through physical testing, trial and error, projection drawings, mock-ups, and physical models: each introducing a new layer of abstraction, but still remaining tied to material, scale, and construction. The introduction of CAD significantly changed this dynamic. At first, it was largely understood as the computerization of precise geometry for construction. Over time, however, digital tools moved earlier into the design process, replacing sketching, physical trial and error, model-making, and other forms of thinking that had once kept scale and material close at hand.
The lineage of architectural design can therefore be understood, in part, as an evolution of abstractions. Some have been extraordinarily productive. Plans and sections, for example, isolate particular dimensions of architecture while still allowing the mind to reconstruct the whole. They flatten, cut, and reduce, but they do not abandon the building. Through the combination of drawings, one can understand rooms, circulation, structure, openings, and spatial relationships without becoming lost in the complexity of the project. Their abstraction is disciplined because it remains tied to an architectural reality that must eventually be measured, built, and inhabited.
Oslo, Norway. Photo by Collection Maykova, via Shutterstock
Oslo is the capital of Norway as well as its largest city, serving as the country's political, economic, and cultural center. Nestled at the head of the Oslofjord and surrounded by forested hills, it's home to roughly 700,000 people in the city, with over a million living in the greater metropolitan area. Founded around a thousand years ago, Oslo has a long history as a trading post and administrative seat. However, much of its modern character was shaped after a major fire in the seventeenth century led to a full rebuilding under Danish rule, when it was briefly renamed Christiania. Today it consistently ranks among the world's most livable cities, prized for its blend of urban life and easy access to nature.
