At a time when public support for the arts is under pressure in many countries, Darat al Funun — literally "House of the Arts" — stands by its long-standing mission to champion artists. "Artists are witnesses of their time," affirms Suha Shoman, its founder. "Maybe Art does not operate change, but it does record it […] it points fingers. At the same time, it speaks of, even if it's so difficult and at times so violent, it speaks of beauty as well."

A place where the past remains present, Darat al Funun spreads in the hills of Jabal al Luweibdeh, on a rugged terrain overlooking the eye of downtown Amman, Jordan. Its landscape is warmly inviting and accessible to the public, with a lower entrance in the south and an upper one in the north. Across its cascading terraces, the site is visually permeable as well, demonstrating the foundation's core tenet: art is a civic necessity and a vessel for history.

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Since the earliest civilizations, the sky has shaped calendars, agriculture, and navigation. It has played a fundamental role in developing human knowledge and shaping our understanding of our place in the universe. To pursue this knowledge, people have created instruments and spaces to interpret the cosmos, linking the positions of celestial bodies, the passage of time, and life on Earth. In architecture, this enduring fascination takes shape in buildings that not only facilitate observation but also heighten our awareness of the vastness that surrounds us.

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This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.

In 2022, Tokyo's Nakagin Capsule Tower was demolished, bringing an end to one of modern architecture's most recognizable experiments in adaptability. Designed by Kisho Kurokawa and completed in 1972, the building consisted of 140 prefabricated capsules attached to two concrete cores. Its architectural proposition was radical: individual capsules could be replaced as needs evolved, allowing the building to renew itself without dismantling its principal structure. Yet over five decades, the proposed replacement system was never realized. Despite various preservation efforts, deteriorating building services and difficulties in collective decision-making eventually led to its demolition.

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A new capital is usually introduced through its principal buildings: the assembly, the secretariat and the ceremonial spaces that give a seat of government its public image. In Amaravati, India's Andhra Pradesh, that image of a new capital sits within an older landscape of cultivated fields, villages and established routes. Before the capital project, the region was already occupied by agricultural villages, local roads and settlements connected to the Krishna River and its water systems. The capital project is reorganizing this agrarian territory into a planned administrative city, bringing existing settlements and land ownership into the process of urban development. Its architectural identity will depend on how the new buildings, infrastructure, and public spaces relate to the settlements and landscapes already there.

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What happens to a building after the architecture is finished? For buildings intended to serve the public, their continued life depends on more than the physical conditions of their construction. It involves the activities that take place within them, the relationships they allow to develop, the people who occupy and shape them, and the institutional structures responsible for their upkeep. Yet these conditions are not always secured through the act of building itself. They are continually negotiated, often through forms of work that remain outside the conventional understanding of architectural practice.

The Drill Hall in central Johannesburg offers a way of examining this unfinished work. Its history is marked by changes in use, occupation and institutional responsibility, but also by repeated attempts to imagine what the building could offer the city.

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From the end of Mere Boulevard in Tallinn, Linnahall appears as a long, low mass of limestone and concrete laid between the Old Town and the bay, kept deliberately beneath the line of the medieval silhouette so that the spires remain visible from the water. Broad stairways climb its flanks to a roof paved as a public square, and from there a sequence of terrace steps down toward a small pier, a helicopter pad and the open Gulf of Finland. Under that surface sit an amphitheater for 4,200 people, a foyer of 6,000 square meters, an ice hall, cafés, a bowling alley and a recording studio.

The building opened in the summer of 1980 as the V. I. Lenin Palace of Culture and Sport, in time for the sailing regatta of the Moscow Olympics, which Tallinn hosted on behalf of a capital with no coastline. It was one of more than 120 projects planned under the city's Olympic program, alongside the yachting center in Pirita, the TV Tower, Hotel Olümpia and a new airport terminal.

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The idea of transportation infrastructure tends to be more hostile than interesting: spaces of transit, of constant encounters with strangers, places that no one seems to claim. These structures organize movement and provide spaces that often operate around the clock. The unbuilt projects below push back against this notion of a no-man's-land, proposing infrastructure as an object of architecture. Located in Iran, Montenegro, the Canary Islands, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, and South Korea, these project ideas offer a look at the culture and image of their surroundings. Designed for trucks, cars, planes, and pedestrians, they provide not only a structure but also an atmosphere for service, waiting, or encounter. Along the way, they offer fresh images for spaces that often go unnoticed.

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The SCI-Arc Resilient Futures Task Force was created to rethink standard rebuilding methods after the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles exposed deep weaknesses in Southern California's default residential standards. Bringing together teachers, researchers, and students, the initiative gives displaced homeowners direct, practical help with building safety, soil toxicity, emergency funding, and insurance claims through public community meetings.

Utopia is commonly understood as an imagined ideal society or place where political, social, and living conditions are fundamentally different from those of the present. Derived from Greek, the word literally means "no-place" or "nowhere." Although utopia may not exist in reality, the act of imagining it has long inspired architects and urban thinkers to envision the world otherwise. Amid the ongoing challenges that cities face today — climate crisis, pollution, soaring land prices, aging populations, housing inequality, lack of social services, growing social and economic disparities, and persistent injustices — some regions face overheating and environmental degradation, while others are fighting for access to nature, land, and communities, which rather makes us think of a dystopian future. Thinking about utopia in such a default condition of contemporary cities shaped by the partially failed logic of modern urban planning, what might a more livable, sustainable, diverse, and inclusive city look like in the 21st century? 

This was the underlying question running through Utopian Hours 2026, an international festival dedicated to city-making. Across its talks, exhibitions, and roundtables, the festival explored how to shape urban landscapes and what forms of design thinking can transform urban life.

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In the nineteenth century, driven by the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the machine age, rapid population growth, and increasingly pressing demands for urban space, Europe saw the emergence of the first modern reflections on the city. More importantly, this period marked the beginning of urban planning as a distinct academic and professional discipline—a theory and practice inherent to a consolidating historical era, whose ultimate urban legacy would define the twentieth century. Within this disciplinary framework—shaped by social demand or, frequently, political agendas linked to militaristic aspirations of order and control—the twentieth century became the stage for the full unfolding of an industrial society that looked to the city as its ultimate horizon. 

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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.

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"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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A floor that feels solid may still be moving. Vibrations travel through the ground and across buildings, often at levels too small for people to notice. Most have little effect on everyday activities, but in some research laboratories, instruments measuring matter at the nanoscale can register movements this small, and even traffic several miles away can interfere with an experiment.

Other experiments place different demands on the spaces around them. Equipment and the ducts and services above it often need more height than a conventional floor provides. Certain processes require continuous ventilation, while equipment generates heat that must be removed. The systems supporting this work occupy space of their own, and some of them produce the very vibrations that sensitive experiments need to avoid.

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Move a wall in Revit and every plan, section and schedule follows. Change a material, though, and the team is often back in specifications, spreadsheets and drawings, checking that they all describe the same choice. 

For Dave Lemont, who led Revit Technology before Autodesk acquired it, that gap is BIM's unfinished work. Now Executive Chairman of Acelab, he is focused on a Material Intelligence Model: one structured product record, connected to every document where that selection appears. It is also something architects can now try for themselves, since Acelab has opened Material Hub search to anyone, no account required.

The architecture biennial exhibition Time Space Existence returns for its 8th edition with more than 200 participants, from established global firms to emerging studios and academic institutions. Their work will be presented across three historic venues in Venice: Palazzo Mora, Palazzo Bembo and the Marinaressa Gardens. Many have already been confirmed, and the curatorial team is finalising the line-up.

Building on the previous edition's focus on Repair, Regenerate, and Reuse, the 2027 edition explores architecture as a practice that embraces change rather than resisting it. It lives in the space between what has been built, what is changing, and what remains to be understood.

"Design a cultural center on a desert coastline, in the style of Alvar Aalto, wood structure, golden hour, aerial drone shot, photorealistic, 4K." Within seconds, a line like this returns a convincing image. What is less visible is the shift it demands. For centuries, architectural imagination relied on the body: the hand that sketches, the fingers that shape a model, or, more recently, the click of a mouse in computational tools. Words came afterward, to explain what had already taken form. Today, the order is increasingly reversed. Before an image can exist, it must first be described: its references named, its materials listed, its mood specified.

This translation is not trivial. Intuition rarely arrives as a written sentence, and much of what architects imagine resists description. Yet as words increasingly become the entry point to the image, they also shape what can be imagined. The vocabulary available to describe a space begins to define the space itself.

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Furniture waste is not always the result of physical damage that renders a product unusable. Chairs, sofas, and tables are often discarded because they no longer fit an interior concept, are perceived as outdated, or are replaced during a renovation. In many cases, their structures remain functional, even when upholstery is worn, or the surrounding space has changed. The result is a cycle of replacement in which usable products become waste, while new resources are extracted and processed to manufacture their successors.

Wide doorways, properly designed ramps, and elevators are essential to a building's accessibility. But whether people can actually use its spaces also depends on the sensory conditions they offer. For some neurodivergent people, this is critical, as bright lights, overlapping sounds, or confusing circulation routes can prevent them from staying in a space and participating in activities.

Jack Chaffin, a partner at Johnston Architects, draws attention to these barriers in an interview with ArchDaily: "A building may therefore comply with accessibility codes and still be functionally inaccessible to someone who becomes overwhelmed, disoriented, or exhausted by it."

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In May 2024, the floods that hit Rio Grande do Sul exposed a contradiction common to contemporary cities. Many were built alongside rivers and shaped by their presence, yet spent decades trying to control water without incorporating its dynamics into urban planning. Extreme weather events will intensify that vulnerability. More than two years later, reconstruction in the Brazilian state has progressed, infrastructure has been restored, and new protection strategies are taking shape. But are these cities rebuilding their relationship with water, or only restoring the systems that failed?

The occupation of flood-prone areas, soil sealing, ecosystem degradation, and reliance on aging drainage systems have increased municipalities' vulnerability. The disaster was not merely hydrological; it also resulted from decades of urban planning decisions that urgently need reconsideration. 

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Whether in residential interiors, workplaces, hospitality environments, or public spaces, the relationship between aesthetic intentions and technical performance can redefine how surfaces are used and how they perform. A material selected for its specific color, texture, or finish must remain visually coherent when applied to furniture fronts, cabinetry, countertops, and other interior elements. Yet how can architects and designers create visually distinctive and tactilely engaging interiors while preserving their original design intentions across different applications?

Outdoor kitchens are no longer just an exclusive accessory; they have become a natural extension of the home. Gardens, terraces, and porches are transforming into spaces where cooking and, above all, entertaining can take place without having to step inside. In addition to offering convenience, this solution increases property value and responds to a lifestyle that is increasingly connected to the outdoors.

This article is part of "Thresholds", a special edition printed newspaper by Cobe Notes x ArchDaily.

Post–World War I modernism broke sharply with historicist and neoclassical traditions, stripping buildings of ornamentation and historical or religious reference to focus on priorities, clarity, and efficiency. Architecture embraced rationality and social reform, while art moved in the opposite direction, exploring self-expression, experimentation, and freedom from academic conventions.

This tension between objective order and subjective perception has defined a threshold between the arts evident in contemporary architectural practices, where personal intuition increasingly gives way to measurable facts. Is our pursuit of answers, facts, and truths distancing us from something fundamentally human: questions, doubt, and ambiguity? The answer may lie in public, building-integrated art, a practice that sits precisely at that threshold, and asks practitioners in architecture and urban design to trust values that resist direct measurement.

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