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.

We are pleased to announce the finalist projects for the ArchDaily Brasil 2025 Building of the Year Award. Following two weeks of nominations, the projects that received the most votes were selected from hundreds of works built in Portuguese-speaking countries. Our jury, comprised of thousands of readers, once again played a fundamental role in curating this selection, resulting in a shortlist of 15 remarkable projects.

From today until April 9 at 11:59 PM (GMT-3), you can vote once a day for the finalists—exemplary representations of contemporary Lusophone architecture. The winners will be announced on April 10.

In construction, every task requires specific tools and every need calls for a unique solution. Factors such as building typology, construction requirements, waste generation, execution times, and context directly influence the quality and complexity of the work, making it essential to base specification decisions on these criteria. Traditional methods can hinder this process due to their rigidity and limitations, necessitating more efficient and flexible approaches that adapt to the specific demands of each project. This is especially common in residential, hotel, and hospital projects, where speed and performance are essential. In these cases, lightweight dry-construction solutions—using Volcanita boards or fiber cement over lightweight metal framing—offer an effective, high-performance alternative, enhancing functionality and, consequently, the user experience.

We invite you to participate in ArchDaily en Español's Building of the Year Award. In its sixteenth edition, we give our readers the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that have had the greatest impact on the profession. By voting, you become part of an unbiased network of jurors recognizing the most relevant projects built in Latin America and Spain over the past year. Only a few days remain before the closing of the nomination stage, which will select the 15 finalists for ArchDaily en Español's 2025 Building of the Year Award.

Registered users can vote for their favorite project once a day. The nomination stage ends on April 1 at 23:59 (GMT-3).

For many households in Latin America, fossil fuel- and biomass-based stoves and heaters, such as natural gas or wood, are an affordable and accessible option. However, these appliances present significant challenges: they are a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contribute to indoor air pollution, and highlight the need for policies that promote a cleaner residential energy matrix. These challenges become even more urgent considering that 2024 was the hottest year on record, with a 1.5°C increase over pre-industrial levels driven by record GHG emissions from human activity, thereby underscoring the importance of adopting sustainable solutions across all sectors worldwide, including residential.

Nicolás Valencia talks in Quito with architects Verónica Rosero and Néstór Llorca, who, alongside María José Freire, co-authored ⁠Pioneras de la arquitectura ecuatoriana⁠, published by Trama Ediciones in 2021 and winner of the publications category at the 2022 Pan-American Architecture Biennial of Quito.

Videos

Beyond their aesthetics, materiality, or installation methods, the role of ceilings in contemporary architecture is no longer limited to hiding building structures or internal building systems. By providing functional benefits such as acoustic absorption, thermal insulation, energy efficiency, fire protection, integrated lighting, and ease of maintenance, different ceiling layouts combine flexibility and versatility to meet the diverse needs and uses of their occupants. Offices, restaurants, clinics, retail shops, and other interior spaces take center stage through the use of ceilings designed with clear intentions and narratives.

+ 19

The spaces we inhabit are filled with movement, activities, and encounters: the kitchen where we prepare food, the living room where we gather, and the office where we work. Amidst all this, certain elements go unnoticed, yet connect our experience with the environment: switches, outlets, and wall plates. These devices not only distribute power but also structure and facilitate our interaction with space, serving as nodes that link functions and circulation paths while reinforcing the aesthetic identity of interiors.

Nicolás Valencia speaks with French architect Léa Namer, author of ⁠⁠Chacarita Moderna, ⁠⁠the Brutalist Necropolis of Buenos Aires,⁠ where she investigates the Sexto Panteón in the Argentine capital and the history of its forgotten architect, Ítala Fulvia Villa.

If you have not yet seen "The Brutalist" and plan to do so, I recommend that you stop reading now and save this piece for after you watch it. Spoilers abound in the paragraphs below. If you are expecting a traditional film review, my apologies in advance: this is an architectural critique stemming from the themes explored in the movie.

The film's final line prompts an interesting debate on the architectural design process: "No matter what others try to sell you, what matters is the destination, not the journey." The line is spoken by Zsófia, niece of fictional architect László Tóth, the protagonist of "The Brutalist," during the epilogue showcasing his international recognition at the first Venice Architecture Biennale in 1980, titled "The Presence of the Past."

In Quito, Nicolás Valencia speaks with Ecuadorian architects Carolina Rodas, Carla Chávez, and Felipe Donoso, founders of the award-winning firm ⁠Rama Estudio⁠, about their book ⁠"Los primeros diez años. Crítica de obra" (The First Ten Years. Critique of Work), published in 2024 by Flap.

Nicolás Valencia speaks with Peruvian architect Sandra Barclay, founding partner of Barclay & Crousse Architecture, about the book ⁠Atlas Sensible: tiempo, memoria y recorrido en la construcción del paisaje⁠, published by Publicaciones Arquitectura PUCP and Fondo Editorial PUCP.

From September 18 to October 19, 2025, the 14th São Paulo International Architecture Biennial, organized by IABsp, will occupy the Oca Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park to discuss how architecture, urbanism, design, and landscape architecture can address climate change and extreme events.

The curatorial concept stems from the understanding that we live in times of extremes, demanding radical and innovative solutions. Across the four floors of the Oca, the curators aim to bring together science and innovation, traditional knowledge, everyday practices, market-driven proposals, and state actions, asserting that the climate challenge must be confronted by society as a whole.

+ 5

In Lima, Nicolás Valencia speaks with Mexican architect Jesús López about ⁠ATEA10⁠, the 2024 BIAU award-winning publication that celebrates the first ten years of Atea, a multidisciplinary production and experimentation platform in the La Merced neighborhood of Mexico City.

After two weeks of nominations in the 16th edition of the 2025 Building of the Year Awards, our community evaluated over one thousand projects to select the 15 finalists. This year's awards celebrate excellence in design, innovation, and sustainability across Latin America and Spain, highlighting an exceptional selection of projects on the shortlist. As a public-choice award, we are proud to say that their choices authentically reflect the current state of architecture, while the quality of this year's finalists further underscores the excellence and diversity present in the field.

We invite you to participate in the 2025 ArchDaily Brasil Building of the Year Award. Now in its ninth edition, we charge our readers with the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that have made the greatest impact on the profession. By voting, you become part of an unbiased network of judges, recognizing the most relevant projects built in Portuguese-speaking countries over the past year. Only a few days remain until the end of the nomination stage, which will select the 15 finalists for the 2025 ArchDaily Brasil Building of the Year Award.

Registered users can vote for their favorite project once per day. The nomination stage closes on April 1 at 11:59 PM (Brasília time, GMT-3).

A week ago, we announced the 15 finalists for the ArchDaily en Español Obra del Año Award, which celebrates the best architecture in Latin America and Spain, inviting our readers to act as a jury and select their favorite projects from those published throughout the year. Today, the time has finally come to reveal the winners of the 2025 Obra del Año Award.

+ 2

Historically, architecture is a discipline that for many years was a male-dominated territory, until in 1939, María Luisa Dehesa became the first Mexican female architect. Yet, despite the perception that gender parity has been achieved in the education of architects in Mexico, the concept of masculinity (which can be exercised by both men and women) continues to permeate architecture. This is reflected in design processes, in the figure of the "unreachable architect," in a sense of competitiveness, in hierarchical structures, and, in the most unfortunate cases, in the notion that women design interiors while men design *real* architecture.

+ 9

Croquis CDMX is an initiative led by Héctor López, founded eight years ago to foster and strengthen the connections between the eye, the brain, and the hand. The project seeks to portray life in Mexico City through freehand sketches. While architectural education is geared toward training professionals to design and construct buildings, Héctor—who studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the National Autonomous University of Mexico—views university education as “the axis of all elements: I already knew how to draw, and in school I became interested in construction, history, and theory. That was where drawing became disciplined. I would encourage students to draw, regardless of whether they think they can or not, because you discover things that you don't understand when drawing with software.”

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

Before architecture students become authors of space, they are subjected to one. For years, they work inside a building that teaches without announcing itself as a teacher. It organizes their exhaustion, their ambition, their visibility, their solitude, their friendships, their sense of scale, and their relationship to judgment. Long before a student can articulate a position on architecture, the school has already offered one in its implicit built environment.

This is not to suggest that buildings determine architects. The influence is slower and less complete than that. A school building operates more like a hidden curriculum: a spatial discipline that works alongside faculty, syllabi, institutional culture, and student life. It teaches through access and obstruction, program adjacencies, daylight exposures, and scale. It produces habits of attention before it produces explicit beliefs.

+ 36

This week on the TERRAZA podcast, Nicolás Valencia speaks with Chilean sociologist and Universidad San Sebastián academic Ricardo Greene, editor of the landmark book "Ciudad Fritanga," published by Editorial Bifurcaciones in 2014.

"Ciudad Fritanga" compiles 34 chronicles of non-metropolitan Chilean cities like Arica, Talca, and Punta Arenas through the lens of poets, artists, and writers such as Lina Meruane, Jorge Baradit, Marcelo Mellado, and María José Navia.

"When people write about cities, they write about London, Berlin, and New York.  That is the urban chronicle. However, non-metropolitan cities are also cities," Greene comments in this interview.

This week on the TERRAZA podcast, Nicolás Valencia speaks with Argentine-Spanish architect Zaida Muxí, author of the book “⁠Mujeres, casas y ciudades⁠” (Women, Houses, and Cities), published by dpr-Barcelona in 2018.

In “⁠Mujeres, casas y ciudades⁠”, Muxí proposes rewriting the history of architecture and urbanism by incorporating the contributions of the many women who have been silenced in mainstream historical accounts.

“If we want to play by market rules, housing will never be a right,” Muxí posits in this interview.

The rise of sustainability and the circular economy is transforming the construction industry, driving a growing demand for new specialized roles. Positions such as sustainability managers or circular economy consultants are becoming increasingly common in contemporary projects.

In 2024, the evolution of porcelain tiles has elevated the tactile experience to a new level, transforming them into true works of art. Produced with mineral texture printing technology, the collections feature striking reliefs in dimensions of 120 x 120 cm, 100 x 200 cm, 120 x 250 cm, 160 x 160 cm, and 160 x 320 cm, designed to awaken all the senses. Behind this advancement is Roca Brasil Cerámica, part of the Mexican LAMOSA Group, leading the Roca Cerâmica and Incepa brands.

"Drinking Caracu is drinking health." This is what read on the massive blank wall of a building in downtown São Paulo on the morning of May 1, 2018. Hidden for decades, the advertisement for the famous beer brand now loomed before a massive heap of concrete, twisted metal, and shattered glass. This was the rubble to which the iconic Wilton Paes de Almeida Building had been reduced—a modernist landmark designed by architect Roger Zmekhol and the subject of the documentary Skin of Glass, directed by his daughter, Denise Zmekhol.

The film transcends traditional architectural documentation by blending a personal narrative with the political complexities of contemporary Brazil, a country shaped by deep inequalities and erased memories. At the heart of the story is the building itself, considered a landmark of Brazilian modern architecture, which collapsed in 2018 after a tragic fire.