The Korean contribution at the 2027 International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia will focus on the country's condition of hyper-shrinkage, the accelerated stage of population contraction and societal aging, within the context of global demographic change. Commissioned by the Arts Council Korea (ARKO) and led by curator Janghwan Lee, the exhibition will feature contributions by architects Bae Yoonkyung, Kyo Suk Lee and Jaehyub Ko. The curatorial project is named "Catabolism," after the metabolic process through which complex molecules break down into simpler units and release energy. Moving away from an expansion-focused view of cities and architecture, the team uses the concept as a lens to understand urban shrinkage as a reconfiguration of existing relationships and the emergence of new uses and ways of living.
Hurst Castle in Hampshire, England. A fortress built by Henry VIII that suffered partial collapse in 2021. Image via World Monuments Fund
The World Monuments Fund (WMF), an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage since 1965, receives nominations through the World Monuments Watch, a flagship advocacy and conservation program. Every two years, the Watch selects 25 sites from the nominations received from individuals and community-based organizations worldwide. Nominations for the 2027 World Monuments Watch closed on March 20, 2026, with a total of 372 public nominations from 84 countries and territories. Before announcing the selected sites in early 2027, the WMF offers an analysis of the nominations. Global data shows three main causes of heritage endangerment worldwide: government austerity, intensifying climate impact, and lack of access to specialized skills and expertise. At a time when political priorities tend to stray from history, the call is to recognize heritage sites as an area of shared opportunity rather than a burden.
Portuguese architecture and urbanism practice OODA has released new images of an urban design project in Prague, Czech Republic. The design transforms an existing building block into a permeable site with municipal social housing, commercial units, and a landscaped central plaza. The project, titled Kodaňská 1441, prioritizes walkability, green mobility and public space. In addition to opening new connections between the existing building and the urban fabric, it includes a landscape design by LJ-Group and a water management system that increases the permeable surfaces of the courtyard by 21.5%. The project is an example of urban renewal that incorporates contemporary concerns such as communal spaces, a regulated relationship with public space, planted environments, and the sustainable use of natural resources.
On October 11, 2026, Donald Insall Associates announced the passing of its founder, Sir Donald Insall. Describing him as "a man of great tact, charm and humour," the practice recognized his contribution to the structures, institutions, and tools of heritage preservation in England, as well as his practical knowledge and application of the craft of restoration. An architect, conservationist, planning consultant, author, and teacher, he led one of Britain's leading conservation practices for four decades after founding it in 1958. His practice undertook the renovation of William Morris's Kelmscott Manor in Oxfordshire and Robert Adam's Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, the conservation of Chester's historic center, and the restoration of Windsor Castle following the 1992 fire, among other British landmarks.
Construction has begun on the Frank Liu Jr. Academy for Music and Arts (FLAMA) in Houston, Texas, designed by OMA, led by partner Jason Long, with RDLR Architects as architect of record and SWA Group for landscape design. The project is an adaptive reuse of Houston's historic 1930s J. A. Folger & Co. coffee plant, converted into an educational space for the arts. The 6,050 m² facility will be an open-enrollment, tuition-free public charter school for pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade students. The building is located along Houston's Buffalo Bayou East corridor, directly across from Turkey Bend, a landscape project by Reed Hilderbrand with NADAAA and Rogers Partners that reimagines the former industrial waterfront as a network of public spaces and flood-adapted landscapes. The conversion of the former coffee plant is part of a larger transformation of the area and is expected to open in August 2027.
The second part of the Utopian Hours 2026 international city-making festival will be held in Turin on October 16 and 17. After a first chapter in Rotterdam, the festival is marking its tenth anniversary edition by returning to its hometown in Italy. The event's lineup and cultural program are designed to explore how cities can respond creatively to the social, environmental, and political challenges of the 21st century. The Utopian Hours festival has been organized since 2017 by Stratosferica, a nonprofit cultural association dedicated to producing and sharing urban knowledge through content on the evolution of cities, urban communication strategies, events, community building and placemaking.
As cities change, so do our expectations of them. People are asking for more caring spaces: public places open to all ages and genders, nature within reach of every social class, and settings that foster connection. Few design intentions hold these together as well as spaces for children. This selection of unbuilt projects submitted by ArchDaily readers showcases different approaches to care-based architecture. Schools, daycare centers, a library, a youth center, and a new model for orphanages take on the mission of providing a safe and stimulating environment for children at every stage of their development. Not yet built but carefully designed, these proposals offer a glimpse into spaces for play, learning, and calm that fuel creativity in design for people of all ages.
Colburn's 100,000-square-foot campus expansion, designed by Frank Gehry, will open on September 25, 2027, with an event in the new 1,000-seat Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall, a round concert hall. Colburn is a school of music and dance in Los Angeles, on a downtown campus that welcomes an estimated 10,000 people weekly. The institution provides performing arts education, and more than 500 music and dance performances open to the public each year. The first images of the design were released in 2022. The expansion triples the facilities currently dedicated to dance and will house Colburn's Trudl Zipper Dance Institute. The building, finished in a metallic pink coating, is located adjacent to Colburn's Grand Avenue campus in downtown Los Angeles and is expected to reach substantial completion in summer 2027.
The week began with World Architecture Day, drawing attention to the global housing crisis as a fundamental element of human dignity, inclusion, and well-being. In a joint message between the UIA and the United Nations, this year's call is to focus disciplinary efforts on building not only residential structures but also systems to better distribute and use what already exists, proposals that enable new ways of living and alternatives for a more sustainable industry. Aligned with this concept, we featured three projects where reuse and representation converge, and three others that help establish a dialogue between what we consider old and what we can expect from the new. On this week's radar, we find another instance to reexamine the canons of modern architecture in Switzerland, the start of construction on a translucent yet hurricane-resistant building in the United States, and a winning entry for a mixed-use urban complex in Austria.
Architecture firm HENN has launched CarbonBudget, a digital tool that calculates project-specific CO2 budgets for buildings. The new platform, free of charge, is a contribution for designers to help reach the 1.5°C target, a global goal from the Paris Agreement to limit long-term global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. As the construction industry is responsible for around one-third of global CO2 emissions, architectural design decisions can effectively contribute to containing global warming. The tool is designed to calculate whether the emissions of a building project located in Europe are compatible with the Paris Agreement target, based on specific inputs such as location and building area. The new platform joins other projects from international offices such as MVRDV NEXT's CarbonSpace, Grimshaw's Minoro, and Henning Larsen's OpenDetail, addressing decarbonization through shared digital information.
In November 2019, London-based Carmody Groarke and Ghent firm TRANS architectuur | stedenbouw, now known as ATAMA, won the Baumeister international competition to design an extension for Design Museum Gent, Belgium's largest design museum, located in Ghent's historic center. At the time, the museum comprised three buildings: the eighteenth-century Hotel de Coninck, the Leten House, with a sixteenth-century core, and a 1992 wing. After four years of renovation and expansion, the museum reopened on October 3, 2026, within the UNESCO World Heritage city center. The project combines the restoration of these historic buildings with a new wing designed by Carmody Groarke and ATAMA, alongside the restoration work led by RE-ST architectenvennootschap. The museum's collection spans design objects from the fourteenth century to the present, and the renewed building adds spaces for lectures, workshops, exhibitions and events, framing design as something visitors can use and engage with directly rather than only view.
Transformation of 530 dwellings / Lacaton & Vassal + Frédéric Druot + Christophe Hutin architecture. Image Courtesy of Philippe Ruault
The International Union of Architects designates the first Monday of October as World Architecture Day each year, aligning it with the United Nations' World Habitat Day. This year, both occasions are drawing attention to the global housing crisis as a fundamental element of human dignity, inclusion, and well-being. The UIA's motto reads: "Housing is a Human Right. Build It." The organization calls on architects to contribute to advancing equitable access to housing through design, research, and advocacy. From a holistic perspective, the crisis consists not only of a shortage of residential buildings, but of multiple, interconnected barriers to accessing an adequate place to live. The challenge calls on the dual nature of the architect's work: the capacity for abstract design thinking, and the practical knowledge to transform material reality. For architecture to make the right to housing a reality, both capacities must be put into practice: building new governance structures, different models of shared ownership, designs for alternative forms of cohabitation, and new, environmentally sustainable construction systems.
Xu Tiantian is the founding principal of DnA_Design and Architecture, an interdisciplinary practice that addresses both the physical and social dimensions of the contemporary living environment, across scales. Born in 1975 in Fujian, China, she received a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a bachelor's degree in architecture from Tsinghua University in Beijing. Her recent work focuses on rural revitalization through a strategy she describes as "architectural acupuncture," understood as small-scale, site-specific interventions designed to activate local culture, agriculture, and tourism. These interventions, primarily concentrated in China's rural regions, have been recognized by UN-Habitat as a global model for urban–rural integration. In this interview with Louisiana Channel, she reflects on the role of the architect, questions architecture itself and the concept of beauty, explains her working methodology, and emphasizes the spatial dimension of nature.
The origins of the Copenhagen Architecture Biennial trace back to the establishment of the CAFx yearly festival in 2014, which was renamed Copenhagen Architecture Forum in 2024 to lead new projects focused on architecture and urbanism, such as the shift from festival to biennial, with a first edition in 2025. Today, the details of the second edition are being announced: it will take place from September 9 to October 15, 2027, under the theme "Elements." After the Biennial's inaugural call to Slow Down, the event is turning its attention to the planetary elemental forces that architecture has sought to master and prepare to inhabit, questioning one of modernity's most persistent promises: control over the environment. Activities will be dedicated to and organized around each of the four elements: fire, earth, air, and water, including an open call for pavilions, exhibitions, and a symposium.
A jury of arts and architecture professionals recently announced the selected curatorial proposal for the Luxembourg Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2027. The exhibition will be curated by housing expert Céline Zimmer and architects Bùi Quý Sơn and Paul-Antoine Lucas, co-founders of the critical spatial practice Exutoire, one of the winning practices of the ArchDaily 2026 Next Practices Awards. The proposal is titled "Excess! On the Overconsumption of Living Space" and addresses the inequitable distribution of living space as a reflection of "broader habits of excess that contribute to the current housing and ecological crises." The issue will be illustrated through a dialogue between the realities of Luxembourg and Vietnam to reflect on spatial consumption. The Luxembourg Pavilion is located on the first floor of the Sale d'Armi in the Arsenale, which will open to the public for the Biennale on May 8, 2027.
A campaign led by Red Lima Milenaria is seeking UNESCO recognition for pre-colonial sites in the Peruvian capital. Today, more than 600 archaeological sites remain in Lima, a metropolis of 11 million people. The citizens' campaign seeks to improve conservation conditions and public awareness of the sites that resisted European colonization by promoting the nomination of a selection of structures for inscription on UNESCO's World Heritage List. The public campaign was recently launched to gather citizen support and establish partnerships with organizations working in heritage and related fields, in order to prepare the framework for a formal nomination to be submitted by the Peruvian state. The initiative coincides with reconstruction movements in the continent responding to socioeconomic inequality and structural historical injustices, raising questions about the very definition of heritage.
