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Qianhai is located in the western part of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, on the eastern bank of the Pearl River Estuary. Adjacent to Hong Kong, it is planned as a future demonstration zone for deep cooperation between Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao, as well as a new urban center. To develop a series of high-level, high-quality iconic buildings that establish a new landmark for Qianhai in terms of form, design, and function, and to enhance the area's influence and appeal, the Qianhai Authority intends to construct the Qianhai International Financial Exchange Center in Unit 1 of the Guiwan area. This project will be the first international-level conference center in Qianhai, positioned as a venue for head-of-state level multilateral summits. It will serve government agencies, public institutions, enterprises, and associations within the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, functioning primarily as a conference venue while incorporating auxiliary functions such as dining, banquets, hotel accommodations, boutique exhibitions, product launches, and festival events.

On January 27, the fifth anniversary of the Kiss nightclub tragedy, the National Public Architecture Competition for the Kiss Victims Memorial was launched in Santa Maria. The competition is a partnership between the city government, the Institute of Architects of Brazil (IAB RS), and the Association of Families of Victims and Survivors (AVTSM).

Architects from across Brazil may submit their projects via the competition website until March 19. Proposals must adhere to an estimated construction budget of R$ 3 million. The winning project is scheduled to be announced on April 10.

Living With : Dialogues Across Time

The exhibition Wellbeing in the City, at the Casa de la Arquitectura and curated by Izaskun Chinchilla, is conceived as a critical device that reconsiders the foundations upon which urban wellbeing has historically been constructed. Rather than defining wellbeing as a set of indicators (life expectancy, obesity or diabetes rates) or the provision of services, the exhibition approaches it as a relational condition, dependent on the quality of interactions between bodies, communities, and environments. At the core of its conceptual framework lies the Quechua term Sumak Kawsay — Buen Vivir or Good Living — which integrates material, biological, social, and ecological dimensions within a single plane.

Open call for built projects.

Across Europe, craft is expanding beyond the workshop and into public health and community care. Co-hosted by Artex, this year's European Crafts Alliance (ECA) Annual Conference explores the critical intersection of making, social participation, and wellbeing.

IE School of Architecture & Design will host, as part of its RE_SOLUTION public series, a lecture by Lord Marvin Rees OBE, Mayor of Bristol from 2016 to 2024, followed by a conversation with Santiago Íñiguez de Onzoño, Executive President of IE University.

Inventing Sauna: Playing with Fire, Smoke and Water

The Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture invites abstract submissions for the upcoming EKA Arh Conference 2026: To Be Continued…, a biennial international peer-reviewed conference held as a satellite event of the Tallinn Architecture Biennale.

A new exhibition marking 150th anniversary of Czech entrepreneur Tomáš Baťa, founder of the global Baťa Shoe Company, explores Baťa's achievements and guiding principles and their realisation in East Tilbury, Essex. It reveals how ideas about work, culture, sport, health and community were embedded in the design of the built environment.

The 15th edition of MEDS Workshop will take place in Brussels, Belgium, focusing on Kuregem within the Brussels Canal Zone marked by strong contrasts, cultural diversity, and pressing urban challenges.

Learning Landscapes is a process-based and situated program bringing together artists, designers, architects and researchers under 35 to explore the food system as a field of practice, at the intersection of landscape, public space and collective processes.

IE School of Architecture & Design hosts Yasmeen Lari at the IE Creative Campus Segovia as part of its 2025–2026 CRAFT & CARE lecture series. Lari will discuss how her practice redefines architecture as a tool for care, resilience, and social transformation—working directly with communities through low-cost, zero-carbon construction and knowledge-sharing systems.

The European Collective Housing Award shines a light on collective housing projects that genuinely change how people live – not just architecturally, but socially. We celebrate both the building and its impact: new constructions and renovations, public and private, from anywhere across the 46 countries of the Council of Europe. The open call is aimed at all actors involved in collective housing – architects as well as housing cooperatives, developers, construction companies, public administrations, even residents: until April 30, free of charge, anyone can submit their projects in 2 categories: Renovation and New Construction (must be completed in 2024 or 2025; minimum 3 dwellings per development).
Organised by the Basque Architecture Institute (EAI) and arc en rêve centre d'architecture with the support of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda of the Basque Government, the award brings together architects, policymakers, scholars and citizen representatives around a shared conviction – that housing is one of the most important questions of our time.

The Sustainable Buildings and Construction Summit 2026 (20-22 April, SwissTech Convention Center, Lausanne, Switzerland) convenes stakeholders across the buildings and construction value chain: government officials who develop building policies working alongside academics advancing research, private sector and AEC leaders implementing solutions, financiers mobilising investment, and civil society—bridging the gap between policy commitments and on-ground implementation.

Tile of Spain returns to Fuorisalone with "Spanish Design As A Souvenir"
Tile of Spain, the international promotion programme of the Spanish ceramic tile industry led by ICEX España Exportación e Inversiones and ASCER (Spanish Ceramic Tile Manufacturers' Association), will present Spanish Design As A Souvenir at Fuorisalone 2026. The installation, conceived by Madrid-based practice Codoo Studio, will be on show at the Università degli Studi di Milano — Ca' Granda (Via Festa del Perdono, 7) as part of MATERIAE, the major exhibition event organised by Interni Magazine during Milan Design Week, from 20 to 30 April 2026.
Spanish Design As A Souvenir is a contemporary still life at architectural scale: eleven oversized sculptural objects, each one a reinterpretation of an iconic element of Spanish material culture — from the flamenco trivet to the Dalí-inspired lips sofa — entirely clad in ceramic tile. The project brings together 15 Spanish ceramic manufacturers, each brand assigned to one or more of the eleven pieces: Cristacer (El Salvamanteles), Vives (Las Castañuelas), Arcana (El Plato), Dune Cerámica and Harmony (El Aceite), Decocer and ECerámico (El Cenicero), Colorker (La Camiseta), Cevica (La Milán 430 and La Pajarita), Argenta and Tau Cerámica (La Bota), Apavisa, Gayafores and El Barco (El Imán), and Vidrepur (El Beso).
The installation follows Tile of Spain's participation at Fuorisalone 2025 with The Light in the Darkness, designed by Viruta Lab, which attracted over 270,000 visitors at the same venue.

TAB 2026 Installation Programme Competition invites architects to rethink luxury through the lens of limited resources

The 8th edition of Tallinn Architecture Biennale (TAB 2026) (www.tab.ee) will question cost, value, and sustainability in architecture with the theme “How Much?”. Curated by Kertu Johanna Jõeste, Ra Martin Puhkan and Siim Tanel Tõnisson from Stuudio TÄNA (www.stuudiotäna.ee) (Estonia) together with Mark Aleksander Fischer (Estonia) and Mira Samonig (Austria), TAB 2026 will run from September 9th – November 30th, 2026.