A color has a biography. A color can have an origin, but it can also transform. It can move between materials and disciplines, from a local practice into architecture, from something ordinary into something symbolic. It can lose one association and acquire another, or persist without anyone consciously thinking of it as cultural. Its life unfolds through the conditions in which it is produced, used, repeated, and inhabited. As these conditions change, so do the meanings a color can carry.
The interior is a place where these histories converge. A color inside a room can carry traces of a territory, a material practice, a climate or a history of inhabitation. Its presence does not necessarily depend on an intention to represent any of these things.
Color can become part of a place through the continuity of materials and ways of living, acquiring significance beyond the surface on which it appears.
Tsuyoshi Tane is a Japanese architect born in 1979 in Tokyo and based in Paris, where he founded ATTA – Atelier Tsuyoshi Tane Architects in 2006. Working across cultural, institutional, and landscape-related projects, Tane has developed an architectural approach that positions memory as a fundamental design driver. In his interview with Louisiana Channel, filmed in his Paris studio, Tane reflects on architecture as a discipline of observation and thought, arguing that meaningful design emerges from carefully reading the traces embedded within a site. For him, architecture is not produced on a blank slate but begins with an inquiry into what already exists, physically, culturally, and emotionally, beneath the surface of a place.
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.
Cocinas de exterior Nedra, un diseño de Fran Silvestre Arquitectos para Gandía Blasco con mobiliario de Gamadecor. Image Cortesía de Porcelanosa
Outdoor kitchens have evolved from exclusive luxury additions into natural extensions of the home. Gardens, terraces, and porches are being transformed into spaces for cooking and, above all, entertaining without having to step inside. This solution not only adds convenience but also increases property value, responding to a lifestyle that is increasingly connected to the outdoors.
Vivos xPoint, USA. Image by VigilanteScout, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Inverting the conventional narrative, this story begins at the end. The day after the world's collapse. While almost the entire population struggles to survive flames and solar storms, a tiny fraction is greeted by a heavily armed guard at the entrance to the Survival Condo Project, a former missile silo in Kansas converted a few years ago into luxury apartments.
Forget, then, the hermit who stockpiles canned food in his basement or the end-times prophet. In recent years, survivalism has expanded into wealthier circles, taking root in Silicon Valley among technology executives and hedge fund managers. What could once be seen merely as an eccentricity has also become a way of thinking about the future and, for some, an investment.
Heat waves are becoming more and more frequent worldwide, prompting architects to reconsider how building envelopes are conceived and designed. The focus is no longer solely on limiting heat loss during the colder months, but also on controlling how much heat enters buildings during periods of intense solar radiation. By understanding solar shading as a design decision rather than a decorative or interior-conditioning element, it becomes part of passive energy-efficiency strategies that can contribute to thermal and visual comfort while reducing cooling demand.
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.
UN-Habitat has announced the five recipients of the 2026 Scroll of Honour Award, recognizing contributions to adequate housing and sustainable urban development in Brazil, Myanmar, Pakistan, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom. This year's winners include a housing organization working with communities affected by conflict and displacement, a researcher developing building materials from local and mining residues, an Indigenous village in Brazil, a public housing agency in Pakistan, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Selected from 101 nominations submitted across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, the recipients represent a range of approaches to addressing housing and urban development challenges.
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.
Reclaimed land is often presented as new ground: flat, available, and ready for architecture. It promises cities more space where space is scarce, allowing them to extend waterfronts and build cultural districts. Sometimes, these newly claimed lands may also develop into financial centers, create parks, and imagine futures beyond the limits of existing land. Yet reclaimed land is never simply land. It is an engineered surface, produced through fill, seawalls, drainage, and soil stabilization — a long-term negotiation with the water it claims to have displaced.
This makes reclamation one of architecture's most powerful and ambiguous spatial fantasies. On one hand, it offers freedom: a tabula rasa where streets and buildings can be planned almost from scratch. On the other, this apparent freedom conceals dependency. Made land must constantly prove itself as ground. It has to resist flooding, support foundations, grow trees, and hold public life above a terrain that did not previously exist.
Traditional water architecture was rarely an isolated object. In Ahmedabad, water management was embedded in the organization of the city. Within the historic pols, wells, courtyards and underground Tankas formed part of a distributed system of domestic and communal water storage. A 2026 study in Built Heritage estimates that nearly 10,000 Tankas may still exist across Ahmedabad, many located beneath domestic courtyards.
Beijing Taikang Yanyuan Health & Wellness Center. Image Courtesy of Serge Ferrari
In the story of the Three Little Pigs, the choice of material determines the fate of each house. The wolf's breath brings down the structures made of straw and wood, while the brick house remains standing. The moral is that the more solid the construction, the greater its ability to resist. A building, however, has to respond to much less straightforward questions. Remaining standing is still essential, but heat, light, air, and sound are not forces that necessarily need to be blocked. Sometimes sunlight needs to be kept out; at other times, daylight needs to be let in. Retaining heat may be desirable in winter and counterproductive in summer. Air needs to circulate, sound may need to be absorbed, and the conditions that determine these responses change throughout the day, across seasons, and over the life of the building itself. More material does not necessarily mean better performance. In some cases, it can simply add complexity without improving how the building responds.
In addition to photographing the studios, Goodwin asked each practice the same question: "What makes for a good office space and office culture for you?" Their responses accompany the images, offering insight into how architects define the atmosphere of their workplaces. Studio Okami describes its workplace as a "home office away from home," while Brut highlights the role of shared meals and greenery in softening their penthouse space.
Design House. Image Cortesía de Design Week Mexico
Through October 11, 2026, Mexico City once again becomes a global epicenter of innovation and creative excellence with the opening of Design Week Mexico 2026 (#DWM26). This edition adopts a broader and more diverse curatorial vision, inviting both the public and design professionals to reflect on the discipline from global, fluid, and inclusive perspectives that transcend traditional approaches.
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.
Far from simply transporting goods from A to B, shipping containers have become a go-to building material across the US, forming the basis of everything from tiny homes to container pools, site offices to workshops. But given the size of the country, and the range of climates found within its borders, the approach to container architecture can vary significantly from state to state, even county to county.
A container conversion in the desert Southwest faces very different conditions from one in New England, while projects along the Gulf Coast must account for humidity, storms, and salt air. These regional differences can influence everything from insulation and ventilation to roofing, foundations, and exterior protection. Let's take a closer look at these regional approaches, the local climate challenges to consider before a build, and the adaptations that can address them.
The North Gate of Taipei, also known as Beimen, stands not only as a reminder of the city's complex history but also as a witness to the changing urban landscape around it and its shifting attitudes towards the urban spaces bordering heritage buildings. Initially a Chinese imperial frontier, spared from demolition during the Japanese colonial dominion, crowded by overpasses and highways in the postwar modernization efforts, it has recently regained its prominent status through the development of the plaza that now frames it. The gate's resilience through shifting urban priorities and architectural policies tells a story of heritage preservation not only through the built form, but also through the open spaces framing it.
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 the face of the climate crisis and within the framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the reuse of materials has become prominent in the fields of construction and architecture in recent years. From "urban mining" to life cycle assessments (LCAs), professionals, organizations, and researchers are exploring different solutions and strategies to address the same overarching challenge. Project (Un)Build is a research initiative developing reversible timber construction methods that use straps and friction pads to facilitate material reuse. It contributes to the ongoing debate and reflection on the act of building itself.
Acoustic design is often associated with permanent building elements, such as walls, roofs, ceilings, and insulation systems, which help control how sound travels through a space. However, not all noise sources or environments are permanent. A construction site changes as work progresses; machinery is replaced or relocated from one area to another; an industrial space may incorporate new equipment; and a temporary work area may emerge in a space that was never designed to accommodate it. Acoustic conditions are not static—they change over time and require solutions that can respond to these transformations. So, what happens when acoustic control becomes a flexible strategy?
Palacio do congreso Nacional Brasilia. Image via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
A different social order is easier to imagine when it sits far from the one that already exists. In Latin America, that distance has often been territorial. Parts of the region have repeatedly been treated as places where another world could begin. These places were never empty.
For architects, this idea has a familiar starting point: the plan. Seen from above, a territory can look like a clean sheet, ready for an axis or a grid. At eye level, the same ground is already full of people and the paths they use.
