How to visualize architectural concepts in SketchUp using D5 Lite for faster design exploration.

Architecture this week turns toward the question of what the built environment can make possible, and what it asks in return. Discussions around democracy and public space consider how architecture can support participation, equity, and collective life, while new housing and cultural projects explore how buildings can respond to changing social needs through adaptability, shared space, and the reuse of existing structures. These concerns extend into the exhibition space, where the Tallinn Architecture Biennale examines the less visible costs of construction and the Buenos Aires Architecture Biennial looks at the many ways architecture shapes inhabitation. Across these different contexts, architecture emerges as a way of negotiating access, resources, community, and the long-term value of the built environment.

+ 4

+ 12

A team composed of ZHA, A&O TEC, Prior + Partners, Homa, Buro Happold, Systematica, and Fichtner recently unveiled its concept proposal for the "Next Generation City Plan" for Benghazi, Libya. The project aims to bring together the historic port city's identity-defining features with the planning technologies required to guide its development toward 2050, in a context of rapid urbanization. The proposal, developed for A&O TEC, includes a Vision and Spatial Strategy, which consists of an interpretation of the city's character and collective memory translated into an adaptable framework for development, and a Digital Planning Hub, an evidence-based model mapping the city to identify its potential and the phenomena shaping its growth.

+ 13

+ 24

+ 16

+ 39

Videos

+ 24

+ 20

+ 27

+ 33

+ 14

+ 51

Botanical gardens bring the landscape, design, community, and scientific inquiry into close conversation. Emerging from medicinal gardens and private collections that were dedicated to classifying plants, botanical gardens were developed into institutions where specimens gathered across regions and climates could be cultivated and presented to public audiences. Their evolving position in society produced a distinct architectural repertoire, from greenhouses and conservatories to herbaria and laboratories and, eventually, visitor centers and hospitality spaces. Architecture remains integral to the botanical garden as an instrument of cultivation and a framework for organizing and studying the field of botany.

+ 98

+ 20

Buildner is pleased to announce the results of its Architect's Chair Competition Edition 5, the fifth edition of the annual international competition inviting architects and designers worldwide to create a signature chair that reflects their individual design philosophy and vision.

Chair design exemplifies the interdisciplinary nature of architecture, bringing questions of proportion, structure, material, ergonomics, and craftsmanship together at the scale of a single object. This year's submissions explored a broad range of approaches, from highly minimal, structurally efficient solutions to designs rooted in cultural references, material experimentation, and new fabrication methods.

Across Brazil, architecture continues to take shape through different forms of practice, scales, and relationships with place. This month's selection looks at practices working beyond conventional architectural boundaries, collective approaches that reconnect design and construction, and projects that respond to landscape, memory, and community. Alongside recently completed buildings and public spaces, new cultural interventions in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro further highlight how architecture intersects with art, heritage, and the wider urban environment.

+ 2

+ 13

From October 9 to 11, "Oficios en obra" (Trades at Work) will take place at the Parque Cultural de Valparaíso in Chile, a learning and collaboration event centered on the city's traditional construction trades. Organized by the Municipality, the gathering seeks to highlight and preserve work techniques historically tied to the construction of Valparaíso, promoting their recognition and helping ensure their continuity among new generations through activities that are open and free to the public. Once the most important port on the South Pacific, Valparaíso's architecture bears witness to diverse applications of structural timber, rammed earth, and industrial technologies imported during the 19th century. This makes it a subject of study for traditional trades and construction techniques that are being revalued in contemporary contexts of climate and economic crisis, serving as an alternative path forward.

+ 9