Tag: ad-narrative | ArchDaily

From Spanish Presidio to the American Grid: The Hispanic Roots of San Diego’s Urban Core

Moises Carrasco — Sun, 17 May 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Very close to the Mexican border, in the southwest corner of the United States, lies the city of San Diego. Its urban history began in 1769 with the arrival of a Spanish military expedition commanded by Gaspar de Portola, which marked the first permanent settlement in the territory that was known as Alta California. However, unlike the more formally urbanized administrative capitals and towns of Mexico and Central America, San Diego was conceived as a frontier outpost. Today, it has become the second-largest city in California, just after Los Angeles, and its urban grid tells a story about the Hispanic heritage that is intertwined with the contemporary cultural environment of the United States.

Espai Verd: The Habitable Utopia of Valencia's Green Cathedral

Camilla Ghisleni — Wed, 06 May 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Even the most distracted passerby is captured by the monumental presence of this structure located in the established Valencian neighborhood of Benimaclet. Before it, any attempt at rational comprehension dissolves. The constructive logic seems to slip away as space unfolds in tensions and detours where nothing is immediately revealed. Between masses of concrete and the insurgency of vegetation, an almost choreographic play of planes, angles, and rotations emerges. In the vertigo of this encounter, one realizes that the building was not designed to be understood, but to be experienced.

Van Wassenhove Residence: Living the Radical Continuity of Juliaan Lampens

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Architectural history often advances through iconic gestures or technological breakthroughs, yet some works remain influential precisely because they resist spectacle. Built between 1972 and 1974 in Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium, the Van Wassenhove Residence stands as one of those quiet but decisive projects. Conceived as a single, continuous concrete volume set within a wooded landscape, the house challenges conventional ideas of domestic comfort, privacy, and spatial hierarchy. Its presence is direct and uncompromising, yet it avoids monumentality, positioning itself instead as a lived structure shaped by everyday rituals and long-term inhabitation.

El Pueblo de Los Angeles: The Spanish Origins of LA’s Urban Grid

Moises Carrasco — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Today, the urban form of Los Angeles is characterized by 20th-century sprawl and extensive automotive infrastructure. However, the physical reality of the city's original core reveals a more complex history that is deeply rooted in Hispanic heritage. In fact, Los Angeles did not originate from the standardized American land system that defines most of the United States' territory. Instead, it is a product of the Spanish urban tradition in the Americas, which followed a structure repeated across major cities on the continent. The intersection of these systems created a layered urban geometry and history that remains visible in the city's contemporary street patterns.

Capsule Retreat: Building Through Process in Lebanon’s Mountain Landscape

Daniela Andino — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Set within the mountainous landscape of Zabbougha, Lebanon, Capsule Retreat by EAST Architecture Studio is shaped through the process of its making. The project unfolds through material decisions, on-site adjustments, and evolving conditions, allowing construction itself to guide its spatial logic.

Jahad Metro Plaza in Tehran: Reclaiming Infrastructure as Civic Space

Ananya Nayak — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000

In Iran's capital, Tehran, movement defines the city. Each day, millions navigate a landscape shaped by highways, traffic corridors, and dense urban blocks. Over decades of rapid expansion, infrastructure has become the dominant language of development. Streets prioritize vehicles, sidewalks function as narrow conduits, and many public spaces operate primarily as passages rather than places of gathering. Across parts of West Asia, ongoing conflict has also reshaped the region's urban landscapes, where significant architectural environments have been damaged or transformed. Within this broader context, the preservation and creation of everyday civic space becomes increasingly meaningful. Recognized with the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Jahad Metro Plaza project, designed by KA Architecture Studio, demonstrates how modest infrastructural interventions can reshape the civic life of a city.

The Earthen Towers of Shibam: A Vertical City in the Desert of Yemen

Camilla Ghisleni — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Symbols of technological development and urban density, tall buildings as we know them today emerged in the late 19th century, primarily in the United States, in response to rapid growth in urban commerce and the need to expand cities without consuming more land. The term skyscraper, for instance, was coined in the 1880s and originally referred to buildings of about 10 to 20 stories—an impressive height at the time.

Mapping Space Without Sight: Inside SEAlab’s Sensory Architecture

Ananya Nayak — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Founded in 2015 in Ahmedabad by Anand Sonecha, SEAlab is a practice shaped by a slow, contemplative engagement with place, proportion, and participation. Recognized as one of the winners of the ArchDaily 2025 Next Practices Awards, the studio builds with simple materials and local techniques, pursuing environments that are experienced as much as they are seen. This ethos became particularly tangible in Gandhinagar, where the School for Blind and Visually Impaired Children did not begin as a purpose-built institution. The school had been operating from an existing primary school building, with classrooms stacked above dormitories and twelve children sharing a single room. Space was limited, and so were growth opportunities. The new academic building was required to expand capacity, improve living conditions, and support greater student independence.

Druzhba Sanatorium: A Soviet Monument Suspended Between Earth and Sea

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 08:30:00 +0000

Perched above the cliffs of Crimea, the Druzhba Thermal Sanatorium appears less as a building than as a landed spacecraft. Its circular forms, suspended decks, and spiraling ramps evoke a scene from Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972), where architecture and psychology merge into a single landscape. Built between 1978 and 1985 by Igor Vasilevsky, the complex was conceived as a thermal resort for workers of the oil industry, part of the Soviet Union's extensive network of sanatoria dedicated to health and recreation.

Revisiting 2025: 20 Classic Projects and Defining Stories in Architecture

Camilla Ghisleni — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Every architectural project is the result of deliberate choices. Beyond form and function, buildings embody technical, political, and cultural decisions that shape their relationship with both their surroundings and the people who inhabit them. ArchDaily’s AD Narratives series explores these processes by bringing together accounts that trace projects from initial conception to built realization. In parallel, the AD Classics series turns to works of historical significance, presenting not only the stories behind these buildings but also technical drawings that allow for a deeper, more informed reading of their architecture.

Wohnpark Alterlaa: Vienna’s Monumental Vision for Everyday Life

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 07:30:00 +0000

On the southern edge of Vienna, a cluster of monumental terraces rises above the cityscape, their stepped balconies cascading with greenery and their rooftops crowned with swimming pools. This is the Wohnpark Alterlaa, one of the most ambitious social housing projects in postwar Europe. Designed by Austrian architect Harry Glück and built between 1973 and 1985, the complex was founded on a provocative principle: municipal housing should not only provide affordable shelter but also offer the pleasures and amenities usually reserved for the wealthy.

Narratives of Syrian Modernism: Rediscovering the Center for Marine Research

Mohieldin Gamal — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000

As Syria is emerging from over a decade of conflict at the time of writing, it is an opportunity to rediscover its architectural gems. Just to the north of the country's principal port city of Latakia is a Modernist creation that is the Center for Marine Research. Its pyramidal structure is situated on a prominent headland surrounded by sea on three sides. To the east is a bay with hotels and beaches while to the north and west is the open Mediterranean Sea reaching Turkey and Cyprus beyond. Despite its importance both as a research institution and as a piece of architecture, it lies abandoned and isolated today.

The Aesthetics of Power: Soviet Modernism Meets Uzbek Tradition in Tashkent’s Palace of Peoples’ Friendship

Camilla Ghisleni — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan and one of the oldest cities in Central Asia, has long been shaped by a hybrid culture. Located at a strategic point along the Silk Road, the city developed an architectural tradition defined by inner courtyards, domes, decorative ceramics, and Islamic geometric patterns. The annexation by the Russian Empire in the 19th century introduced administrative buildings, orthogonal squares, and straight avenues, creating a dual urban fabric — between the “old” Eastern city and the “new” European one — in which contrasts and overlaps became the norm.

Quiet Hope: Frank Gehry’s Maggie’s Centre Hong Kong

Jonathan Yeung — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Earlier this month, news of Frank Gehry's passing prompted an outpouring of tributes to the architect behind flamboyant museums, concert halls, and sinuous residential complexes. Rather than revisit that well-charted terrain, it is worth pausing on a more contemplative work in his oeuvre: Maggie's Cancer Caring Centre in Hong Kong. Quiet, optimistic, and calibrated for everyday resilience, the building reflects multiple registers of Gehry's intent: a commitment to positivity and survival—and, more personally, an architect's own reckoning with loss and end-of-life care.

From Legal Constraint to Local Craft: Four Adaptive Projects by messina | rivas in Cunha

Susanna Moreira — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0000

The municipality of Cunha, located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, is a region known for its inland landscape, hilly terrain, and, especially, a major production of nationally renowned ceramics. It is within this context that the office messina | rivas has been working since 2017, with a set of projects located on a farm. Their work, which integrates design and construction in an indissociable manner, results in interventions that reveal a sensitive approach to pre-existing conditions and their surrounding environment.

The Story of Miyashita Park: Resistance, Partnership, and Publicness

Jonathan Yeung — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Urban renewal is inherently fraught—financially complex, politically exposed, stakeholder-dense, and almost guaranteed to leave someone dissatisfied. Precisely for these reasons, many cities default to inertia rather than risk the upheaval that comes with reworking entrenched urban fabrics, their residences, and their dynamics; once the "sleeping bear" is prodded, unexpected complications tend to multiply.

The Venice Biennale Over Time: Classic Projects and Stories from Architecture’s Most Iconic Exhibition

Camilla Ghisleni — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Since 1895, the Venice Biennale has invited the world to witness the evolving landscape of contemporary art. In 1980, the event expanded its reach with the launch of the Architecture Biennale, which quickly became one of the discipline’s most influential global platforms. Today, alternating annually between contemporary art and architecture, the Biennale affirms itself as a space where disciplines and ideas intersect. Always timely and provocative, it fuels essential debates on the role of art and architecture in the contemporary world. Among its most recent editions are the 17th Architecture Biennale, themed How Will We Live Together? (2021), curated by Hashim Sarkis; The Laboratory of the Future (2023), by Lesley Lokko; and Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective (2025), curated by Carlo Ratti and open to the public until the end of November.

The Silent Pavilion: Carlo Scarpa and the Giardino delle Sculture at the Venice Biennale

Camilla Ghisleni — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 07:30:00 +0000

When we think of Venice, familiar images come to mind: Piazza San Marco, winding canals, and the reflection of Byzantine domes on still waters. Few, however, imagine that among those reflections lies a discreet chapter of Italian modernity — the architecture of Carlo Scarpa.