Tag: nature | ArchDaily

What Can Architectural Practice Learn From Botany?

Agustina Iñiguez — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 04:00:00 +0000

While human life depends heavily on plants for the medicines, building materials, and fuel they provide, they also play a vital role in many ecological processes. From climate regulation through carbon dioxide absorption to soil fertility and the purification of air and water, plant diversity offers opportunities to address some of the most pressing challenges of this century, including food security, energy availability, climate change, and habitat degradation. In this context, botanical gardens act as living refuges that foster innovation, adaptation, and human resilience. But what can architectural practice learn from botany and its methods?

Architectural Decisions, Planetary Implications: Interview with UIA 2026 Barcelona Curatorial Team

Romullo Baratto — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Barcelona is the first city in the history of the UIA World Congress of Architects to host the event twice. The 1996 edition, Present and Futures: Architecture in Cities, arrived at a charged moment, when the post-Olympic city was consolidating an urban model that would become one of the most studied and contested in contemporary urbanism, and when architecture was learning to think through the large metropolis as its primary site of inquiry. Thirty years later, the same city reopens the question under a different condition: one in which the built environment can no longer be understood as a self-contained object, but only through the wider ecological, material, and political systems that sustain it. The theme of the 2026 Congress — Becoming. Architectures for a Planet in Transition — does not abandon the urban concerns of 1996; it reopens them from a planetary scale.

Architecture Inspired by Birds: Fundación Cosmos and the Wetland Parks of Chile

Agustina Iñiguez — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 04:00:00 +0000

How can architectural design become an active tool for conservation? By considering nature as an inexhaustible source of inspiration, a harmonious connection with it frames the countless interrelationships that exist among humans, living organisms, and natural cycles. Designing with the landscape means learning to coexist with its temporal dynamics without controlling its processes. Traditions, ecology, and the past and present of a place all contribute to creating spaces that interpret their communities. Landscape architecture can draw inspiration from birds, plants, and other natural elements to shape the complex, dynamic network of ecosystems and human activities that make up the environment.

Reading the Territory: The Landscapes of Estudio Ome

Valentina Díaz — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Based in Mexico City, Estudio Ome, founded by Susana Rojas Saviñón and Hortense Blanchard, is an architectural and landscape practice working across forests, volcanic terrains, urban fragments, and former industrial sites. Winner of the ArchDaily 2025 Next Practices Awards, the studio develops projects through sustained observation of ecological and territorial conditions, where design decisions arise directly from the behavior of soil, water, vegetation, and ground.

On International Mother Earth Day: Urban Rewilding, Aquatic Ecosystems, and Ancestral Practices for Biodiversity

Antonia Piñeiro — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 05:30:00 +0000

The United Nations' International Mother Earth Day, observed annually on April 22, aims to "promote harmony with nature and the Earth." In light of the urgency posed by climate change, it seeks to raise awareness of the challenges of preserving all forms of life supported by the planet. It is a call to the global community to safeguard biodiversity while striving to balance economic, social, and ecological systems. Crimes against biodiversity include large-scale practices such as deforestation, land-use change, intensified agriculture, livestock production, and illegal wildlife trade, all considered by the UN to be accelerating factors in the destruction of the planet.

Parc de la Villette Opens New Urban Farm and Rewilded Landscapes in Paris

Antonia Piñeiro — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 05:30:00 +0000

Paris's 19th arrondissement Parc de la Villette is undergoing a major transformation, combining a newly opened urban farm with restored biodiversity as part of a strategy to adapt the 55.5-hectare park to climate change. Masterplanned by Bernard Tschumi in 1982 and opened to the public in 1987, the park stands as a landmark of European modernism in public space design, breaking from the traditional concept of the metropolitan park. With a 15,000-square-meter extension, this major green lung in northeast Paris is reimagining its lawns as a living laboratory for environmental education, where animals, plants, and humans coexist. The extensive renovation follows the addition of Tschumi's HyperTent in 2022, a hyperbolic paraboloid structure functioning as a new ticket booth on the podium of Folie L4, and marks the park's most significant transformation since its inauguration.

Building with Trees: Rethinking Architecture’s Relationship to Site

Daniela Andino — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Trees are often the first things to vanish when construction starts. Clearing a site has long been one of architecture's most immediate acts, removing what already exists to make room for something new. When vegetation is preserved, it is typically treated as a secondary layer, added back as landscape rather than shaping the project itself.

Architectures of the Gaze: 25 Viewpoints to Experience the Landscape

Camilla Ghisleni — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Viewpoints are structures designed for observing the landscape from elevated vantage points. Situated in the midst of nature or within the urban landscape, they function as devices that organize the gaze and establish a direct relationship between the body and the territory. Along this boundary between observer and landscape, viewpoints can take on various configurations, from subtle gestures to monumental structures, always in response to their context. Regardless of scale, they are—to some extent—attempts to domesticate vastness: precise frames that render legible what might otherwise feel overwhelming without mediation.

6 Unbuilt Retreats Exploring Hospitality Through Landscape and Refuge

Nour Fakharany — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Spaces of retreat continue to offer fertile ground for unbuilt exploration, revealing how architecture can support rest, reflection, and immersion in nature amid shifting environmental and cultural conditions. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected projects assemble a diverse range of proposals that reconsider hospitality through the lens of refuge. These works position accommodation not as spectacle or excess, but as spatial frameworks shaped by landscape, climate, material restraint, and shared experience.

Designing for Coexistence: The Invisible City of Bees

Eduardo Souza — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:30:00 +0000

In the first days after birth, the bee remains inside the nest, cleaning cells and being fed by other workers. Over time, it begins organizing pollen stores, regulating the hive's temperature, and guarding the entrance. Only in the final weeks of its life does it leave the shelter to fly. It is in the moment of flight that its trajectory begins to intersect with architecture and the city. In search of nectar, it moves across a territory shaped not only by its spatial memory and the availability of flowers, but by the way we construct the built environment. Each movement becomes a negotiation with urban space: impermeable surfaces that disrupt natural cycles, air currents intensified between buildings, vegetation-free voids, scattered green fragments between lots, and technical rooftops.

Designing for Presence: When Architecture Invites Us to Stay

Daniela Andino — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Architecture is increasingly asked to do less, not more. In environments shaped by constant movement, noise, and expectation, spaces that allow people to stay, pause, and be present have become both rarer and more necessary. Many public and semi-public places are designed to keep people moving, consuming, or reacting, leaving little room for lingering, observation, or simply being without a reason.

Summer by the Sea: Cottages from Watch Hill to Little Compton

Rene Submissions — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:10:00 +0000

Noted architect Thomas Kligerman celebrates the magic of summer, exploring the seaside setting and design of secluded cottages facing the Atlantic along the Rhode Island coast

Summer by the Sea is the first book to focus on the seaside cottages of Rhode Island, the birthplace of the shingle style, lauded as the ‘architecture of the American summer’. This in-depth tour of seaside communities begins with Watch Hill and moves along the coast, weaving together the history of the state, the evolution of the shingle style, and descriptions of the geology and wildlife that create a unique sense of place.

Each chapter explores

The Kitchen Garden

Rene Submissions — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 10:05:00 +0000

A beautifully illustrated survey of the world’s most inspiring kitchen gardens, from potagers and historic estates to rooftop urban farms

This stunning volume celebrates the rich history of kitchen gardens through more than 50 of the world’s finest examples, each explored in depth through gorgeous imagery, vivid storytelling, and insightful texts highlighting garden and growing details.

Organized geographically, the book reveals how climate, culture, and history inform productive gardens around the world. Readers will discover European walled gardens flush with flowers and edibles; a forward-thinking, rooftop urban farm in Singapore; and an abundant coastal garden in Patagonia that proves green things can

Contextual Interventions and an Embrace of Heritage: Explore the Architecture of 24 Grados in Honduras

Moises Carrasco — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

How can architecture restore relevance to forgotten places? What dialogues can emerge when buildings and landscapes are treated not as blank slates, but as layers of memory, identity, and potential? For the Honduran architecture firm 24 Grados, these questions shape an approach rooted in adaptation, reuse, and contextual design. Their projects range from the restoration of old Spanish plazas and cultural centers to interventions in natural parks and coastal villages in Honduras. Each one is grounded in the belief that design can reweave relationships between people, place, and heritage.

The Best Interviews of 2025: Architecture’s Year of Reflection, Repair, and Optimism

Jonathan Yeung — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 07:30:00 +0000

In 2025, the architectural field has been marked by a dense calendar of exhibitions, a measured slowdown in construction across multiple regions, and a period of reflection that scrutinizes the impact of intelligence (artificial and natural)—both on professional practice and workplace culture, as well as its use as a pedagogical tool. Over this calendar year, ArchDaily has published more than 30 interviews in a range of formats—Q&As, in-person conversations, video features, and more. These exchanges have engaged themes of sustainability and nature, housing and urban development, AI and intelligence, adaptive reuse and public life, and have closely followed major exhibition platforms including the Venice Biennale, Expo 2025 Osaka, Milan Design Week, Concéntrico, and others.

Designing for Tomorrow: Nature-Positive Solutions in Urban Environments

Rene Submissions — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 02:30:00 +0000

The future of urban planning and architecture is promising if the world, collectively, looks beyond the concept of mere sustainability and instead embraces a nature-positive approach. As global population growth drives rapid urbanization—requiring humanity to build the equivalent of a city the size of Madrid every week for decades to come—the construction sector faces a defining challenge: how to build durable, energy-efficient, and resilient urban environments in harmony with natural ecosystems.

Can the Floor Beneath Us Shape How We Learn, Focus, and Feel?

Rene Submissions — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 02:30:00 +0000

For over 125 years, Tarkett has been manufacturing linoleum flooring based on its original 1898 formulation. Trusted by architects worldwide, this natural floor covering is a benchmark in sustainability, durability, and timeless design. Today, Tarkett Linoleum is not only known for its heritage but also for its innovative application in modern architecture — particularly in the education sector. Learn more about the impact of Lino Materiale by Tarkett on today's spaces.

From Coast to Countryside: 15 Rural Hotels in Portugal

Camilla Ghisleni — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Tourism in Portugal began to develop in the late 1950s, initially centered on key destinations such as the Algarve coast, Lisbon, and the religious hub of Fátima. This focus made tourism largely a coastal activity. However, rapid growth and overburdened infrastructure in these areas led to saturation and a crisis in the sector. To address this, efforts were made to promote alternative destinations, appealing to a new wave of tourists looking for more sustainable, authentic, and locally immersive experiences.