Tag: urban-regeneration | ArchDaily

New Life for Old Spaces: Buildner Reveals Re-Form Winners as Edition 3 Opens

Rene Submissions — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 06:45:00 +0000

Buildner has announced the results of its Re-Form: New Life for Old Spaces, second edition, an international ideas competition examining the adaptive reuse of small-scale existing buildings. The competition invited architects and designers to propose transformations of used, abandoned, or overlooked structures with an approximate footprint of 250 square meters, located anywhere in the world. With no fixed site or program, participants were encouraged to explore alternatives to demolition and new construction through reuse strategies grounded in contemporary social and environmental concerns.

Paris as a Living Laboratory: Proximity, Inclusion, and the School as Climate and Social Infrastructure

Olivia Poston — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 07:30:00 +0000

ReGreeneration is a Horizon Europe-awarded project working across nine cities to advance urban regeneration through nature-based solutions, participatory governance, and integrated approaches to climate resilience and social equity. The nine cities in the project portfolio span a range of urban typologies, scales, and planning traditions, forming a living laboratory for rethinking sustainable urban transformation in practice. Each city brings distinct challenges and ambitions to the collaboration, and this series of articles explores what each city is doing and what the broader design community can learn from it.

The History of the UIA World Congress of Architecture and the Cities That Shaped It

Moises Carrasco — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Every three years, the International Union of Architects' (UIA) World Congress lands in a different city, under a different theme set years in advance. A quick mapping of these host cities reveals a deliberate pattern: throughout the decades, the UIA has purposefully chosen a wide range of venues across all continents, rendering each edition a snapshot of what mattered in that specific place, at that exact moment. The result of this geographic rotation has been a diverse kaleidoscope of conversations, analyzing the profession from countless angles and adapting it to changing times. But 2026 is different; this time the UIA is repeating a host city for the first time: Barcelona, under the theme "Becoming. Architectures for a planet in transition".

UNStudio Reveals River-Oriented Master Plan for Former Industrial Site in Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Reyyan Dogan — Fri, 29 May 2026 06:30:00 +0000

A former industrial site along the Someș River in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, is being transformed into a large-scale mixed-use district that reconnects the city with its waterfront. Designed by UNStudio in collaboration with Felixx Landscape Architects and Planners for developers IULIUS and Atterbury Europe, the RIVUS project combines urban regeneration, adaptive reuse, landscape design, and new public infrastructure within a single framework. Developed through a public participation process involving local residents, the proposal will transform the former Carbochim industrial platform into a river-oriented district organized around public space, mobility, and everyday urban activity.

Stefano Boeri Architetti Converts Former Rome Transit Depot Into Multifunctional Civic Space

Reyyan Dogan — Tue, 26 May 2026 06:30:00 +0000

The Rome City Council has approved a Memorandum for the urban regeneration of the Depositi delle Vittorie in Piazza Bainsizza, a former ATAC depot in Rome dating back to the early 1900s. Abandoned for nearly two decades and now privately owned, the site is set to be transformed into a multifunctional complex designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti. The project envisions the adaptive reuse of the former transportation infrastructure through the introduction of cultural, educational, commercial, co-working, and leisure functions, alongside new public spaces and extensive landscaped areas.

MVRDV and OODA Reveal Landscape-Led Masterplan for Lisbon’s Marvila Riverfront Regeneration

Antonia Piñeiro — Thu, 14 May 2026 05:30:00 +0000

MVRDV and OODA have revealed a new masterplan for the regeneration of a vacant 28-hectare site between Marvila and Beato on Lisbon's riverfront. Recently approved by the Lisbon City Council, the project was developed in collaboration with LOLA Landscape Architects and Thornton Tomasetti to transform the area into a landscape-led urban district. Titled The Marvila Masterplan, the proposal establishes a framework for introducing 1,400 homes alongside public facilities, commercial spaces, and services within a fragmented and largely abandoned territory. The project is a private initiative led by the principal landowner and developed in coordination with the Lisbon City Council and Infraestruturas de Portugal.

Public Space in Use: Región Austral and the Architecture of Everyday Life

Daniela Andino — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Architecture is often evaluated through what gets built. But in many cases, what matters happens after: how spaces are used, adapted, and made part of everyday life. For Región Austral, winner of ArchDaily's 2025 Next Practices Awards, this is where design really begins. Working across many contexts, the practice approaches public space not as a single object, but as something that needs to be activated, negotiated, and sustained over time. Their projects focus less on defining form and more on creating the conditions for use, with design serving as the starting point.

Reimagining the Complete Neighborhood through Urban Renaturing

Olivia Poston — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 07:30:00 +0000

The ReGreeneration project, a Horizon Europe project led by Inetum and supported by C40 Cities, ARUP, Placemaking Europe, and several others, operates as an active collaboration with local governments, private companies, academia, and civil society organizations at the intersection of urban regeneration, green public spaces, and neighborhood-scale design. Its premise addresses how European cities are built and maintained and how they experience a changing climate, arguing that cities must fundamentally change to remain livable under accelerating climate pressures.

The Embarcadero Freeway: Elevated Infrastructure and Urban Regeneration in San Francisco

Moises Carrasco — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 07:30:00 +0000

In recent decades, cities across the world have seen an increase in the demolition of elevated concrete freeways. Taipei, Seoul, Portland, and Boston, for example, have all seen the rise and fall of these infrastructures to give way to parks and new urban regeneration ideas. In other cases, like Montreal in Canada, some people opposed the freeways even before they were built, effectively rerouting viaducts, preserving heritage, and freeing waterfront views. For San Francisco, in the United States, the story of the Embarcadero Freeway is one of those narratives that serves as a case study of the city's mid-century infrastructural ambition, people's reaction to the project, and its eventual reversal in favor of urban connectivity.

Settanta7 Advances Bosco della Musica Urban Regeneration Project in Milan

Antonia Piñeiro — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 05:30:00 +0000

The architecture firm Settanta7 has begun the construction of Bosco della Musica, a new campus for the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan. The site is located in Rogoredo, a former industrial area in the southeastern part of the city, currently under scrutiny due to incidents of violence and public safety concerns. The area is therefore the focus of development initiatives by the Italian Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, including the competition for this project, which was awarded to Settanta7 in 2022. The firm is responsible for the design and is overseeing the coordination of all disciplines as lead consultant for the construction of the entire project: a broader urban regeneration program that includes the redevelopment of the 17,400 sqm site and the adaptive reuse of the "Ex Chimici" industrial building, alongside the construction of four new buildings, three dedicated to educational activities and one intended for student housing.

La Sagrada Familia’s Milestone and New Housing Futures: This Week’s Review

Antonia Piñeiro — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 06:30:00 +0000

This week began with the World Day of Social Justice, foregrounding urgent questions of labor rights, spatial equity, and resource governance, and framing architecture as both a product of and a response to the social systems that shape access to land, housing, and opportunity. The announcement of the 15 winning projects of the 2026 ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards highlighted a global cross-section of built works recognized for their architectural quality, innovation, and social impact, offering a snapshot of contemporary practice across scales and geographies. This week's news prompts a broader reflection on architecture's civic responsibility, with heritage and community-building through cultural architecture emerging as central themes. Housing, meanwhile, anchors another critical strand of the discussion with three highlighted initiatives: a manifesto reframing housing not as a market commodity but as a civic right and collective project grounded in care; a large-scale waterfront regeneration masterplan responding to regional housing demand through coastal transformation; and a timber residential project that explores the potential of wood in medium-density housing.

Studio Egret West to Masterplan the Future Phases of Battersea Power Station Regeneration in London

Antonia Piñeiro — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 06:30:00 +0000

Battersea Power Station is a former coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames in London, originally designed by architects J. Theo Halliday and Giles Gilbert Scott. Notable for its appearance on the cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 studio album Animals and in Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 film Sabotage, the station is one of the world's largest brick buildings and is known for its Art Deco interior fittings and décor. Recognized today as part of modern industrial heritage, the site's transformation into a commercial development began in 2012, with the adaptive reuse guided by a masterplan designed by Rafael Viñoly. On February 16, Battersea Power Station announced the appointment of the strategic urban design practice Studio Egret West to evolve the original masterplan for the remaining 16 acres of the 42-acre riverside neighbourhood in the southwest London.

Designing With, Not For: CatalyticAction’s Participatory Practice

Daniela Andino — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Architecture is often evaluated through finished forms, yet some practices operate in a different register, one where design unfolds through relationships, time, and use rather than through a single outcome. For CatalyticAction, participation is not a parallel social activity, but the means through which spaces are conceived, constructed, and sustained over time.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop Redesigns Montparnasse Commercial Centre as a Pedestrian District

Antonia Piñeiro — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 06:30:00 +0000

During a presentation to the press held at Paris City Hall on January 7, 2026, architect and Pritzker Prize laureate Renzo Piano released the first images of the transformation of Montparnasse's emblematic shopping center and CIT Tower into a pedestrian-focused district in Paris, France. The project, commissioned to Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) in 2022 by the co-owners of the commercial complex, proposes both a visual and functional transformation of the 1970s low-rise retail development into a more traversable space characterized by transparency and openness. The design was developed in parallel with the redevelopment of the Montparnasse Tower, led by Nouvelle AOM, to reshape the broader tertiary complex into a contemporary Parisian block oriented toward public life, environmental performance, and everyday use. The project reopens the site to the city, reconnecting streets and restoring continuity between Montparnasse and its surrounding neighborhoods through new public spaces.

From Ecologies to Everyday Life: Reflecting on Architectural Exhibitions in 2025

Daniela Andino — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000

This past year marked a period of introspection for architecture. As 2025 unfolded, the discipline, confronted with evolving environmental and social realities, entered a broader turning point in how it understands its role and how users engage with it. Throughout the year, exhibitions shifted focus away from buildings as isolated objects toward a broader understanding of relationships between ecology, equity, everyday life, and collective imaginaries. Across institutions and cities, they operated less as showcases and more as discursive platforms: places where architecture was not only presented, but also imagined, questioned, and collectively redefined.

European Capitals of Culture 2026: Oulu and Trenčín Chosen to Lead Europe’s Cultural Program

Antonia Piñeiro — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 05:30:00 +0000

The European Capital of Culture (ECoC) initiative was launched in 1985 and has, to date, been awarded to more than 60 cities across Europe. It is designed to celebrate and promote cultural diversity on the continent, strengthen European citizens' sense of belonging to a shared cultural space, and foster culture's contribution to urban development. In practice, the designation has proven to be a catalyst for urban regeneration, tourism growth, the strengthening of cities' international profiles, and the improvement of how they are perceived by their own residents. European Capitals of Culture are formally designated four years before the title year, allowing time to plan, prepare, and embed the program within a long-term cultural strategy, establish European partnerships, and ensure that appropriate infrastructure is in place. In 2025, the European Capitals of Culture are the German city of Chemnitz and the Slovenian city of Nova Gorica. For 2026, the designated cities are Oulu in Finland and Trenčín in Slovakia.

From Factories to Futures: Adaptive Reuse in the Post-Industrial City

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 07:30:00 +0000

In cities across the world, the relics of industrial production have become the laboratories of a new urban condition. Warehouses, power plants, and shipyards, once symbols of labor and progress, now stand as vast empty shells, waiting to be reimagined. Rather than erasing these structures, architects are finding creative ways to adapt them to contemporary needs, transforming spaces of manufacture into spaces of culture, education, and community life.

The Role of Architects Is Shifting: From Solitary Visionaries to Collective Activists

Eduardo Souza — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 06:45:00 +0000

For a long time, architecture was understood as an essentially individual activity, dependent on the figure of a creative genius and centered on the ability to solve problems through drawing. Over time, this image began to fade. The protagonism once concentrated in a few names reached its peak during the era of the starchitects and gradually became distributed among offices, collectives, and multidisciplinary teams. Today, architects are expanding their boundaries into other fields such as gastronomy, music, design, and the corporate world, applying spatial thinking to address challenges of various kinds. As social, environmental, and political crises deepen, the role of the architect continues to evolve from a solitary author to a mediator, activist, and collective agent of transformation. This shift reflects an ethical awakening and a recognition that design, regulation, and care are inseparable dimensions of contemporary practice.