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As another year comes to a close, the ArchDaily team gathers the highlights of architecture in a series of retrospectives reflecting on the content featured over the past twelve months. As part of this effort, our curation team turns its attention to one of the most popular categories among our readers, residential architecture, selecting the projects that represent the best of a vast global architectural production, as seen through the eyes of our audience.

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No País dos Arquitectos is a podcast created by Sara Nunes, who is also responsible for the architectural film production company Building Pictures. The podcast aims to profile the professionals, projects, and stories behind leading contemporary Portuguese architecture. With just over 10 million inhabitants, Portugal is a fascinating country regarding this professional field, and its architectural output punches far above its population or territorial scale.

In this episode of the sixth season, Sara talks with architects Susana Leite and Luís Barbosa e Silva, from the firm Arquitectos Aliados, about the design for the Hotel Apartamento e Sala Espetáculos - M.OU.CO. Listen to the conversation and read an excerpt of the interview below.

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At the turn of the 20th century, parallel, yet connected movements around the world ushered in a new style and architectural era. From the Arts and Crafts in England, Art Nouveau, then Art Deco in France, or the Jugendstil in Germany/Austria, these design and artistic developments spread around the world and took on different forms depending on their context. The basis remained similar, though, with a focus on artisanal value and craftsmanship; the use of wood, glass, and various metals; the integration of organic forms into the exterior facade and interior structure; and the refined incorporation of ornamentation as an architectural element, often as vegetation or geometric patterns.

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Heritage sites constitute complex spatial archives in which architecture, history, and collective memory converge. They encompass a wide spectrum of contexts—from archaeological remains, ancient and historic townscapes, UNESCO-listed landscapes, to early modern civic structures and industrial infrastructures. Yet these environments confront challenges: climate change, urban transformation, disaster, shifting social needs, and the gradual erosion of material fabric. Revitalization and restoration projects respond to these conditions by positioning architectural and spatial practice as an active mediator between preservation and the contemporary topologies.

In current practice, conservation is understood as a creative process of adaptation and reinterpretation that serves both communities and inhabitants. At the same time, monumental architecture continues to define the identity and landscape of a place for wider audiences and future generations. Architects and planners are called upon to negotiate sensitive historic contexts while introducing new programs, techniques, and spatial experiences. They exemplify diverse design approaches, including precise structural interventions, climate-responsive strategies, and meticulous material restoration, alongside the thoughtful insertion of new architectural elements. Equally important is their engagement with vernacular knowledge and materiality, which preserves the locality and cultural specificity of each site.

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