Photographer: Edmund Sumner | ArchDaily

The Brick House / Studio VDGA

Miwa Negoro — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 02:00:00 +0000

Brick House is a recently completed private residence located in the heart of Pune's dense urban fabric. Occupying a compact footprint of 4500 square feet, the design is a considered response to the spatial constraints and climatic challenges of its context. The project is rooted in a conscious reinterpretation of traditional Indian architectural principles while integrating a restrained material palette and passive design strategies suited for contemporary urban living.

Jali House / Studio VDGA

Miwa Negoro — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 02:00:00 +0000

Set within the dense fabric of a bustling urban neighbourhood and constrained by a modest 4,000 sq. ft. plot, Jali House reimagines the potential of urban residential architecture. Far from feeling confined, the home crafts a serene and poetic spatial experience, proving that powerful architecture can emerge despite limitations. As its name suggests, Jali House is a thoughtful response to both climate and culture. India's abundance of sunlight, the availability of locally sourced materials, and a deep architectural heritage formed the basis of the design strategy. The jali (lattice screen), a traditional element reinterpreted here in a modern idiom, becomes both symbol and solution; a tool to filter light, frame views, and moderate climate.

Rethinking Architecture at the Scale of Planetary Systems

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 04:00:00 +0000

Architecture has traditionally been described as a discipline concerned with space, form, and material presence. Yet this understanding becomes increasingly limited when confronted with the conditions that shape contemporary construction. Buildings no longer emerge from a stable relationship between site, program, and material. Instead, they are produced within a dense web of technological systems that operate across territorial, ecological, and temporal scales. Energy networks, data infrastructures, extraction processes, and global logistics shape architecture as decisively as climate or urban context.

Shiv Nadar School / Vastushilpa Sangath

Pilar Caballero — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Set within the dense urban fabric of Chennai, the Shiv Nader School reconceives the educational campus as a porous landscape shaped by ecology, climate, and cultural memory. Rather than clearing the site, the project is organized around one of its most defining features: the abundance of existing trees. The architecture is fragmented into small, modular buildings. The plan hence draws inspiration from the local cuisine, or the local Chettinad thali, where diverse elements are unified on a single banana leaf. Similarly, the campus is composed of multiple buildings brought together under sweeping roofs that respond to both climate and culture.

Unearthing the Ground: Architecture and the Politics of the Subterranean

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Beneath the visible surface of cities lies an invisible architecture. Subways, tunnels, water systems, data cables, and bunkers form a dense network that sustains urban life while remaining largely unseen. The ground beneath our feet is not a void but a complex territory that holds the infrastructures, memories, and anxieties of our age. In recent years, as land becomes scarce and climate pressures intensify, architects and urbanists have turned their gaze downward, rediscovering the subterranean as both a physical and conceptual frontier. To design underground is to engage with the unseen mechanisms that shape the world above.

Integrating Creative Spaces: Designing Art Studio Additions at Home

Olivia Poston — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:00:00 +0000

The home carries multiple identities as shelter, sanctuary, workplace, and stage for daily rituals. In recent years, its role has expanded in unprecedented ways. The pandemic, notably, coerced the home to act as a site of extraordinary adaptability to absorb functions once delegated to schools, offices, gyms, and studios. This transformation has shifted how we imagine domestic life, urging us to think of the home not simply as a backdrop for activity but as a dynamic framework for living, producing, and creating. Within this expanded understanding, artists find themselves asking a renewed question: how can the home allow the flexibility needed for creative practice?

Cut Bend Fold Play House / Matharoo Associates

Miwa Negoro — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 02:00:00 +0000

The house for a migrant businessperson, his wife, and three daughters is located in the dense urban fabric of Chennai, a metropolis in southern India. The tight and narrow site of 41 x 102 feet (12.5 x 31 meters) is only open on one corner that connects it to the cul-de-sac. Being bound by houses on three sides, and a high apartment complex on its longer side, left little scope for light and ventilation, and deprived it of much of its privacy.

The STREET / Studio VDGA

Pilar Caballero — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 02:00:00 +0000

The Street is envisioned as a community house designed for a plotted residential development of modest 1500 sq.ft. plots, where each homeowner builds their own dream home. As urban land becomes increasingly expensive, many families are moving to the city's peripheries. This transition, however, often comes with a loss of the vibrant social life found in traditional neighbourhoods. The Street seeks to bridge this gap by offering a shared space that complements the Indian way of life, rooted in community interaction, cultural continuity, and everyday connection.

Beyond Manufactured Landscapes: Quarries as Sites for Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Hadir Al Koshta — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Quarries can be seen as indelible abandoned scars of human resource extraction. Man-made spaces, perceived as voids, and material gain, have fundamentally shaped our accelerating built environment. All the while, the earth stands still as a silent witness. For decades, these open-pit mines have been viewed as a necessary consequence of consumerism and urban growth, their raw, imposing forms a testament to the large-scale extraction of materials essential for building our cities. However, a global architectural movement is now emerging to engage with these existing forms, transforming these subtractive spaces into sites of innovation, collaboration, and renewed purpose.

Tradition, Innovation and Experimentation: Contemporary Mexican House Through the Lens of Edmund Sumner

Agustina Iñiguez — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Blending vernacular techniques with contemporary experimentation, Mexico's architectural landscape is shaped by a continuous dialogue between tradition, materiality, and modernity. As the fifth most biodiverse country in the world, Mexican architecture seeks to respond to its vast range of natural environments, climates, and cultural traditions, all within a territory marked by striking contrasts. Reflecting a visible duality, it can embody both exclusivity and act as a catalyst for social transformation.

Of a Feather: The Hidden Architecture of Bird Watching

Olivia Poston — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Around the world, a passionate community of bird watchers, from novice observers to seasoned ornithologists, is drawn to the subtle movements, distinct calls, and remarkable migrations of birds. This global fascination has led to the creation of thoughtfully designed spaces by architects and designers, enhancing the bird-watching experience while respecting the ecological landscapes in which they are placed.

National Gallery Sainsbury Wing / Selldorf Architects

Hadir Al Koshta — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 03:00:00 +0000

"We all miss out when anyone thinks that the National Gallery is not for them. Selldorf Architects' thoughtful interventions make the Gallery entrance lighter, more welcoming, and more visible as a public space. We hope many visitors may step inside for the first time, and those who have come before can experience a different start to their visit and view of our collection." - Sir Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery. The National Gallery's new main entrance opens to the public on May 10th. Designed by Selldorf Architects, a New York practice led by Annabelle Selldorf, in close collaboration with Purcell heritage architects, it is a key element in the £85m NG200 Welcome building programme initiated to mark the National Gallery's 200th anniversary. It will enable the Gallery to receive its millions of annual visitors, substantially increased from when the Sainsbury Wing was first conceived. The renovated Sainsbury Wing will improve access for all while enhancing the public realm in Trafalgar Square. Security measures at the Sainsbury Wing will be unobtrusive and wayfinding intuitive. The project includes a spacious café, restaurant, and bookshop.

Atlas Academia Sport Facility / Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos

Hadir Al Koshta — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Sordo Madaleno has designed a new home for one of Mexico's longest-lived football teams, Atlas FC, based in Guadalajara. Called Academia Atlas, the building serves six professional football fields and includes clubhouses, applied sport science facilities, and administrative offices. A key role of the project is to offer accommodation and resources to young players from less privileged backgrounds. Using locally-sourced materials and embracing traditional construction techniques, Sordo Madaleno worked with Atlas FC and Orlegi Sports to transform the seven-hectare site into a collegiate-style campus full of vibrant, young, and healthy people connecting through the most popular sport in the country.

150 Steps up to the Sea House / Matharoo Associates

Hana Abdel — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 06:00:00 +0000

Alongside the major diamond and textile industry, recent other sectors such as oil, shipping and Metallurgy have contributed to the growth of Surat into a sprawling metropolis in a very short time, making it one of the richest cities in the country and one that is highly vibrant in character.

San Bruno Beach House / reyes ríos + larraín arquitectos

Hadir Al Koshta — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 16:00:00 +0000

Three pavilions have been carefully settled on a long but narrow plot, to create a visually rich sequence of solid-void / public-private / open-close volumes and spaces. Designed as prismatic elements with a width as tight as necessary, the pavilions stay one behind the other but set off from each other.

From Design Movements to Materials: Reflecting on Architectural Exhibitions in 2024

Jonathan Yeung — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 08:30:00 +0000

Reflecting on 2024, numerous architectural exhibitions have opened worldwide, addressing various themes, exhibition formats, and featured architects. Architectural design and architecture practice influence our daily lives in subtle and often unnoticed ways, where the end-users embrace built environments as they are. This reaction may arise from a combination of factors, such as a sense of powerlessness to enact significant change after a building is constructed or the experience of growing up in environments over which individuals had little or no agency in shaping. For these reasons, architectural exhibitions serve an essential purpose, offering society a chance to pause, reflect, and critically examine the myriad issues that surface during designing and building. These issues are often overlooked or need to be acknowledged, as practitioners may prioritize delivering projects within strict timelines over exploring more profound reflections.

Third Space Cultural and Learning Center / Studio Saar

Hana Abdel — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 07:00:00 +0000

During the design process, we worked closely with our client, Dharohar, a not-for-profit organization, to bring to life the vision of Third Space - the first learning and cultural center in Udaipur. Our aim was to create an accessible, open, and inclusive place beyond the home or school.

Tiamat Installation / AAU ANASTAS

Hana Abdel — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 18:00:00 +0000

Building upon Stone Matters, Tiamat is the latest of its experimental iterations for contemporary architecture. Above all, Stone Maters looks with hindsight at the history of stone architecture in order to better expand the possibilities of building with stone today. It relies as much on paradigmatic theories set in the 1960s, in the 17th century, or in prehistory. The understanding of stone architecture is peculiar in the sense that the material calls for an intuitive architecture: its history is not linear, and, in some cases, theories may have followed and/or contradicted already grounded and established practices of architecture.