Urban green spaces are considered one of the most appropriate and accessible ways to mitigate the effects of rising temperatures in urban environments. As the global climate warms, cities worldwide face more frequent and extreme heat waves, putting their citizens at risk. Many cities are employing strategies for reducing the impact of urban heat islands, which are generated when natural land cover is replaced with surfaces that absorb and retain heat, such as pavements and buildings. This raises the temperature by several degrees compared to the surroundings. Cities have their micro-climate, influenced by this phenomenon combined with a series of often overlooked factors. For a climate strategy to be efficient, all factors need to be taken into consideration.
Expo 2025 officially opened its doors on April 13, 2025, on Yumeshima, a reclaimed island in Osaka Bay. Held under the theme "Designing Future Society for Our Lives," the event brings together over 150 countries and international organizations to address pressing global challenges through architecture, technology, and design. At the center of the Expo grounds stands the Grand Ring, a monumental circular structure designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. Spanning approximately 2 kilometers in circumference and rising to 20 meters in height, the timber structure encircles the main exhibition area and was recognised by Guinness World Records as "The largest wooden architectural structure".
Titled "The People of the Ring," this photo series by Stéphane Aboudaram documents the Grand Ring at Expo 2025 Osaka from a user's perspective, capturing both the structure and the visitors engaging with it.
The Land Remembers: Lebanon’s Pavilion. Image Courtesy of CAL
At the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2025, the Lebanese Pavilion, curated by the Collective for Architecture Lebanon (CAL), presents "The Land Remembers," an exploration of ecocide and environmental healing. Selected by Lebanon's Ministry of Culture and the Lebanese Federation of Engineers, CAL is a non-profit organization co-founded in 2019 by Shereen Doummar, Edouard Souhaid, Elias Tamer, and Lynn Chamoun. Their curatorial vision aims to transform the pavilion into a fictional institution, the Ministry of Land Intelligens, dedicated to confronting environmental devastation and proposing strategies for ecological restoration.
The Canada Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, hosted Picoplanktonics. A research that emerged as a radical rethinking of how architecture can become a platform that blends biology, computation, and fabrication to propose an alternative future, one where buildings don't just minimize harm, but actively participate in planetary repair. At its core lies a humble organism: marine cyanobacteria, capable of both capturing carbon and contributing to the material growth of the structure it inhabits. The project has been developed over 5 years by a group of researchers at ETH Zurich, led by Andrea Shin Ling and a group of interdisciplinary contributors and collaborators. Together, they formed the Living Room Collective, founded a year ago to build upon this work and showcase it at the Venice Biennale. The Core team members include Nicholas Hoban, Vincent Hui, and Clayton Lee. This conversation with the team behind the project shares the philosophy, technical challenges, and speculative horizons that animated their work from printing living sand lattices to maintaining microbial life in a public exhibition. Their aim is to inspire people to reconsider architecture not as a static object, but as a living, evolving process. One that requires care, patience, and a radical shift in mindset.
Campus sidewalk. Render. Image Courtesy of stantec
Stantec, an architecture, engineering, and environmental consulting firm, has been selected as the winner of an international competition organized by the State Tax University (STU) to redesign its Main Campus building. The building was partially destroyed in 2022 during the early stages of the war. The international call for redesign proposals was launched in November 2024, free of charge and "open to all design bureaus, architectural firms, and individual architects from every corner of the globe." The goal of the competition was to develop a 21st-century educational building described as a "progressive and comfortable place for learning, research, and student leisure based on innovative educational standards," as stated in the competition announcement.
Boise, United States. Image via Wikipedia user: Fæ. License under CC0 1.0. Image Author: Alden Skeie
From greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution to deforestation, one of the leading contributors to global warming today is emissions from the transportation sector. Exploring its origins and evolution, as well as the major challenges it faces, the development of electric mobility in urban environments represents a global transition that requires a coordinated mix of policies and actions to achieve cleaner and more sustainable transportation systems. Designing safe and comfortable infrastructure for walking and cycling, promoting public transit and shared mobility, and designing more efficient streets that include electric vehicles, among other actions, are part of a growing worldwide effort to reduce carbon emissions.
In the United States, nearly 1 in 10 children are affected with asthma, a condition with rates significantly higher in urban areas of the country. However, in a community just outside Atlanta with a population of more than 300 children, not a single case of the condition has been reported. This is by design. Most cities and neighborhoods across the country are not designed with human biology in mind, an oversight that contributes to the growing prevalence of cardiovascular disease and mental health challenges. Are we treating chronic conditions as purely medical, when they may actually be symptoms of poor design?
At the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, the Chinese Pavilion presents Coexist, an exhibition curated by Ma Yansong, founder of MAD Architects. The pavilion assembles ten interdisciplinary teams, spanning architects, scholars, students, scientists, and even social media participants, to collectively investigate the potential of architecture to reconcile contradictions between tradition and futurity, artificial and nature, technology and emotion. Rather than presenting a singular vision, Coexist aims to open space for responses to the diverse realities shaping contemporary architecture. While on site in Venice, ArchDaily's editors had the opportunity to discuss the ideas that shaped the Chinese Pavilion with the curator.
Founded in 2022 by art advisor Filipe Assis, ABERTO is an exhibition platform celebrating the convergence of art, design, and architecture in Brazil and beyond. Staging exhibitions in private and public modernist spaces, its past editions have highlighted the global connections forged by Brazilians from the 20th century onwards. Following three exhibitions in São Paulo, "ABERTO 4 – Brazil After Le Corbusier" marks its first international edition, taking place at Le Corbusier's Maison La Roche in Paris, from 14 May to 8 June 2025. The exhibition presents around 35 design and art pieces by Brazilian artists, spotlighting Le Corbusier's seminal connection to Brazilian modernist architecture and exploring his influence on contemporary Brazilian creatives. Previous editions of ABERTO have featured over 100 artists from Brazil and abroad in houses designed by Oscar Niemeyer (2022), Vilanova Artigas (2023), and Ruy Ohtake and Chu Ming Silveira (2024).
When examining photos of Japanese houses, one frequently notices a recurring space with tatami mats, often slightly elevated and integrated into the public areas of the home. This is the washitsu, or Japanese-style room: a traditional, multipurpose space still commonly found in modern residential architecture. Used for activities ranging from reading and sleeping to hosting a family altar, its versatility is central to its continued relevance. This article explores the Washitsu's layout and meaning, beginning with its historical origins to better understand its role and interpretation in contemporary Japanese homes.
Pearling Path - Muharraq. Image via Shutterstock - Kirk Fisher
The Kingdom of Bahrain is being widely acknowledged recently through their worldwide architectural contributions at the Expo 2025 in Osaka, with their Anatomy of a Dhow pavilion by Lina Ghotmeh; or at the Venice Biennale, where the Heatwave exhibition was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. However, for the past few years Bahraini cities like Muharraq have been lending the stage for regional and international architects to discover their typical Persian Gulf architecture and add their own touches to the local sites. It's through the works of Leopold Banchini, Anne Holtrop, or Valerio Olgiati that the old has been brought back to life, along with the efforts of the local authorities and cultural figures.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. has revealed the design for the Amsterdam Avenue side of its campus, developed by Hood Design Studio, Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, and Moody Nolan. Recently released renderings illustrate a transformation that includes a new outdoor performance venue, expanded community park spaces, and the removal of the existing wall along Amsterdam Avenue. In response to long-standing calls from both Lincoln Center and local communities, the construction is expected to begin in spring 2026 and be completed by spring 2028.
Søren Pihlmann is the curator of the Danish Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition, commissioned by the Danish Architecture Center, is titled Build of Site, and focuses on exploring sustainable architectural practices through the lens of reuse and resourcefulness. Pihlmann's proposal transforms the existing Danish Pavilion, located within a historic building complex in the Biennale's Giardini, into an active exhibition space for material experimentation. The installation highlights techniques that incorporate recycled and bio-based elements. The Pavilion offers visitors the opportunity to observe ongoing experimental processes, witnessing how building resources are creatively reimagined for new uses. In this on-site interview, ArchDaily editors spoke with the curator about the ideas behind the project and the challenges its execution represents.
What structures and infrastructures sustain the ties and relationships between the countryside and the city? How will architecture and emerging technologies maintain -or not- the coexistence of both worlds in the future? The reduction of ecological footprints, the impact of climate change, the decentralization of major cities, food security, and other contemporary issues challenge professionals in architecture and urbanism globally under the main shared goal of improving citizens’ quality of life and achieving physical, mental, and emotional well-being in both built and natural environments.
A series of recently announced projects across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America reflects an ongoing shift in architectural thinking toward approaches that integrate buildings with their landscapes, programs with public life, and design with long-term environmental goals. In Nantes, France, a healthcare campus redefines medical education through climate-conscious planning, while in San Antonio, Texas, a new arboretum transforms a former golf course into a research-driven public landscape. Residential towers are rising beside Bangkok's Lumphini Park, a new coastal community is underway in the UAE, and an expansion to the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City reconsiders how cultural institutions connect with their surroundings. Together, these announcements point to a growing interest in projects that embed architecture within broader ecological and civic systems, proposing new models of spatial integration, accessibility, and resilience.
The V&A East Storehouse will open to the public for the first time on Saturday, 31 May 2025. Located in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the project is part of East Bank, a new cultural quarter supported by the Mayor of London. Designed by the internationally recognized architecture firm Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, the new facility serves as both a working store and a visitor destination. Following a decade of planning and extensive audience consultation, V&A East Storehouse is the first of V&A East's two new cultural destinations to open in East London. The second, V&A East Museum, is scheduled to open in spring 2026 and will explore the role of making and creativity as agents of change.
When creating exhibition spaces, the design of the experience, the proposed route, and the transmission of certain perceptions and senses contribute to establishing different bonds and connections between the displayed objects and their visitors. Understanding a showroom as a space designed to creatively and experientially showcase products and services, what design strategies could enhance users’ interior experiences? How does interior design engage in dialogue with exhibition architecture?
