In much of China, concrete remains the dominant construction material. Despite growing concerns over its environmental impact, concrete continues to align with the priorities of many developers and clients—it is fast, cost-effective, and highly durable. As a result, most building types in China still rely heavily on concrete. This reliance is further reinforced by China's position as the world's largest producer of Portland cement. A deeply entrenched supply chain, rooted in raw material manufacturing and economic infrastructure, ensures that concrete remains the default choice in the construction industry.
Yet historically, Chinese architecture was built upon a rich tradition of timber construction. The Forbidden City is a prime example: not only is it emblematic of China's architectural heritage, but it also remains one of the largest and best-preserved collections of ancient wooden structures in the world. This legacy prompts an important question: does timber construction have a meaningful future in China's contemporary building industry?
Taschen's new book, published in October 2025, Tadao Ando. Sketches, Drawings, and Architecturepresents an in-depth exploration of the Japanese architect Tadao Ando's creative process, bringing together over 750 sketches, drawings, models, and technical plans developed over nearly five decades. Created in close collaboration with Ando himself, the book provides a rare view into how his ideas take shape, from the immediacy of the first pencil lines to the precision of architectural drawings that define his built works. Through these materials, the publication highlights Ando's enduring focus on the relationship between hand, thought, and space.
This week's review focuses on concrete responses to shared urban challenges, including housing affordability, long-term resilience, and the role of cultural and material innovation in shaping cities. The selection spans regulatory measures affecting housing markets in European cities, high-density residential and mixed-income proposals in New York, and major renewal and planning efforts in London, Barcelona, Ulaanbaatar, and Drammen. It also highlights research-driven and built projects in Chicago, Buenos Aires, Las Vegas, and Riyadh that explore circular construction, adaptive reuse, and new models for cultural and public infrastructure. Together, these worldwide projects offer a snapshot of how architecture and urban planning are addressing immediate pressures while laying the groundwork for more resilient and inclusive urban futures across diverse geographic and cultural contexts.
As Syria is emerging from over a decade of conflict at the time of writing, it is an opportunity to rediscover its architectural gems. Just to the north of the country's principal port city of Latakia is a Modernist creation that is the Center for Marine Research. Its pyramidal structure is situated on a prominent headland surrounded by sea on three sides. To the east is a bay with hotels and beaches while to the north and west is the open Mediterranean Sea reaching Turkey and Cyprus beyond. Despite its importance both as a research institution and as a piece of architecture, it lies abandoned and isolated today.
Generative AI (Gemini / Google DeepMind). Concept: Eduardo Souza / ArchDaily
Few plants have accompanied humanity as closely as cannabis. Used for millennia to make textiles, paper, and medicines, it has quietly shaped everyday life and built environments alike. Hemp, its non-psychoactive variety, is one of the earliest cultivated crops and a material of remarkable versatility: strong, breathable, and renewable. From ropes and sails to insulation and biocomposites, hemp’s fibers have been helping humans build for thousands of years.
The City of London Corporation has formally approved the delivery plan for the renewal of the Barbican Centre, confirming a £191 million investment to support the first five-year phase of a long-term transformation programme. Approved in December 2025, the decision secures funding for major repairs, infrastructure upgrades, and public space improvements across the Grade II-listed complex. Subject to planning permission, major construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, with completion of this phase targeted for 2030, ahead of the Barbican's 50th anniversary. To facilitate the works, most programmes within the Centre will pause for approximately one year between June 2028 and June 2029, while preparatory upgrades, including essential works to the Barbican Theatre, are set to begin in early 2026.
Moscow-based architecture, urban design, and research practice Meganom is nearing completion of its residential skyscraper at 262 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. Designed for client Five Points Development, the project dates back to 2015 and brings together an international team that includes Norm Architects as interior architect, SLCE Architects as architect of record, and untitled architecture overseeing architectural supervision and project management. Rising 860 feet over 52 stories, the tower contains 26 residential units within approximately 140,000 square feet and draws conceptual inspiration from aeronautics, envisioning apartments as elevated "shelves" that frame expansive views of the city.
Across recent years, architectural discourse has been shaped by the emergence of new voices, rediscovered territories, and a growing commitment to shared forms of knowledge. These concerns remain fully present in 2025 as ongoing debates that continue to gain density and nuance. Questions of who produces architecture, from which contexts, and under what conditions remain central, increasingly informed by practices that operate collectively, across disciplines, and beyond singular authorship.
This continuity is reflected in how architecture is understood less as a finished object and more as an ongoing process embedded in social, cultural, and environmental systems. Discussions around agency, participation, and knowledge production persist, alongside sustained attention to rural, peripheral, and historically marginalized contexts. Rather than privileging a single scale or geography, architecture is approached as a practice that moves between territories, acknowledging the unequal conditions that shape how spaces are designed, built, maintained, and inhabited.
In contemporary architecture, commercial spaces have become more than points of sale; they are stages where identity, image, and experience converge. Stores, showrooms, and branded interiors often operate as laboratories where architects experiment with form, material, and light, translating corporate narratives into spatial experiences. In this context, the architect emerges as a mediator of desire, shaping atmospheres that guide perception, evoke emotion, and subtly influence behavior. This role reveals a complex intersection between design and capitalism: the creation of spaces that sell not only products, but also aspirations, lifestyles, and cultural meaning. By transforming commerce into an architectural performance, these projects invite reflection on how the discipline negotiates its agency in a world where visibility and image have become as essential as function.
OODA announces the House of Nassr, a new integrated sports complex designed for Al Nassr FC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Planned as a comprehensive facility supporting both athletic performance and club operations, the project brings together a high-performance training centre, administrative and media spaces, athlete support facilities, and social areas, with a hotel scheduled for a second phase of development. The complex occupies an area of approximately 4,000 square meters. While the overall project remains ongoing, the first phase has been completed in 2025, marking OODA's first realized project in Saudi Arabia.
5050 Gansevoort mixed use building. Project render. Image Courtesy of Powerhouse Company
In January 2025, New York City Mayor and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced new steps in the reimagining of Gansevoort Square, a 66,000-square-foot site located on Little West 12th Street between Washington Street and 10th Avenue in Manhattan's Meatpacking District. The redevelopment of the site aims to integrate a mix of affordable housing for New Yorkers, new retail space for residents and visitors, and opportunities to expand the Whitney Museum of American Art and the High Line. The Request for Proposals outlined a vision for up to 600 units of mixed-income housing, with a goal of 50 percent of the total units being permanently affordable, along with ground-floor commercial space. International architectural practice Powerhouse Company recently revealed its competition proposal, exceeding these demands with 1,000 rental homes in a supertall tower, half affordable and half market-rate, mixed equally throughout the building's full height.
India's built environment has, in recent years, gained visibility through a growing number of transformative architectural and infrastructure projects. Cities and towns scale faster each year, despite looming concerns around climate and economic volatility. The nation has shown resilience in balancing rapid urbanization with resource constraints; this is no small feat. India's architectural practices rarely rely on novelty alone; they are built on systems that have existed for centuries. Through ArchDaily's Building for Billions, recurring stories have highlighted the social intelligence and adaptive capacity embedded in these practices, revealing an architecture that operates less as isolated form and more as infrastructure.
The UIA World Congress of Architects is an international event for architectural dialogue organised by the International Union of Architects (UIA, by its French acronym), a non-governmental organisation that unites national associations of architects from over 100 countries, representing more than one million professionals. The first UIA Congress of Architects, which also marked the institution's founding, was held in Lausanne in 1948 during the post-war reconstruction period. Since then, UIA congresses have been held every three years in a different city within a member country, serving as the organisation's main recurring event. In 2026, the Congress will be held in Barcelona, and UNESCO has consequently designated the city as the World Capital of Architecture 2026. Each Congress focuses on a key topic relevant to the profession, articulated through a central theme. Recent themes include Copenhagen 2023: "Sustainable Futures. Leave no one behind." and Rio 2020–2021: "All the worlds. Just one World." The topic for 2026 is "Becoming. Architectures for a Planet in Transition," welcoming renowned figures in contemporary architectural thought and practice for a broad and critical overview of the possible futures of architecture.
Across Latin America, renovation has become less about preservation alone and more about responding to changing ways of living. Rather than freezing buildings in time, many contemporary projects work with existing structures to adapt them to new domestic routines, social dynamics, and spatial needs. Through strategic changes in materials, composition, color, and light, these interventions reinterpret everyday spaces while maintaining a strong connection to their original context.
In this process, houses and apartments become sites of transformation where flow, continuity, and shared spaces are carefully reconsidered. Renovation operates as a precise architectural tool, one that prioritizes natural light, openness, and flexibility to support daily life as it evolves. Instead of imposing new forms, these projects repurpose what is already there, aligning spatial decisions with the habits and rituals of those who inhabit them.
This year's selection of Best Latin American Houses brings together both renovations and ground-up projects, covering reinterpretations of local construction techniques and innovative architectural responses. The works are set in a wide range of contexts, from dense urban environments to rural and coastal landscapes.
Hunnu City Ecological Corridor. Image Courtesy of Bechu & Associés
Bechu & Associés has been selected as the winner of the international open competition for the masterplan of Hunnu City, a new satellite city planned south of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Announced in 2025, the winning proposal establishes a long-term urban framework for a 31,503-hectare site located near Chinggis Khaan International Airport, with phased development planned between 2025 and 2045. The project forms part of Mongolia's broader territorial strategy under the Ulaanbaatar 2040 Master Plan and the national Vision 2050 framework, positioning Hunnu City as a new emerging major city intended to support population decentralization, economic diversification, and long-term urban resilience.
