Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

The 8th edition of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale is scheduled to take place in the autumn of 2028. As in previous editions, the curatorial process begins three years in advance, allowing time to fully develop the project and build on the work of earlier Triennales. The 7th edition, curated by Ann-Sofi Rönnskog and John Palmesino, founders of Territorial Agency, ran from October 2 to December 8, 2025. It was structured around the question How heavy is a city?, proposing an understanding of cities not as fixed objects but as dynamic systems extending beyond urban boundaries into the atmosphere, oceans, and deep time. This approach was explored through three main exhibitions, Fluxes, Spectres, and Lighter, alongside a wider set of initiatives. With the 7th edition concluded, the Triennale has announced Portuguese architect and academic Joaquim Moreno as Chief Curator of the upcoming edition, responsible for developing a new curatorial project for the event.

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What is the current global outlook on the recyclability of materials used in architecture? To what extent are contemporary societies truly committed to reducing environmental impact? In the effort to live in balance with nature, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources is one of the key strategies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and addressing global warming. Looking to nature for inspiration as a way to protect it means creating designs that incorporate sustainability, circularity, and recyclability from the very first sketch. From building systems to surface finishes, the use of biomaterials in architecture reflects a mindset rooted in long-term responsibility for a material's full life cycle.

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Palestinian architect Suad Amiry has been awarded the 2025 Great Arab Minds Award in the Architecture and Design category. Founder and director of the Riwaq - Centre for Architectural Conservation, Amiry was recognised for her long-standing work in documenting, preserving, and reusing Palestinian architectural heritage through conservation practices that link historic structures with contemporary community needs. Her approach positions architecture as both a repository of collective memory and an active social framework, emphasising the role of heritage in everyday urban and rural life.

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Studioninedots is leading the transformation of a 200-year-old tobacco factory site into Niemeyer, a mixed-use urban complex accommodating digital innovation, cultural venues, hospitality, education, and manufacturing within the existing industrial buildings. Located on Paterswoldseweg in Groningen, the Netherlands, the 38,000 m² project is commissioned by MWPO, with MWPO and Campus Groningen jointly acting as clients for the Shared Facilities. Currently in the design phase (2023–2025), the project's provisional timelines indicate a phased construction start beginning with the factory's southern section in 2026, followed by the northern section in 2027. The Amsterdam-based office's proposal opens the formerly closed industrial ensemble to the public, introducing cafés, galleries, workshops, and shared workspaces distributed across interior streets and adjacent park areas.

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Zaha Hadid Architects, in collaboration with RINA as team leader, Studio Plicchi, WSP, STI Engineering, and BC Building Consulting, has won the international competition to design Malpensa Hospital (Grande Ospedale della Malpensa) in Italy. Commissioned by the Lombardy Regional Health Authority, the project will consolidate the existing Gallarate and Busto Arsizio hospitals into a single medical campus serving the area between Milan and Varese, with a catchment of nearly one million residents.

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The Plum Village Buddhist Monastery in southern Dordogne, France, has received construction approval for the first phase of its ongoing collaboration with Dutch architecture studio MVRDV. The approvals cover the Upper Hamlet masterplan phase, including the construction of new guest houses and the renovation and expansion of the monastery's bookshop, as well as a new nunnery building at the Lower Hamlet. Developed in collaboration with co-architect MoonWalkLocal and consultants OTEIS, VPEAS, and Emacoustic, the wider project includes two masterplans for the Monastery's Upper and Lower Hamlets, four communal guest houses, a new nunnery, and the transformation of an existing bookshop. Working on a non-profit basis, the design team prioritises renovation alongside the use of circular and bio-based materials, aligning the architectural approach with the monastery's philosophical principles. The proposed additions aim to better accommodate the annual visitors who travel to Plum Village to engage with the teachings of Engaged Buddhism.

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Caochan na Creige, designed by Izat Arundell, has been announced as the winner of the RIBA House of the Year 2025 award. The timber-framed, stone-clad self-build is located in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, occupying a compact rural plot defined by exposed weather conditions and a distinct geological setting. Built by and for its architect owners, the house was selected for its clear response to site constraints, its material strategy, and the consistency between design intent and construction.

NPO Aoyama Design Forum (ADF), a non-profit organization, has announced the ADF Design Award 2026, celebrating architecture that does more than please the eye—it aims to make a meaningful impact on society, culture, and the environment. The award aims to recognize outstanding works that challenge existing conventions, demonstrate innovative thinking, and enrich people's lives through visionary, responsible design. Architects and designers around the world are invited to submit their proposals on a unique platform that fosters connections, promotes the exchange of ideas, and encourages meaningful cross-cultural collaboration.

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The National Gallery in London has announced six shortlisted teams for the design of a major expansion that will extend the museum into the St. Vincent House site, marking what officials describe as the most significant transformation in its 200-year history. The competition, launched in September 2025, received 65 submissions from international practices. Shortlisted proposals will shape a new wing intended to accommodate the Gallery's growing collection, welcome increasing visitor numbers, and redefine the public realm between Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square. The teams moving forward include Farshid Moussavi Architecture with Piercy & Company, Foster + Partners, Kengo Kuma and Associates with BDP and MICA, Renzo Piano Building Workshop with William Matthews Associates and Adamson Associates, Selldorf Architects with Purcell, and Studio Seilern Architects with Donald Insall Associates, Vista Building Safety, and Ralph Appelbaum Associates. The selected architect and wider technical design team are expected to be appointed by April 2026.

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This week's news reflects architecture's simultaneous engagement with cultural reflection, professional legacy, and the material realities of building cities. The passing of Frank Gehry prompted a broader reassessment of late 20th- and early 21st-century architectural practice, while Shigeru Ban's selection as the recipient of the 2026 AIA Gold Medal brought renewed attention to socially driven design and the profession's public responsibilities. These milestones unfolded alongside wider conversations sparked by Human Rights Day, examining architecture's role in equity, housing access, and safety worldwide, and forward-looking discussions setting the architectural agenda for 2026 through major international events and cultural programs. At the scale of the built environment, these themes are echoed in three projects shaping future urban conditions: Powerhouse Company's transformation of a former limestone quarry into a mixed-use neighbourhood in Bærum, near Oslo; the groundbreaking of Riverside Wharf, a hospitality-led development contributing to the regeneration of Miami's River District; and Foster + Partners' approved retrofit of 1 St James's Square in London, focused on structural retention and long-term urban resilience.

Where cities were once shaped by simple structures that could adapt to new uses, they are now packed with rigid dwellings—often designed with a single use in mind and fixed in both layout and lifespan. As climate deadlines tighten, communities demand more resilient, resource-conscious spaces, and work and living patterns continue to shift, this rigidity is becoming a liability. When buildings refuse to bend, they are often treated as disposable, triggering cycles of demolition, downtime, and loss. Adaptability, once considered an added convenience, is becoming an imperative—something the inaugural Adaptable Building Conference (ABC) in Rotterdam aims to put front and center.

Every year brings new ideas, projects, and shifts in architectural culture, but it also marks the loss of voices that have shaped the discipline across decades. Architecture moves forward, but it also advances through absence. When figures who helped articulate its language and its ambitions disappear, they leave behind more than completed works or influential texts. Their absence becomes a threshold, a moment in which the discipline pauses to understand what remains, what evolves, and what continues to guide us. These moments of loss remind us that architecture is a long, collective construction, carried not only by those shaping the present but also by those whose visions continue to orient how we think about cities and landscapes.

The architects and thinkers we lost in 2025 came from remarkably different worlds, yet the questions that shaped their work often intersected. Some approached the city through identity, symbolism, and historical continuity, seeking to ground the built environment in cultural memory. Others interpreted it through engineering precision, ecological systems, or radical experimentation, expanding what architecture could be and how it could be experienced. Their work spans contexts as diverse as postwar Britain, rapidly urbanizing China, Central European avant-gardes, and the evolving cultural institutions of Berlin and New York. Together, they form a spectrum of responses that defined, and continue to define, architectural culture over the last half-century, revealing the multiplicity of ways in which architecture can engage with society, technology, and the environment.

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