Ooooh, that's EpiQ! By Ricardo Orts Ulises. Image Courtesy of ArchDaily's editors on-site in Milano
Observed annually on April 22, International Mother Earth Day frames this week's architectural discourse through an urgent call to rethink the relationship between the built environment and natural systems, foregrounding themes such as urban rewilding, the restoration of aquatic ecosystems, and the integration of ancestral knowledge into contemporary design practices. On another note, the opening of Salone del Mobile.Milano 2026 and Milan Design Week 2026 seek to reinforce the global relevance of design as a platform for exchange and experimentation, activating the city of Milan through a network of exhibitions and installations that engage both industry and public audiences. Among the announcements of award-winning architectural projects this week, the United Nations' House of No Waste (HØW) Competition highlights emerging architectural responses to climate and resource challenges. The awarded projects demonstrate scalable strategies for reducing material waste and embodied carbon while promoting adaptable, socially responsive, and resource-conscious public infrastructure.
Entrance to Palazzo Citterio, indicative render. Image Courtesy of ACDF and Bethan Laura Wood Studio
From April 20 to 26, Milan Design Week 2026 returns as a citywide platform where design operates as both a cultural practice and a form of exploration. Framed by the Fuorisalone theme "Be the Project," this year's edition shifts the focus from outcome to process, positioning design as a dynamic, human-centered act shaped by intuition, responsibility, and transformation. Installations and exhibitions across the city foreground making as an open-ended condition, one that embraces error, temporality, and experimentation as integral to creative production. Within this context, design becomes a space of exchange between disciplines, materials, and intelligences, reflecting broader conversations around sustainability, emerging technologies, and the evolving relationship between the physical and the digital.
Located in Istanbul, Türkiye, an 84-hectare neighborhood is currently under development in the Riva area of Beykoz along the city's Black Sea coast. The master plan has been developed by an international design team including Snøhetta, Bjarke Ingels Group, and MVRDV, alongside local practices KEYM, DB Architects, Rasa, and Bilgin Architects. Known as Ion Riva, the project is conceived as a landscape-led residential community that integrates housing, cultural facilities, and public programs within an ecological framework shaped by the meeting of forest, river, and sea. The first phase of the development, which has received planning permission and is currently under construction, will deliver 969 homes designed for approximately 3,000 residents, with the first completed residences expected to be occupied in 2027.
Manresa Wilds Zoomed Aerial. Image Courtesy of BIG
ManresaIsland Corp. has unveiled the final vision for Manresa Wilds, a 125-acre waterfront park planned on a former power plant peninsula along Long Island Sound in Norwalk, United States. Developed in collaboration with landscape architecture firm SCAPE and architecture studioBIG, the proposal outlines the transformation of a polluted and long-inaccessible industrial shoreline into a publicly accessible coastal landscape. Following the receipt of a stewardship permit from Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection in December 2025, the project will move forward in phases, beginning with the opening of the 28-acre Northern Forest in spring 2027. Subsequent phases, extending into the early 2030s, will deliver the majority of the restored landscape and the adaptive reuse of the 1960s-era power plant as a year-round civic and educational hub, opening nearly two miles of coastline that have been closed to the public for decades.
This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.
Who designs architecture today? In a professional landscape increasingly defined by collaborative workflows, generative software, and distributed teams, the figure of the architect as a singular creative author feels both anachronistic and inadequate. This article argues that architectural authorship is no longer an individual act, but a collective and distributed condition shaped by institutions, technologies, and shared forms of labor. The transition from individual to collective authorship is not simply a consequence of larger offices or digital tools; it signals a deeper structural shift in how architecture is produced, communicated, and validated.
The ultimate accolades of World Building of the Year supported by GROHE, World Interior of the Year, Future Project of the Year and Landscape of the Year were announced today as hundreds of architects from across the world convened at a grand finale Gala Dinner at Miami Beach Convention Center in Florida. A host of Special Prizes, including the American Beauty Prize supported by the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust, were also announced at the closing event to celebrate the eighteenth edition of the festival. The announcement follows the final day of WAF, in which prize winners across all 43 categories have been competing for the winning titles.
https://www.archdaily.com/1036083/world-building-of-the-year-and-interior-of-the-year-revealed-at-world-architecture-festival-2025Enrique Tovar
BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group has been selected as the winner of the international competition to design the new Hamburg State Opera, a major cultural project planned for the Baakenhöft peninsula in HafenCity, Hamburg, Germany. The building will consolidate the city's opera and ballet companies under one roof, introducing new performance spaces, production facilities, and public amenities along the Elbe. The project replaces the mid-20th-century opera house on Dammtorstraße, responding to the city's call for a venue that reflects contemporary standards in acoustics, stagecraft, and audience experience.
In total, the three-day festival will see over 460 live pitches from the 2025 finalists in front of over 160 international judges. Today has seen shortlisted projects from around the world compete for 22 award categories within Completed Buildings, Future Projects, and Interiors. Award winners include WOW Architects, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, Batlleiroig, and Perkins&Will.
https://www.archdaily.com/1035985/world-architecture-festival-2025-day-one-winners-announcedEnrique Tovar
The Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art (Suzhou MoCA), designed by BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, is nearing completion along the Jinji Lake waterfront in Suzhou, China. Conceived as a cluster of twelve pavilions beneath a continuous, ribbon-like roof, the 60,000-square-meter complex reinterprets the traditional garden architecture that has long defined Suzhou's urban and cultural identity. Commissioned by the Suzhou Harmony Development Group and developed in collaboration with ARTS Group and Front Inc., the project is expected to open officially in 2026. The museum will debut with "Materialism," an exhibition curated by BIG that traces a material journey from stone to recyclate.
This week's architectural highlights traced the intersections between heritage, climate awareness, and contemporary design practice. As the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale approaches its closing, projects exploring collective intelligence and material experimentation offer reflections on small-scale responses to global challenges. In Egypt, the completion of the Grand Egyptian Museum marks a long-anticipated moment in cultural preservation, while new competition initiatives in Jordan extend this dialogue toward sacred and archaeological contexts. Complementing these developments, the recognition of Abdelwahed El-Wakil with the Tamayouz Lifetime Achievement Award highlights the continued influence of tradition-informed design across contemporary practice.
This week's architectural developments highlighted how design operates as a form of social and culturalinfrastructure, linking care, community, and context across scales. From London's reinterpretation of the almshouse model to the transformation of urban gateways in Phnom Penh and Tirana, architecture reflected a shared interest in spaces that foster connection and adaptability. Parallel to these urban and infrastructural works, new cultural projects in Paris and Hanoi explored how museums and performance spaces can renew public institutions through material experimentation and spatial flexibility.
This week in architecture, global recognitions and new unveilings underscored the field's growing commitment to climate awareness, cultural continuity, and adaptive reuse. From Expo 2025 Osaka's closing ceremonies to international award announcements, the focus turned to architects and designers redefining the relationship between place, material, and community. Alongside these recognitions, major new projects, from Dubai to California, illustrated how design continues to evolve across scales: shaping cities, preserving heritage, and addressing urgent global challenges through context-driven architecture.
Italy is preparing to host its third Olympic Winter Games as Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo welcome Milano Cortina 2026, seventy years after Cortina staged the 1956 edition and two decades after Torino 2006. The Games will take place from February 6 to 22, 2026, marking the first time the Winter Olympics are organized across two cities, two regions, Lombardy and Veneto, and two autonomous provinces, Trento and Bolzano. Covering a territory of 22,000 square kilometers, Milano Cortina 2026 will become the most geographically extensive Winter Games to date, with over 90% of venues already existing or designed as temporary facilities.
In December 2016, BIG unveiled the first images of a concrete superstructure for Los Angeles' Arts District. The project, a mixed-use complex called 670 Mesquit, was originally projected to cover 2.6 million square feet (242,000 square meters) and include office space, residential units, and two hotels, marking BIG's first project in Los Angeles. In July 2025, nearly nine years after the original proposal, the Los Angeles City Council approved the project to be eventually built in multiple phases.
In the complex ecosystem of architectural development, where innovative concepts meet market realities, a distinct role exists to bridge diverse professional interests and realize impactful spaces. Elisa Orlanski Ours exemplifies this function. This is the domain of Elisa Orlanski Ours, a designer, educator, and industry leader. As Chief Planning & Design Officer at Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, Elisa founded her department two decades ago. Now, her extensive portfolio spans condominium skyscraper master plans and individual branded villas across continents, including significant New York City developments like Hudson Yards and 220 Central Park South, as well as international developments in collaboration with prominent architectural firms like SHoP Architects, BIG, Herzog & de Meuron, Adjaye Associates, and SO-IL. Her strategic perspective on bringing projects from schematic phase to final sale provides valuable insights into the industry's intricate workings. ArchDaily's Managing Editor, Maria-Cristina Florian, had the opportunity to discuss these critical topics with Elisa in the following interview.
