As the solstice marks the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, it also draws attention to something architecture has long negotiated but often overlooked: time. Beyond form or function, buildings and spaces are continuously shaped by cycles of light and darkness, seasonal shifts, and environmental rhythms that affect how they are inhabited.
In recent years, a growing number of architectural projects have begun to work explicitly with these cycles. Rather than designing spaces to function in a single, fixed way, architects are creating environments that change throughout the day, across seasons, or in response to natural phenomena such as the sun's path, lunar phases, wind patterns, or circadian rhythms. These projects operate in dialogue with time, appearing, transforming, and activating differently depending on environmental conditions.
Scandinavia is shaped by environmental conditions that test both human endurance and architectural ingenuity, with long winters defined by limited daylight, low sun angles, deep snowfall, and cold winds that transform everyday movement, gathering, and habitation into deliberate acts. In this context, architecture is never neutral, and hospitality is never incidental. Buildings that welcome visitors across cities, forests, and coastlines must respond directly to darkness and cold, not by denying them, but by creating interior worlds that offer orientation, warmth, and psychological relief. The act of welcoming in Scandinavia is therefore inseparable from the climate, grounded in the understanding that shelter, light, and human presence are fundamental resources in Arctic environments.
As architecture moves beyond human-centered design, new practices are rethinking coexistence as an ethical and ecological framework. From political infrastructures to habitats, these approaches invite us to imagine architecture as a shared living system.
Modern architecture has long been written through an anthropocentric lens, placing the human at its center and rendering other species invisible. Yet this paradigm continues to shift, as architects and researchers redefine the role of design in more-than-human worlds. Studios such as Office for Political Innovation, Studio Ossidiana, and Husos Architects are questioning human-centered narratives and reframing design as a shared practice between species. In this context, architecture is no longer a tool of control but a medium for coexistence, a discipline that mediates between species, environments, and cultures.
Chimneys are among the most quietly persistent elements in architectural history. Yet their presence persists in nearly every cultural and climatic context, serving as a technical feature and a spatial, atmospheric, and symbolic device. It populates dense city skylines and anchors rural horizons alike, its vertical silhouette as ordinary as a window or a doorframe. This apparent ordinariness is deceptive. The chimney is one of the few architectural components that links the intimate scale of interior life with the expansive forces of the environment. For architects and designers, the necessity of the chimney presents a choice: to let it recede quietly into the building's functional fabric or to amplify it as a central, expressive element that shapes a project's identity.
Wine production has long been tied to place, climate, and culture, and in recent decades, architecture has become a central part of this relationship. Wineries are no longer understood only as functional facilities for fermentation, storage, and distribution, but also as spaces where landscape, materiality, and visitor experience intersect. From subterranean cellars hidden beneath fields to sculptural landmarks rising in rural territories, these buildings shape the identity of winemaking regions while offering visitors a carefully choreographed encounter with the process of production.
At the intersection of agriculture, tourism, and culture, wineries present architects with unique opportunities to merge technical requirements with a spatial narrative. They must respond to environmental conditions, manage temperature and humidity with precision, and integrate with delicate ecosystems, while also providing spaces for tasting, gathering, and celebration. As a result, the typology has given rise to a wide range of architectural solutions. Some are rooted in tradition and local craft, others are exploring advanced technologies and contemporary forms.
In 1982, at a conference on earth building in Tucson, Arizona, an unusual presentation challenged everything architects thought they knew about rural resources. Instead of focusing on construction techniques, the presenter, architect Pliny Fisk III, spread out a series of hand-drawn maps that revealed something extraordinary - rural Texas wasn't resource-poor, as conventional wisdom suggested, but material-rich beyond imagination. The maps showed volcanic ash perfect for lightweight concrete, caliche deposits stretching across vast territories, and mesquite forests that could supply both hardwood flooring and insulation. The revelation redefined prevailing notions of value in architecture.
Every June, the Spanish city of Logroño transforms into a space of architectural dialogue, opening its streets, plazas, riverbanks, and traffic islands to temporary structures that redefine how cities are inhabited. For ten editions, Concéntrico has worked not as a specialized fair or an architecture biennale, but as a portable museum — a curatorial gesture that brings a dispersed collection of contemporary architecture into public space. Set in a city suspended between arid plains and distant mountains, far from the circuits of capital cities and cultural institutions, Concéntrico presents itself as a temporary promise. It's a reminder that even cities that are often overlooked can host architecture that is current, diverse, and speculative. In this sense, the festival is less about celebration and more about activation.
But beyond its curatorial logic, Concéntrico operates as a political structure. In the ancient sense of polis, it invites citizens, architects, and institutions to reassess what public space can be. The interventions offer speculative proposals for urban life that reveal what is missing, what is possible, and what should be questioned. A temporary pool over a fountain, a bathhouse in a roundabout, or a shared meal on a major avenue are not just spatial gestures — they are political statements, asking how urban infrastructure might be redirected from control to care, from efficiency to encounter. In that way, the festival becomes not just a reflection of the city, but an instrument for its transformation.
Extreme heat is one of climate change's most urgent and rapidly growing consequences, especially in cities. Urban areas are particularly vulnerable because they trap heat in building materials and urban streets, creating dangerous conditions for residents. As temperatures continue to rise and heat waves lengthen, cities are grappling with how to remain livable in the face of this intensifying threat.
The Master in Advanced Architecture at IAAC celebrates its 25th anniversary as one of the most forward-looking programs in architectural education. Founded in 2000 in Barcelona, the program was created as a space for experimentation—where design meets technology, ecology and critical thinking, far from the conventions of traditional architectural training.
Over the years, the program has welcomed more than 1,000 students from over 80 countries. This international mix is no accident; it reflects IAAC's understanding of innovation as something that grows through dialogue, diversity and shared ambition. The result is a network of professionals working at the intersection of design, research, and systemic change.
During the Time Space Existence exhibition, organized by the European Cultural Centre in Venice, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena and his firm ELEMENTAL unveiled a full-scale prototype for a new approach in incremental housing solutions. Titled the USB Core, standing for Basic Services Unit housing prototype, this proposal aims to demonstrate how efficient construction can provide all the essential housing components in a minimal space. The prototype is also the result of a collaboration between the architecture office and concrete manufacturer and researcher Holcim, and is built out of a newly developed type of net-zero concrete mix. It also incorporates fully recycled aggregates, in alignment with circular economy principles. The collaboration aims to demonstrate a more environmentally conscious yet cost-effective way of providing essential services to at-risk communities without harming the planet.
While on site in Venice, ArchDaily's managing editor Maria-Cristina Florian had the chance to sit down with Alejandro Aravena and discuss the implications of this collaboration, the urgent need for housing, and the role of the architect as the coordinator of a process involving many actors.
Oystra, Al Marjan, Render by MIR. Image Courtesy of ZHA
Oystra, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, is a 128,000-square-metre seafront development located on Al Marjan Island in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, that comprises 950 residential units, a comprehensive range of shopping, dining, and leisure amenities. Ras Al Khaimah, one of the UAE's fastest-growing emirates, is projected to see a 55% increase in its population by 2030, driving the need for an additional 45,000 homes. The emirate's tourism sector is also experiencing significant growth, with the number of visitors expected to rise to 3.5 million annually by 2030, up from 100,000 in 2013.
The 2025 iteration of the Time Space Existence exhibition is set to attract audiences from May 10 to November 23. Organized by the European Cultural Centre (ECC) in Venice's renowned venues—Palazzo Bembo, Palazzo Mora, and Marinaressa Gardens—this seventh edition brings together a diverse cohort of 207 architects, designers, artists, and researchers from over 52 countries. All contributions are curated under the theme of "Repair, Regenerate, and Reuse" as an exploration of architecture's capacity to engage with critical environmental, social, and cultural challenges. Highlights of the Special Projects section include ArchDaily's inaugural exhibition, presenting six architecture offices previously recognized as Best New Practices as emerging voices in the field of architectural innovations.
The decision to lift a building off the ground is a technical maneuver that requires substantial planning, expertise, and careful consideration. It is a deliberate architectural response to the site's forces and fragilities. Floodplains, wetlands, and thawing tundra share a common thread: Architects reconcile risk and vulnerability through elevated structures. In this sense, it is a spatial response and a structural necessity.
