The municipality of Cunha, located in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, is a region known for its inland landscape, hilly terrain, and, especially, a major production of nationally renowned ceramics. It is within this context that the office messina | rivas has been working since 2017, with a set of projects located on a farm. Their work, which integrates design and construction in an indissociable manner, results in interventions that reveal a sensitive approach to pre-existing conditions and their surrounding environment.
The relationship between the office, led by architects Francisco Rivas and Rodrigo Messina, and the site began with a small renovation of a guest house for hosting friends. The project resulted in the transformation of two existing bedrooms into suites and the creation of an external kitchen. Since then, growing demands and the need to adapt existing buildings have driven the design of other projects distributed across the same site.
Across South America, architecture is increasingly being understood as a collective act. Rather than imposing external views, many studios and designers are building with and for communities, learning from their local practices, materials, and ways of inhabiting. These projects are repositioning the architect's role from an author to a facilitator, transforming design into a participatory process that centers collaboration, care, and mutual respect.
What unites these efforts is not style or scale, but a shared belief: architecture emerges from collective dialogue, not imposition. From rural Ecuador to the urban peripheries of Brazil, Colombia, and Paraguay, these projects reveal how social engagement and local making produce spaces that are sustainable not only environmentally but also socially. They respond to inequality not through top-down solutions, but through co-authorship, offering spaces that reflect the needs, knowledge, and agency of the people who use them.
Bauhaus Earth is a Berlin-based non-profit organization working toward a systemic transformation of the built environment. Its mission includes transitioning to bio- and geo-based materials, reusing existing buildings, and restoring ecosystems. Together with the Bamboo Village Trust, a philanthropic financial vehicle, and Kota Kita, a participatory urban design organization, Bauhaus Earth has developed BaleBio, a bamboo pavilion designed by Cave Urban and rising above Mertasari Beach in Denpasar, Bali. The pavilion transforms a disused car park into an open community meeting space, offering a counterpoint to the city's tourism-driven coastal development. Designed as a regenerative building, BaleBio stores carbon instead of emitting it, challenging the extractive construction model that is replacing traditional wood and bamboo craftsmanship with concrete structures across the island.
With just a few days left before the six-and-a-half-month 19th Venice Architecture Biennale comes to an end, it is possible to look back on some of the most notable contributions within its thematic framework. Marked by the largest call for participants to date, the Biennale's diversity of topics and the range of installations on display go beyond easy recapitulation. As part of that reflection, several initiatives can be highlighted as illustrative of the principles reflected in the curatorial theme, "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective." The concepts interwoven in Carlo Ratti's title form a call to address the urgent need for substantial solutions amid the accelerating climate crisis, positioning the Biennale as a platform for diverse design proposals and experiments organized around three forms of intelligence: natural, artificial, and collective. Beyond the national pavilions and numerous collateral events held throughout Venice over the past six months, among the more than 700 participants are projects that, through practice, embody four shared intentions: opening conversations about the future, proposing systemic responses to local realities, placing technology at the center of design innovation, and pursuing material research rooted in local sensitivity.
Aristotle is credited with the proverb "One swallow does not make a summer." In nature, the arrival of these migratory birds often announces the change of seasons, a universal symbol of renewal and hope. Yet it is only when many take flight that the true warmth of summer begins. The same can happen in architecture: an isolated project, however exemplary, rarely changes a reality on its own. When, however, a work teaches, inspires, and can be replicated, it becomes the harbinger of something greater.
Initiatives that combine simple technologies, local materials, and participatory processes show how building can also be an act of learning. Structures and bricks shape places of mutual teaching, where architects and residents share knowledge and build together, multiplying skills and strengthening bonds. These projects point to the possibility of a collective summer, a future in which knowledge spreads as widely as the walls that shelter it.
Hormuz Island, located in Iran, was a strategically significant port in the Persian Gulf, characterized by its landscape of colorful mountains. Despite its tourist appeal, the island faces significant socio-economic problems, with the local population having historically faced economic hardship. In response, the Majara Complex by ZAV Architects was conceived not merely as a building but as a deliberate architectural intervention designed to give control, opportunity, and economic benefit directly to the local community. To do this, the project channeled investment into local human resources and prioritized accessible construction techniques, creating a pathway for localized wealth creation. This allowed the Majara Complex to be one of the recipients of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2025.
In recognizing this project, the award jury praised its ability to intervene in a sensitive yet rational manner, using design to foster inclusivity, resilience, sustainability, and overall well-being. The design achieves these goals by rejecting rigid functional zoning. Instead, a permeable circular courtyard integrates diverse community activities, organizing circulation and connecting multiple open rooms into a cohesive whole.
The Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property of Montenegro has announced the results of the international competition for the new Museum District and Park of Arts & Culture in Podgorica. The winning proposal, led by Milan- and London-based practice a-fact architecture factory in collaboration with LAND, Maffeis Engineering, and Charcoalblue, was selected from 48 entries by an international jury. The project envisions a new cultural district consolidating three institutions, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Natural History Museum, and the House of Architecture, within a landscape that reconnects the city to the Morača River.
Across Asia, bamboo scaffolding has symbolized an intersection of traditional knowledge and modern construction. Hong Kong's skyline is shaped by intricate bamboo scaffolding, yet this time-honored craft is steadily vanishing from the region. Moving east, Indian cities still utilize bamboo scaffolding on building sites throughout the subcontinent, revealing a different kind of paradox.
The Sardarapat Memorial and the architect's original sketch. Image via risraelyan.com/en/, courtesy of Aram Ghanalanyan
In a time when much global architecture can feel disconnected from local identity, the work of Rafayel Israelyan stands out for being rooted in place, culture, and memory. Working in mid-20th-century Armenia, Israelyan created architecture that is more than functional or monumental; it is culturally resilient. His use of traditional Armenian motifs, materials, and symbolic forms gave his designs a second life after the fall of the Soviet Union, when many buildings across post-Soviet states were abandoned or demolished. Armenia, by contrast, preserved many of his works, likely because their design approach not only served a specific moment in time, but also told a larger story. Long before concepts like sustainability or critical regionalism became popular, Israelyan understood that buildings gain meaning and endurance when they reflect the specific identity and characteristics of their place.
The countryside—long underestimated—is now emerging as fertile ground for possibility. More than a “marginalized space,” rural Latin America today asserts itself as a true laboratory for architectural, social, and ecological experimentation. From agroecological communities to low-impact technologies, from relationships between humans, machines, and other living beings to locally grounded solutions for global challenges—such as the climate crisis, food security, and migration—the rural world is actively and inventively reshaping its own future.
The theorist André Corboz, known for his contributions to the critical reading of territory, proposes that the cities should be understood as a palimpsest. That is, a surface continuously rewritten, where traces of previous layers remain visible even after successive interventions. For him, the city is not a static entity, but an organism in constant transformation, where historical, functional, and symbolic layers overlap. This is why working on restoration or rehabilitation projects for historical buildings is particularly complex, requiring careful thought about the approach to be taken: should extensions and renovations seek complete coherence with the original language, or assert themselves as architectural expressions of their own time?
The Kingdom of Morocco's exhibition at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia highlights Moroccan earth architecture and traditional construction techniques. The exhibition, titled Materiae Palimpsest, was curated by architects Khalil Morad El Ghilali and El Mehdi Belyasmine. In an exploration that blends ancient techniques with digital technologies, the exhibit features textile works by architect and artist Soumyia Jalal, along with holograms of artisans and tactile installations. The narrative presents earth as a renewable resource and sustainable material, and earth construction as a key to both preserving architectural heritage and addressing contemporary ecological and social challenges. Materiae Palimpsest offers an invitation to rethink architecture's current relationship with building materials, opening the way to locally rooted construction methods.
At the Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, designed by Peter Zumthor, the construction process involved the direct participation of residents from the small Swiss village of Mechernich. Using an internal formwork made of vertically placed wooden logs, concrete was prepared in small batches and poured manually, day after day, forming layers marked by subtle variations in the mix and application. At the end of the process, the wooden structure was reduced to ashes, leaving the chapel's interior impregnated with traces of fire and revealing a dark, tactile surface. The result was a quiet and deeply meaningful space, where collective action, time, and material transformation became part of the architecture. Centered on locally available resources and manual techniques, this construction method highlights how the choice of materials and building system can shape the experience of a space, reveal the time invested, and embed the culture of a place into the very matter of architecture. In doing so, it offers an example of how construction itself can become a regenerative act, restoring meaning, connecting communities, and honoring material cycles.
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.
Henning Larsen, in collaboration with Kampala-based Siimi Design Studio, has revealed the design for a new modular campus for El Cambio Academy, a youth football and education institution located in Masaka, Uganda. The project is being developed using rammed earth construction, with bricks produced on site from locally excavated soil. Currently under construction, the first phase includes a boys' dormitory and is expected to be completed by summer 2025. The 1,280-square-meter campus is designed to accommodate 60 children between the ages of 9 and 16, providing facilities for both academic education and athletic training.
ESPARTAL Pavilion / ELE Arkitektura, GA Estudio, Florencia Galecio, and Juan Gubbins. Image Courtesy of TAC! Festival de Arquitectura Urbana
The TAC! Urban Architecture Festival is held annually in Spain with the aim of bringing contemporary architecture closer to the public through installations in various cities, including Granada, San Sebastián, Valencia, Vigo, and San Fernando. Organized by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda in collaboration with Fundación Arquia, the festival seeks to promote experimentation in architecture by constructing temporary pavilions for cultural events and gatherings. The 2025 edition of the festival will take place in two locations: Casa Mediterráneo in Alicante and Plaza Stagno in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The pavilions are selected each year through an open call for young architects up to 45 years old. This year's winners have already been announced: the ESPARTAL project by ELE Arkitektura, GA Estudio, Florencia Galecio, and Juan Gubbins; and DE ROCA MADRE by Alejandro Carrasco Hidalgo, Eduardo Cilleruelo Terán, Alberto Martínez García, and Andrea Molina Cuadro.
