About a month after the closing of Expo 2025 Osaka, the designs and constructions presented at the world's fair remain as a legacy. While the Bahrain Pavilion, designed by Lina Ghotmeh Architecture, drew particular attention this year for receiving double recognition, it was one among many awarded projects. During the awards ceremony held on the penultimate night of the event, a total of 45 awards were presented among 165 participating countries. The Official Participant Awards are granted according to pavilion size and type, recognizing excellence in Architecture and Landscape (for self-built pavilions only), External Design (for module pavilions only), Exhibition Design, Theme Development, and Sustainability. The recipients were selected by an international jury of nine experts who visited all national and thematic pavilions during two evaluation sessions in May and October 2025. The following overview presents all 45 pavilions distinguished in the five categories of the Official Participant Awards.
2025 marks the 60th anniversary of Singapore's independence, commemorating its separation from Malaysia on August 9, 1965. The occasion is celebrated in the country's national pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale with a multisensory installation that honors Singapore's diversity and reimagines city-making through food, culture, and collective design. Titled RASA–TABULA–SINGAPURA, the installation invites visitors to take a seat at the Table of Superdiversity: an enticing reimagining of city-making and nation-building through the universal act of dining. According to the curatorial team from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), the purpose of the installation is to showcase how the convergence of multicultural differences, collective histories, design, and new technology creates opportunities for more inclusive and adaptive urban futures.
Bahrain's architectural participations in the international exhibitions have gained increasing global recognition, marked most recently by major awards at Expo 2025 Osaka and the Venice Architecture Biennale. These milestones reflect a broader trajectory in which the country's design culture, rooted in climatic intelligence and cultural continuity, has become a prominent voice in international conversations on context-driven architecture.
This growing visibility builds upon a deep architectural lineage. Bahrain's identity has long been shaped by its position as a maritime crossroads of the Arabian Gulf, where the legacy of pearling settlements and the compact urban fabric of Muharraq and Manama reveal a dialogue between local traditions and global exchange. Today, that dialogue evolves through practices that merge preservation with experimentation, translating heritage into a contemporary architectural language that is both place-specific and forward-looking.
Monday, October 13th, marked the conclusion of Expo Osaka 2025. The exhibition gathered representatives from 165 countries and international organizations and welcomed around 28 million visitors to Yumeshima, a reclaimed site in Osaka Bay. The site was reimagined through a masterplan and bounded by a Guinness World Record-breaking wooden circular structure, both designed by Sou Fujimoto Architects. Over 184 days, participants were able to visit the self-built, modular, and shared pavilions, national exhibitions, and public activities organized under the overarching theme "Designing Future Society for Our Lives." During its six-month run, the Expo set out to explore three pivotal subthemes, Saving Lives, Empowering Lives, and Connecting Lives, as an invitation to bring together new perspectives for our built and social ecosystem.
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?
As Expo 2025 Osaka passes the midpoint of its six-month duration on July 13, the international exposition continues to serve as a global platform for architectural experimentation, cultural exchange, and technological innovation. Officially opened on April 13 on the reclaimed island of Yumeshima, the event is organized under the theme "Designing Future Society for Our Lives," and has already welcomed more than 13 million visitors as of late July. Conceived as a space for collaboration across disciplines and borders, the Expo brings together more than 150 national, thematic, and corporate pavilions.
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.
The fifth edition of the London Design Biennale is taking place at Somerset House from 5 to 29 June 2025. The theme of this year's edition is "Surface Reflections," an invitation to explore "the dynamic interplay between internal experience and external influence." The curatorial proposal, set by British artist and designer Samuel Ross, encourages a focus on the underlying layers of the objects, systems, and spaces that shape our daily lives. The Biennale exhibition is a journey through 35 pavilions by countries, institutional design teams, and curators, presenting soundscapes, immersive experiences, and performances, as well as sculptural and evocative objects. To confront contemporary global challenges, topics include identity, memory, innovation, technology, craftsmanship, ecology, and belonging.
The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) launched a documentary and exhibition, "With an Acre", the third and final chapter of the series Groundwork, which explores how contemporary architects cultivate alternative modes of practice to address the ecological crisis. The documentary follows the work of architect Carla Juaçaba in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where she is developing pavilions in a coffee field where collectives resist extractive industrial agriculture. The narrative examines the role of architects in extractivist contexts facing land regeneration challenges and unstable climatic conditions, as well as the tools smallholder farmers can use to cope with the environmental and social consequences of colonial settlement, urbanization, and industrialization.
Every year, the Naomi Milgrom Foundation commissions an architect to design a temporary pavilion for the Queen Victoria Gardens, in the center of Melbourne's Southbank Arts Precinct. The pavilions are then transferred to the state of Victoria. The tenth edition of the MPavilion was designed by Pritzker Prize Laureate Tadao Ando as his first and only built work in Australia and the southern hemisphere. The pavilion opened on November 16, 2023, and its presence was extended until March 2025, hosting a wide-ranging program of cultural events over two summer seasons. After facing demolition, given the temporary nature of the initiative, a community-led program, "Preserve the Pavilion", was launched in hopes of preserving the building. The Naomi Milgrom Foundation has recently announced that the pavilion will remain in Queen Victoria Gardens until 2030, following a decision by the City of Melbourne.
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.
Inside Out, Downside Up Pavilion / Slaatto Morsbøl. Image Courtesy of Copenhagen Architecture Forum Copenhagen Architecture Forum (CAFx)
The first edition of the Copenhagen Architecture Biennial will take place from 18 September to 19 October 2025. Organized by CAFx (Copenhagen Architecture Forum), the event marks a transition from the previous annual Copenhagen Architecture Festival to a more expansive platform for architectural exploration. The theme of the inaugural edition, "Slow Down," invites participants to reflect on how the rapid pace of modern life affects the built environment. According to the organizers, this thematic shift encourages the envisioning of spaces that promote sustainability, longevity, and mindful engagement with our surroundings. In line with this vision, the organization launched an open call earlier this year for pavilion proposals that embody principles of circular design while serving as hubs for public programming during the event. Two winning proposals, modular structures by Slaatto Morsbøl and Tom Svilans x THISS Studio, were selected, each offering an approach to architectural deceleration.
At the end of each edition of the Architecture Biennale, far from the public eye, tons of exhibition materials are transported across Venice in handcarts and boats. Only a small portion of these materials is reused. The main obstacles are the limited storage space in Venice and the high logistical costs—recurring challenges for circular architecture. As a result, most of the waste ends up in landfills or nearby recycling centers. But this scenario is beginning to change. In response to growing environmental concerns, architects are developing strategies to make reuse more viable. These efforts go beyond architectural and construction decisions—they also involve logistics and international trade.
The Croatian Pavilion presents "Intelligence of Errors" at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, an artistic and research-driven project that repositions spatial and policy-related errors as generative tools for design. Commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the exhibition is curated by Ida Križaj Leko, a practicing architect and head of the interdisciplinary university specialist program Urban Studies at the University of Rijeka. In dialogue with the central Biennale theme,Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., the pavilion investigates how recognizing and analyzing errors can contribute to the development of collective intelligence under non-ideal conditions.
At the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, the Chinese Pavilion presents Coexist, an exhibition curated by Ma Yansong, founder of MAD Architects. The pavilion assembles ten interdisciplinary teams, spanning architects, scholars, students, scientists, and even social media participants, to collectively investigate the potential of architecture to reconcile contradictions between tradition and futurity, artificial and nature, technology and emotion. Rather than presenting a singular vision, Coexist aims to open space for responses to the diverse realities shaping contemporary architecture. While on site in Venice, ArchDaily's editors had the opportunity to discuss the ideas that shaped the Chinese Pavilion with the curator.
At the 19th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, the Dicastery for Culture and Education presents "Opera Aperta", a project that positions architecture as a practice of collective care and responsibility. Curated by Marina Otero Verzier and Giovanna Zabotti, Opera Aperta is set within the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Complex in Venice's Castello district. Designed by Tatiana Bilbao ESTUDIO and MAIO Architects, the project transforms the 500-square-meter site into a space for collaborative restoration and public engagement. Conceived as a work in progress rather than a finished installation, Opera Aperta functions as a platform for ongoing exchange, participation, and engagement rooted in the local context. This open and process-oriented approach was recognized during the opening events, where the Holy See Pavilion received the Golden Lion's Special Mention for National Participation.
