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.
The second edition of the Ammodo Architecture Award has recognized 26 recipients for their contributions to socially and ecologically responsible design. Selected from 168 submissions spanning over 60 countries, the laureates represent a wide range of practices, from established offices to emerging collectives and community-led initiatives. Each recipient receives a grant ranging from €10,000 to €150,000 to support the continued development of their projects. Beyond recognition and financial support, the Ammodo Architecture initiative also functions as a knowledge platform, connecting awardees across regions and facilitating the exchange of ideas on key themes identified by the advisory committee.
When Hudson Yards opened in Manhattan in 2019, it promised a new urban neighborhood built from scratch. 16 towers with 4,000 residential units were erected in hopes of creating a strong community. Despite its lavish amenities and lofty public plazas, a peculiar emptiness persisted. The development felt anonymous, speaking to a fundamental truth about human social capacity.
The Brazilian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, open since May 10, 2025, is curated by Plano Coletivo, a group formed by architects Luciana Saboia, Eder Alencar, and Matheus Seco. Titled "(RE)INVENTION," the exhibition represents Brazil through a multidisciplinary approach that connects architecture, nature, and social infrastructure. Presented at the Giardini pavilion, the project is organized by the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo in collaboration with Brazil's Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The exhibition reflects on the recent archaeological discovery of ancestral infrastructure in the Amazon to examine the socio-environmental contradictions of contemporary cities. It invites visitors to learn from ancestral knowledge and explore the interdependence between humans, land, and nature as a foundation for more sustainable futures.
Urban policymakers and developers increasingly brand projects as temporary, piloting pop-up parks, art installations, and interim structures across global cities. Initiatives are often framed as experimental interventions that activate vacant sites. In practice, however, they frequently serve as provisional strategies to manage underutilized land until more profitable forms of development materialize. The temporary label functions as urban camouflage, obscuring permanent agendas behind provisional rhetoric.
As cities continue to develop, we are seeing ever more well-planned, thoroughly executed, and tightly regulated approaches to shaping urban centres and their surrounding spaces—for better and for worse. As codes, restrictions, and guidelines improve and tighten, urban environments become safer, more balanced, and less prone to surprise. Yet the flip side is that highly managed districts can drift toward over-order and sanitisation, shedding the messy, accretive character that once produced alleyways, residual spaces, and unexpected sequences of movement—conditions often born from ongoing community improvisation in the grey zones of regulation.
In response, a growing number of initiatives around the world are proposing short-term urban installations that test alternate futures for the city. These works aim to provoke dialogue between what the city is and what it could offer its communities through thoughtful, context-specific spatial practices. One notable example is Concéntrico, the international festival in Logroño, Spain, conceived as an urban innovation laboratory. Marking its tenth edition, the festival is about to publish Concéntrico: Urban Innovation Laboratory, a book that surveys a decade of urban design and collective transformation shaped through successive editions of the festival. Its launch is paired with an international tour designed to share a decade of insights on collective transformation and design.
The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) has announced the winners of its 2025 competition in Marou Village, Fiji. Developed in partnership with the local community and supported by the Fiji Department of Energy, the FijiRural Electrification Fund, and the United Nations Development Program, LAGI 2025 invited designers from around the world to envision renewable energy and water systems that could also serve as cultural and social spaces. From over 200 entries representing 45 countries, two projects were selected: The O by Alberto Roncelli and Ligavatuvuce by Young Kang.
The contemporary bookstore is a paradoxical space. It is commercial, but rarely commercialized; public, but often privately owned; small in scale, but expansive in impact. As adjacent architectural typologies evolve under the pressures of digital consumption, economic precarity, and changing social habits, the bookstore has not dimensioned, but adapted to the twenty first century. It is not a site for private or institutional literary exchange, but a spatial hybrid that accommodates ritual, rest, performance, and socialization.
Copenhagen and Hamburg-based architecture office ADEPT has won first prize in the international competition to transform a former Karstadt warehouse in the historic center of Braunschweig, Germany, into the Haus der Musik. The 18,000-square-meter cultural complex will include a new concert hall, a public music school, and community-oriented spaces. Emphasizing adaptive reuse, the project retains the existing load-bearing structure and architectural rhythm, positioning the intervention as a continuation rather than a replacement.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. has revealed the design for the Amsterdam Avenue side of its campus, developed by Hood Design Studio, Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, and Moody Nolan. Recently released renderings illustrate a transformation that includes a new outdoor performance venue, expanded community park spaces, and the removal of the existing wall along Amsterdam Avenue. In response to long-standing calls from both Lincoln Center and local communities, the construction is expected to begin in spring 2026 and be completed by spring 2028.
The concept of inclusive architecture has gained prominence as the built environment evolves to reflect and address the diverse needs of humanity. This approach prioritizes empathy, accessibility, and equity, striving to create spaces that resonate with individuals across a spectrum of demographics, abilities, and cultural contexts. It moves beyond merely meeting accessibility standards or incorporating universal design elements; instead, it embodies a paradigm shift that humanizes architecture and aligns it with fundamental social values. Through this lens, inclusive architecture fosters connections, embraces diversity, and ensures that physical spaces contribute to collective well-being.
This article explores four interrelated themes — Empathy, Inclusive Architecture, and Spatial Equity and Accessibility— through selected articles published in 2024. Together, these themes reveal how architecture can respond to societal challenges and aspirations, illustrating its potential as a catalyst for social change. From designing for emotional connection to addressing spatial inequalities, the lessons of 2024 emphasize the responsibility of architects to create spaces that transcend functionality, champion inclusivity at every scale, and foster environments where everyone feels seen, valued, and empowered.
From November 20 to 23, São Paulo hosted the IV International Seminar on Favela Urbanization, bringing together discussions that bridged theory and practice to address interventions in these territories. Centered on Brazil’s realities, the seminar shed light on the political challenges and the struggle to recognize the potential of peripheral spaces. It also highlighted a shared issue across Latin America: the need for adequate funding to support transformative actions and the legitimization of these territories. Within this framework, the article underscores the critical role of high-quality public facilities in favelas and peripheral neighborhoods. These spaces not only provide access to opportunities but also foster community bonds, serving as essential hubs for social organization and collective efforts toward building a more inclusive future.
Ammodo Architecture has just revealed the first 23 recipients of its inaugural Ammodo Architecture Awards, an annual recognition dedicated to advancing socially and ecologically conscious architecture worldwide. The awardees, chosen for their exemplary contributions, will receive financial support ranging from €10,000 to €150,000 to further their work and projects across three categories: Social Architecture, Social Engagement, and Local Scale.
MVRDV has partnered with KLABU, a social enterprise based in Amsterdam, to design a modular, multi-functional clubhouse aimed at supporting refugees. This collaboration, which began in 2022, is founded on the belief that sports can play a pivotal role in helping individuals rebuild their lives, fostering joy, pride, and hope. KLABU's initiative involves constructing clubhouses within refugee camps, settlements, and urban areas, where they serve as community hubs offering access to sports equipment, activities, and connectivity through Wi-Fi and TV broadcasts.
Community Development Center in Tapachula / Laboratorio de Acupuntura Urbana. Image
How do community centers emerge? Why do they often represent a need for the appropriation and development of society? In the pursuit of improving the quality of life in the most vulnerable communities, community centers present themselves as an alternative capable of providing healthcare, educational, cultural, and recreational services, along with spaces that contribute to the present and future development of communities. In Mexico, numerous community centers are created and supported by government institutions, civil foundations, or private companies, as well as co-management initiatives that aim to integrate children, youth, adults, and older adults into spaces for gathering, socializing, and recreation, where they can engage in activities from learning to developing individual and collective skills.
Large-scale infrastructure projects often aim to connect distant locations within urban areas, facilitating quicker transportation, logistics, and commercial activities along their routes. However, while these projects link distant destinations, their substantial physical presence can significantly affect local communities. This may result in the disconnection and disengagement of previously connected neighborhoods, the disruption of public spaces, and generally negative outdoor experiences caused by noise, pollution, and lack of attention and maintenance to these infrastructures.
Nevertheless, several successful built environment projects have re-integrated contentious infrastructure into the community through thoughtful design of outdoor spaces, with Paris' Coulée verte René-Dumont being one of the first examples and New York's High Line being one of the most prominent examples. The High Line demonstrates how well-conceived outdoor projects can address the alienation caused by extensive infrastructure, foster community reconnection, serve as cultural and economic hubs, and even spur further economic redevelopment, as in Hudson Yards.
The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.
A variety of subjects are covered with honesty and humor: some episodes are interviews, while others are tips for fellow designers, reviews of buildings and other projects, or casual explorations of everyday life and design. The Second Studio is also available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Michael Tyre, President-Elect and Design Director of Amenta Emma Architects to discuss his childhood interests; education and early career; neurodiversity in design; the Smith College Young Classroom project; fixed variation vs segregation design model; the shift from ego-driven design to co-creation; reframing social discourse to create inclusive spaces; and more.
https://www.archdaily.com/1021219/the-second-studio-podcast-an-interview-with-michael-tyre-of-amenta-emma-architectsThe Second Studio Podcast
