Covering a broad array of subjects, this week's headline stories have reflected the wide scope of architecture's practice: its potential to respond to the climate crisis, the construction and renovation of cultural infrastructure around the world, and events that promote contemporary disciplinary reflection. This does not preclude questions about the contradiction between the technical and creative skills demanded by the discipline and the role it has come to occupy in today's market. Alongside these reflections, this week we feature projects that reinforce architecture's cultural significance in preserving knowledge, hosting collective entertainment, and supporting new forms of living: a comic book museum in Taiwan, a membership club for families in London, and the renovation of a landmark stadium in Riyadh.
Environmental Urgencies: Record Heatwaves, and Liam Young on Architecture's Role in the Climate Crisis
This year, the United Nations' World Environment Day coincided with record heatwaves across Portugal, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. The campaign emphasises the growing urgency of responding to signals already being felt across ecosystems, economies, and communities, a crisis fundamentally reshaping the spaces where we live, work, and gather. In an interview with Louisiana Channel, Australian artist Liam Young discusses the severity of the climate crisis and the need for a "planetary" response: a new kind of punk that matches that scale. Young turns to film as a rehearsal space, a medium fast and fluid enough to test the futures that architecture, in its traditional slowness, cannot. He criticises the contemporary exercise of a discipline that inhabits the space between culture and technology, reduced to a marginalised luxury and boutique industry.
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"My Solutions Are Not Polite:" Liam Young on Architecture in the Age of Polycrisis in Louisiana Channel InterviewBig Names, Major Scales: OMA, BIG, and Herzog & de Meuron's Projects in China, Croatia, and Albania
This week, three major international firms announced progress on large-scale projects. OMA completed the Hangzhou Prism, a large-scale mixed-use development in Hangzhou's Future Tech City district, China, following a design and development process that began in 2016. BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group revealed images of the advances of the EVE Music Hall in Čepin, eastern Croatia, a 10,000 m² project containing a live music venue, congress facilities, exhibition spaces, a café, and rooftop event spaces. Herzog & de Meuron was announced as the selected firm to revitalize the Palace of Congresses building in Tirana, Albania, a building dating back to the People's Socialist Republic of Albania that opened in 1986 to host the Congresses of the Party of Labour of the country, and is now subject to a comprehensive transformation to upgrade the building while preserving its historical identity.
Design Events and Exhibitions: 3daysofdesign, Frank Gehry at Serralves, and the Venice Architecture Biennale
Projects are followed by disciplinary reflections, which are brought to collective discussion at international events announced weekly. From June 10 to 12, 3daysofdesign returns to Copenhagen with a city-wide program of exhibitions, installations, talks, and showroom presentations organised around the theme "Make This Moment Matter." The event invites reflection on the impact of present-day decisions and their long-term implications for communities, cities, and ecosystems. In Porto, memory and post-modern architecture are highlighted in a retrospective exhibition on Frank Gehry held at the Serralves Museum, in a building designed by Álvaro Siza. Finally, the first concepts for the national pavilions at the 2027 Venice Architecture Biennale are being announced, starting with the Icelandic Pavilion, which explores bathing culture as civic infrastructure.
On the Radar
Oyler Wu Collaborative Selected to Design the National Taiwan Museum of Comics in Taichung
Oyler Wu Collaborative, in collaboration with SU Mao Ping Architecture Studio and JN Architects, has been selected through an international competition to design the National Taiwan Museum of Comics in Taichung, a 203,000 sq. ft. institution initiated by Taiwan's Ministry of Culture in 2017 and set to open this year. Conceived as the heart of a broader comic campus, the design responds to the archival needs and contemporary requirements of the global comics industry. Positioned within a landscaped park alongside existing historic structures, the building features a permeable ground floor welcoming movement from all directions. The façade's small-scale louvers act as environmental screens and compositional elements. A secondary layer of fritted glass embedded with comic-inspired graphics manages light and views while offering shifting readings across distances. This graphic skin is envisioned as an evolving collaboration with museum curators, incorporating rotating vinyl graphics that respond to changing exhibitions and spotlight contemporary comic artists.
TiggColl Converts an Office Building in London into a Shared Amenities Club for Families
London-based architecture studio TiggColl has designed a third location for OurHouse, a membership-based operator running London-focused family clubs that bring together childcare, leisure, and lifestyle facilities under one roof. The project converts a vacant 1960s high street office building in East Sheen's shopping district into a five-storey facility catering to both children and adults. The brief reflects OurHouse's model of designing through the lens of multiple member profiles, from new parents to families managing work, recreation, and exercise simultaneously, with spatial priorities, circulation, and activity adjacencies all informed by detailed member personas developed in collaboration with play consultant House of Kin. Children's facilities include a kids' club and crèche, creative play spaces, and a jungle gym, while adult amenities cover co-working, fitness, and wellness studios. Shared spaces include a family living room, children's cinema, and swimming pools, with two dedicated teaching pools accommodated through basement excavation. Orly's House is set to open in 2027, with two further Houses in Clapham and Chiswick subject to planning approval.
Populous Reveals New Images of King Fahad Sports City Stadium Renovation in Riyadh
Populous has released new images and details of its renovation of King Fahad Sports City Stadium in Riyadh, the current home of the Saudi Arabia national football team and one of the most significant projects in the country's preparations for the 2034 FIFA World Cup. Originally opened in 1987 as the first large-scale stadium in the region, the venue is being renovated to expand its capacity, partly through excavating 10 metres into the ground to create a new lower tier, while upgrading spectator and operational facilities and delivering a mixed-use masterplan for the surrounding area. Central to the design approach is the reuse of existing building elements: the original structural masts and cables from the redundant roof canopy have been repurposed as photovoltaic shading structures over the parking areas, generating enough power to cover all non-event energy needs; excavated soil will be reshaped into a new landscaped park featuring a football academy, amphitheatre, fan zone, and commercial areas; and the stadium's distinctive hexagonal cladding will be reused across the new landscape terraces and an on-site energy centre. A new cable-net roof canopy was designed to maintain the stadium's recognisable silhouette on Riyadh's skyline, and a displacement cooling strategy has been developed to improve spectator comfort. Populous is also designing several other venues across Saudi Arabia, including King Salman Stadium in Riyadh, the Prince Mohammed bin Salman Stadium, and Aramco Stadium in Al Khobar.
This article is part of our new This Week in Architecture series, bringing together featured articles this week and emerging stories shaping the conversation right now. Explore more architecture news, projects, and insights on ArchDaily.
