Selected as one of the winners of ArchDaily 2025 Next Practices Awards, NAAW represents a new generation of architectural studios reshaping contemporary practice in Central Asia. Founded in 2019 by Elvira Bakubayeva and Aisulu Uali, the studio operates at the intersection of research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and spatial experimentation, positioning architecture as a tool for reflection and an active agent in shaping contemporary Kazakhstani identity.
Cities are warming at roughly twice the global rate, a trend accelerated by rapid urbanization. While rising temperatures are reshaping daily life worldwide, some towns and neighborhoods, often the most vulnerable and least resourced, are warming more than others. The reason comes down to the urban environment. Built infrastructure, such as roads, buildings, sidewalks, and public spaces, determines how heat moves through a city, where it accumulates, and how long it remains trapped. No matter the climate zone or geographical location, shade remains the most effective and immediate way to cool pedestrians and relieve the built environment.
This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.
Traditionally, a museum visit is a calendared occasion with a clearly scripted sequence. Arrival is ceremonially marked—by grand stairs or thresholds, by ticketing and information desks, by an audio guide and a concise institutional preface about mission and history. That deliberate "special occasion" quality extends from how museums were long conceived: deliberately exceptional, tightly curated, and organized around a specific narrative arc. In this model, the museum assumes an authoritative voice—its knowledge deep, vetted, and to be respected rather than contested—while architecture and choreography reinforce a rather singular way of entering, learning, and remembering.
WORKac is a New York-based firm founded in 2003 by Amale Andraos and Dan Wood. The firm has always believed in "the power of architecture and design to engage in environmental and social concerns, and to create new possibilities for the future." In that sense, the firm's principals define their approach to architecture as a constant evolution. For them, it is a continuous process of learning, questioning, and relearning, which is nurtured through the firm's engagement in local culture, climates, and histories, as well as discourse in the fields of ecology, landscape, and urbanism. In this way, they are able to bring these topics together with a focus on public, cultural, and civic projects that aim to reinvent how people live, work, and experience the world.
A new year has begun, and with it, a new edition of the ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. For 17 years, we have handed over the reins to you, our readers, to choose the best architectural projects of the year, and you have consistently delivered. With a brand new set of over 3,000 projects from around the globe, it is now time to get lost in our projects library and start making your selection.
From a tiny library in rural Myanmar, awarded in the first ever edition of the Building of the Year in 2009, to an innovative waste-to-energy plant in 2025, the winners of the Awards have always been surprising, inspiring and, most importantly, a reflection of the current architectural landscape. Anyone can register for a free ArchDaily account and vote, and we invite you to delve into the catalog of projects published in 2025—all of which are eligible to participate under one or more of the 15 available categories—to choose your favorites.
By operating with only five notes, the pentatonic scale establishes a stable and intuitive musical system in which structural clarity allows for variation without the risk of excessive dissonance. From this consolidated structure, which forms the basis of countless musical styles, especially popular music, the blues introduced a decisive inflection by incorporating additional notes into the scale. Without delving into excessive technicalities, these are subtle tonal deviations, small dissonances often associated with a more melancholic sound, known as blue notes. Played fleetingly rather than as emphatic accents, they briefly tension the system, adding expressiveness and depth while keeping the underlying structure intact.
If in music the blues scale operates through a subtle deviation that "seasons" the underlying structure, a similar principle can be identified in architecture. Although comparisons between different artistic languages are always delicate, it is possible to recognize projects that find their expressive strength not in rupture, but in localized inflections introduced within clear systems, whether of modulation, subtraction, materiality, or typology. Localized displacements and asymmetries function as internal tensions that do not compromise the coherence of the whole, revealing how expressiveness can emerge from controlled deviation rather than from permanent exception.
When developing an architectural project, there are multiple possible points of departure. Some architects begin with volume, gradually carving form in dialogue with its context. Others start from the longitudinal section, while some organize the project around the functional layout of the plan. There is no right or wrong method, but rather distinct approaches that reflect different ways of thinking about and making architecture. Since the widespread adoption of solar panels and photovoltaic energy, however, a recurring pattern has emerged: these systems are almost always introduced later in the process, framed as technical optimizations or responses to regulatory and energy-efficiency requirements. As a result, they tend to be treated as secondary elements, often relegated to rooftops or less visible areas and detached from the architectural language of the building.
Residential architecture remains one of the most active fields for unbuilt architectural exploration, offering a lens through which architects rethink how domestic space can respond to landscape, climate, and contemporary patterns of living. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected proposals bring together a range of residential projects that engage with houses, villas, and retreats as sites of withdrawal, mediation, and everyday inhabitation. Rather than treating the home as a fixed or isolated object, these projects approach it as a spatial framework that negotiates exposure, privacy, and connection to place.
In Latin America, encounters do not necessarily arise from grand architectural gestures or monumental urban plans. They emerge from the in-between, from intermediate spaces: the courtyard, the veranda, the sidewalk, the shared corridor. These areas, often considered residual or informal by the traditional architectural discipline, are precisely where everyday life builds bonds.
From this Latin American culture comes a spatial logic in which daily life is organized in a relational and expansive way. Practices such as sitting at the front door, occupying the sidewalk, and playing in the street produce a lived city that extends beyond the formal limits of design.
Architecture is increasingly asked to do less, not more. In environments shaped by constant movement, noise, and expectation, spaces that allow people to stay, pause, and be present have become both rarer and more necessary. Many public and semi-public places are designed to keep people moving, consuming, or reacting, leaving little room for lingering, observation, or simply being without a reason.
In response, a growing body of work is shifting attention away from activation and toward presence. Rather than asking users to interact or participate, these spaces create conditions that support staying. Comfort, continuity, and openness allow people to remain without pressure or obligation, making presence a spatial quality rather than an activity.
What does it mean to practice ecological responsibility beyond performance metrics or carbon calculations? How can fabrication become a design method rather than a final outcome? Founded in Seoul, Yong Ju Lee Architecture is a practice led by architect and researcher Yong Ju Lee. Across installations, research-driven proposals, and cultural projects, the studio positions architecture as an experimental discipline rooted in making: a process in which design emerges from material behavior, prototyping, and fabrication logic as much as from drawing or representation. Bridging professional practice and academia, his work consistently expands the architectural toolkit through computational design, experimental material research, and an evolving commitment to ecology as a responsibility and a design driver. In 2025, the studio was selected as a winner of the ArchDaily Next Practices Awards.
Launched in September 2024, the Rediscovering Modernism in Africa series joined a growing worldwide interest in this topic. Previously underrepresented in architectural discussions, the work of architects and researchers on the continent and abroad has continued to tell the story of these high-quality modern works of architecture. These buildings represent designers striving to create locally suited architecture using global concepts and technologies, coinciding with huge political changes as most African countries gained their independence.
Unlike most popular sports, the origin of basketball has a precise year and creator: it was invented in 1891 in the United States by Canadian physical education instructor James Naismith as an indoor sport for athletes at Springfield College during the winter, after the end of the football season. The sport quickly expanded beyond U.S. borders, being included in the Olympic Games in 1936 and achieving international popularity after the Second World War. As basketball became more widespread, it also left the controlled environment of gymnasiums and began occupying a wide range of locations: playgrounds, public plazas, school courtyards, driveways, and backyard patios became informal courts for play and community life, reinforcing the role of physical activity as a catalyst for social interaction and neighborhood regeneration.
You learn how to behave long before you arrive home. At the gate, you slow down and wait. You are watched, then waved through. A badge is checked, a barrier lifts, a camera blinks. Nothing dramatic happens, and that is precisely the point. The most consequential work of gated communities is not done by their walls, but by the choreography of entry that quietly teaches residents what to expect, whom to trust, and where they belong.
Lu Wenyu—co-founder of Amateur Architecture Studio with Pritzker laureate Wang Shu—has shaped many of the practice's most emblematic works across China, including the Ningbo History Museum and the Xiangshan Campus of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Often working outside the spotlight, her leadership is unmistakable in the discipline of execution and the roles she has assumed: in 2003, together with Wang Shu, she established the Architecture Department at the China Academy of Art, where she also serves as Director of the Sustainable Construction Center. Her practice and teaching form a reciprocal loop: research conducted in studios at the China Academy of Art continually folds back into construction strategies on site, while lessons learned in the field return to the classroom as material intelligence rather than abstract theory.
Founded by Oliver Thomas, the ATN Summit is the first flagship conference of the Archi-Tech Network, marking five years since the platform began as a grassroots initiative to share real-world architectural knowledge. Taking place on March 18–19, 2026, in London, the ATN Summit brings together architects, technologists, and industry innovators to explore how emerging technologies are reshaping architectural practice. Designed as a high-production, ideas-driven event, the Summit reflects ATN's evolution from an informal online conversation into a global platform actively engaging with the future of the built environment.
The magic of Indian architecture lies in an invisible order amidst visceral chaos. When an uncertain future knocks on the doors of local practitioners, one might begin to look within the four walls they occupy to discover an opportunity for reinterpretation.
Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and other major metropolises are described as needing massive housing solutions for millions. The instinctive answer is predictable — masterplans, dense towers, and standardized units smeared over haphazard developments. The lexicon misses a deeper truth about how the people already live, work, and build in India. The shorthand used in policy and planning — slum, informal settlement, unauthorized colony — implies a temporary state to be corrected. A designer's eye views these places as layered urban histories, formed through necessity.
Once a Najdi settlement defined by mudbrick walls and courtyard houses, Riyadh has undergone one of the most radical urban transformations of the 20th and 21st centuries. The discovery of oil reserves, the consolidation of political power, and the rapid expansion of infrastructure reshaped the city from a regional capital into a sprawling metropolis almost within a single generation. As a result, Riyadh's urban fabric is marked by discontinuities, fragments of vernacular architecture coexist with mid-century institutional modernism, and a rapidly evolving contemporary skyline.
In recent decades, this layered condition has been further intensified by large-scale development strategies and cultural investment programs that position architecture as a tool for redefining national identity. International practices have played a decisive role in shaping key institutions, infrastructures, and landmarks, while local studios increasingly contribute projects that reinterpret climate, materiality, and social space within a contemporary framework.
Historic center renewal has become a recurring strategy in Central American cities seeking to reassert the symbolic, economic, and functional relevance of their traditional cores. These processes often combine physical rehabilitation, institutional investment, and stricter control over public space. San Salvador offers a recent and instructive case, which allows for understanding of how interventions in inherited civic spaces balance infrastructure improvement with heritage conservation and social regulation. It also enables the assessment of how these choices resonate within broader debates on urban transformation in the region.
By shifting rotation away from traditional hinges and distributing weight vertically, pivot doors were developed to address a specific architectural challenge: how to move large, heavy door panels with precision, durability, and minimal visual interference. These systems allow doors to grow significantly in scale, weight, and material ambition, often blurring the line between door, wall, and architectural surface. Over time, this technical innovation has expanded the role of doors in architecture, allowing them to operate not only as points of access, but also as spatial thresholds, compositional devices, and expressive elements within the building envelope.
Highlighting this evolution, FritsJurgens established the Best Pivot Door Contest to showcase projects where engineering precision and architectural intent converge. Founded in the Netherlands, the company is internationally recognized for its concealed pivot systems capable of supporting exceptionally large and heavy doors. These systems give architects greater freedom in scale and materiality while maintaining precision, reliability, and architectural clarity.
In the translation of three-dimensional reality onto a two-dimensional plane, axonometry stands as one of the graphic systems of representation that form the foundation of the language used by architecture and design professionals. Alongside plans, sections, and elevations, its exploded views often stand out for their ability to study the multiple layers that compose a project. Although axonometry is also employed in other disciplines such as engineering and urban planning, it consistently proves its capacity to function as more than a mere representational tool, strengthening the understanding not only of a project's construction processes, materials, and structural systems but also expanding the communication of the ideas and design processes that shape a project.
How did a material conceived for bridges, factories, and large-scale structures make its way to the living room bench, the apartment bookshelf, the café table? For centuries, metal was associated with labor, machinery, and monumentality—from the exposed structures of 19th-century World’s Fairs to the productive logic of modern industry. Its presence in domestic interiors is not self-evident but rather a cultural achievement: the transformation of an industrial material into an element of everyday, intimate use, in close proximity to the body.
Leisure spaces are often where different generations cross paths. Without formal programs or assigned roles, they allow people to move, pause, and remain together, each engaging space in their own way. In a built environment increasingly shaped by specialization and separation, these shared spatial grounds have become less common, giving leisure-oriented architecture a renewed relevance.
Discussions around public space have repeatedly pointed to the value of openness and flexibility in supporting collective life. As architect Herman Hertzberger has noted, "the more a space can be interpreted in different ways, the more people it can accommodate." Rather than attempting to create interaction, architecture shapes the conditions that make togetherness possible.
Across cities worldwide, architecture unfolds continuously at the scale of people and community—not only through new buildings, renovations, or monumental works. "Third spaces" are especially revealing. Consider the street-side culinary realm: how seating, serving, and lingering occupy the edge of the street often discloses a city's cultural codes and spatial habits. What forms of dining and inhabitation have emerged in response to local climate, regulation, and social custom—and how have they evolved over time?
In parts of Europe, for instance, al fresco in Italy and en terrasse in France name culturally specific ways of dining in public, drawing the meal into the urban field—attuned to weather, air, and the passive sociability of people-watching. Since COVID-19, New York City has similarly expanded outdoor dining, reflecting a community-driven desire to engage the streetscape while eating—an everyday, street-level "third place" within a dense metropolis.
