August 12, designated by the United Nations as International Youth Day since 1998, was conceived as an occasion to bring youth issues to the forefront of the international agenda and to celebrate the contributions of young people to today's global society. Each year, the observance focuses on a specific theme. In 2025, it is "Local Youth Actions for the SDGs and Beyond," emphasizing the role of youth in transforming global ambitions into community-driven realities. The aim is to highlight how young people help implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within local contexts and bridge the gap between policy and practice. In this spirit, we present three educational programs, in Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States, that empower youth to deepen their understanding of the built environment and envision a more sustainable, people-friendly urban future.
The French pavilion exhibition, entitled "Vivre avec / Living with," was developed by the agency Jakob+Macfarlane, formed by architects Dominique Jakob and Brendan MacFarlane, in collaboration with Martin Duplantier Architects and Eric Daniel Lacombe EDL. France's project for the 2025 Venice Biennale was selected through a two-phase competition, involving an initial pre-selection of five teams from forty-five applicants, followed by a detailed project presentation. The winning proposal focuses on architecture's capacity to address global challenges such as climate change, conflict, and instability, utilizing a combination of natural, human, and artificial intelligence.
The Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 presents a prototype that integrates landscape architecture into architectural interiors. Designed by Bas Smets in collaboration with Stefano Mancuso, the exhibition transforms the pavilion into a microclimate modeled after the understory of a subtropical forest, creating an indoor jungle that actively regulates temperature and humidity. The curatorial concept, supported by the Flanders Architecture Institute and its director, Dennis Pohl, promotes landscape thinking as an active design force rather than exterior decoration. In this video interview from Venice, Bas Smets and Dennis Pohl explain to ArchDaily editors how the project positions architecture as a platform for climate resilience and proposes a shift in design paradigms, from static images to evolving, living processes.
Returning for his second interview with ArchDaily, Sir Peter Cook sat with Editor in Chief, Christele Harrouk, at the World Architecture Festival 2025. While the first conversation focused on his advice for young architects, this one followed his presentation during WAF on the forthcoming book, Archigram Ten, an editorial project reviving the spirit of the original magazine with founding members and contemporary designers. Building on those themes, he reflects on artificial intelligence, the impact of COVID-19 on his own practice, and current architectural pedagogies.
Sierra Blanca Estates, a real estate development firm, has officially announced plans to build a new residential neighborhood in the coastal city of Málaga, Spain. According to the developers, the proposal is intended to address the city's growing demand for housing in the capital of the Andalucía autonomous community, located along the Mediterranean Sea in the southern Iberian Peninsula. The new neighborhood is planned for the El Bulto area and would include a 21-storey building designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Germany's contribution to the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 exposes visitors physically and psychologically to the future urban climate: a STRESSTEST that makes the need for immediate action palpable. The exhibition takes a clear stance: climate change is an unstoppable reality, and the measures taken so far are inadequate. It presents a scenario in which climate change manifests globally through rising temperatures, extreme weather, and sea level rise, with its effects directly felt at a local level: urban spaces suffering from heat stress. Curators Nicola Borgmann, Elisabeth Endres, Gabriele G. Kiefer, and Daniele Santucci have designed an exhibition to highlight the impacts of global warming on urban life in an urgent call to action, emphasizing that this reality threatens urban social life, productivity, and the health and survival of citizens.
Archinfo, the Information Centre for Finnish Architecture, has announced the theme, curator, and exhibition team for the Pavilion of Finland at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition, titled "The Pavilion – Architecture of Stewardship", will focus on the diverse labor involved in constructing and maintaining architecture, from design contributions by architectural workers and engineers to the efforts of construction workers, restoration architects, maintenance staff, and cleaners, all of whom play vital roles in the creation and upkeep of the built environment. Curated by Ella Kaira and Matti Jänkälä from the Helsinki-based architecture practice Vokal, it will use Alvar and Elissa Aalto's Pavilion of Finland to explore architecture as a collaborative endeavor.
Riken Yamamoto, born in Beijing in 1945 and raised in Yokohama shortly after World War II, is a Japanese architect celebrated for fostering community through architecture. After founding his practice, Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop, in 1973, he became renowned for works ranging from social housing, such as Hotakubo Housing and Pangyo Housing, to civic projects like the Hiroshima Nishi Fire Station and Saitama Prefectural University, all unified by modular simplicity. Honored in March 2024 as the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, he was praised by jury chair Alejandro Aravena for "blurring boundaries between public and private," fostering spontaneous social interaction, and "bringing dignity to everyday life" by enabling community to flourish through thoughtful design. In this interview with Louisiana Channel, the architect reflects on the social role of architecture, emphasizing the inseparable bond between housing and context, and the need to create spaces that foster visible, meaningful relationships.
The Cristo Rei Cathedral is Oscar Niemeyer's design for the cathedral of Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Conceived between 2005 and 2006, it is one of the late architect's final projects in the country. The design features a domed structure approximately 60 meters in diameter, suspended by two towering elements rising 100 meters high. Niemeyer referred to the project as a "square," consisting of a cathedral with a capacity for 3,000 people and an external altar designed to accommodate up to 20,000 worshippers for mass and public events. Construction began in 2013 and is still ongoing. Earlier this year, photographer Paul Clemence visited the site, documenting the building process and capturing the emergence of Niemeyer's signature curves.
The Getty Foundation's Conserving Black Modernism initiative was launched in 2022 as a grant program to preserve and ensure the legacy of African American architects within the Modernist movement across the United States. In partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, it supports conservation efforts, training, and educational initiatives to address the historical oversight of significant architectural landmarks and their designers' contribution. For its third funding cycle in 2025, five new buildings will receive critical support, expanding the initiative's reach into new communities with the first projects in Chicago and the Pacific Northwest.
The Ukrainian pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia explores the intersection of traditional building methods and improvised construction during wartime crises. Under the title "DAKH (ДАХ): Vernacular Hardcore", the exhibition refers to the concept of the roof ("dakh" in Ukrainian) as a primary shelter in architecture, examining the roofs of an "architecture without architects" both in the country's constructive tradition and in the contemporary reality of aerial vigilance over its national territory. Curated by Bögdana Kosmina, Michał Murawski, and Kateryna Rusetska, the Ukrainian display consists of a six-element exhibition at the Arsenale's Sale d'Armi and an accompanying nomadic program titled Planetary Hardcore.
Jenny E. Sabin is an American architect, designer, and educator known for her work at the intersection of architecture, computation, and biomaterials. She integrates digital fabrication, responsive materials, and bio-inspired design into her architectural practice and runs an experimental architecture studio, Jenny Sabin Studio, based in Ithaca, NY. In this interview with Louisiana Channel, she shares her personal journey from artist to scientist, explains how biological and material systems can be applied at an architectural scale, and discusses her teaching and research roles at Cornell University. She elaborates on her interest in bringing people together through new strategies for responsive and adaptive architecture. In her view, the connections between the digital, the physical, and the biological define a paradigm shift in the evolution of architecture, converging with other realms of physical experience to create a more interconnected future.
According to the World Bank, the Angola National Urbanization and Housing Program (PNUH), launched in 2008, aimed to build one million new housing units. However, by 2024, it had delivered only approximately 220,000. Power2Build, an Angolan construction startup, estimates the current housing deficit in Angola at around three million homes, with the situation particularly critical in Luanda, one of the fastest-growing cities on the African continent. With an entirely Angolan multidisciplinary team, Power2Build aims to contribute to reducing this deficit through the use of automated 3D concrete printing technology. Implemented on-site with large-scale construction printers from Danish company COBOD, the system is expected to accelerate construction timelines and improve building quality. Large-scale cement-based 3D printing eliminates the need for traditional molds by precisely placing or solidifying specific volumes of material in sequential layers using computer-controlled positioning. The process involves three key stages: data preparation, material preparation, and printing.
Soleil·s, the second edition of the Solar Biennale, is currently open at mudac, the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland. Following the first edition hosted at Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam in 2022, this exhibition explores how design can drive the adoption of solar innovations toward a sun-powered future. The event is initiated by The Solar Movement, founded by designers Marjan van Aubel and Pauline van Dongen, an initiative dedicated to making solar energy the default power source by combining design, technology, and advocacy. This year's exhibition is curated by mudac and offers an immersive experience featuring new and existing projects by TAKK, ecoLogicStudio, Olafur Elíasson, and Andreas Gursky.
Titled "Chinampa Veneta", the Mexican exhibition for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia seeks to promote reflection on how we inhabit, cultivate, and design the world we share. In the face of the global ecological crisis, the project draws attention to chinampas, an ancient Mesoamerican agricultural system with more than four thousand years of history. This ancestral knowledge, interweaving landscape, infrastructure, and technique, is reimagined in the context of the Biennale, activating a living environment within the city of Venice. The Mexican Pavilion consists of two "enactments," one located in the Arsenale and the other built on water.
The 39 storey Sudameris Plaza office tower. Image Courtesy of Foster + Partners
Foster + Partners has won an international competition to design the headquarters of Sudameris Bank in Asunción, Paraguay. The project, named Sudameris Plaza, is a 39-storey office tower featuring an exposed concrete frame and an angular form. It includes a landscaped plaza, art gallery, auditorium, and a large public garden at the tower's base. The studio aims to integrate greenery throughout the shared spaces of the building, fostering a strong connection with nature from within the tower.
Heatherwick Studio has unveiled the first design images of Hatai, a new public space and two hotels in the heart of Bangkok's Silom district. The complex marks the studio's first project in Thailand and is located on the historic site of the original Narai Hotel, within a bustling business area. The project envisions 5,200 square metres of new public space, including elevated walkways and a publicly accessible ground level with retail and services. The building design draws inspiration from the craftsmanship of traditional Thai lanterns, featuring a series of stacked, rounded forms.
