Liminal Air Space-Time by Shinji Ohmaki, Noor Riyadh 2025. Image Courtesy of Noor Riyadh
Noor Riyadh 2025 brought large-scale light installations to public sites across the Saudi Arabian capital, temporarily transforming transit hubs, historic districts, and significant landmarks into illuminated urban environments. From November 20 to December 6, 2025, Riyadh became a citywide gallery of light, motion, and shifting perception. The festival's fifth edition featured 60 artworks by 59 artists from 24 countries, including more than 35 new commissions, responding to the theme "In the Blink of an Eye." Through light as both medium and concept, the installations reinterpreted the capital's rapidly evolving architectural landscape and reflected how perception shifts in spaces shaped by heritage and ambitious urban development.
Attention art and design lovers! The 16th annual DesignTO Festival returns January 23 - February 1, 2026. Join us at multiple venues across Toronto for 10 days of inspiring exhibitions, installations, and events.
The architect's role has traditionally been relatively well-defined: design a building, direct the project, coordinate logistics, and guide construction through to completion. As specialised fields have proliferated, together with a rapidly changing social economy, the practice of architecture has diversified, opening multiple paths for how architects can contribute to society.
Since the 1980s, one of the most consistent shifts may have been the separation between the "design architect" and the "architect of record." Where a single office once carried a project from concept to completion, internationalisation—alongside cross-border work, licensure regimes, procurement models, and liability structures—has encouraged a split. Design teams increasingly set the conceptual and schematic direction, then hand over the design development to local record architects for technical detailing, approvals, and site execution. The model has clear advantages—sharper expertise, efficiency, and often profitability (or services offered at reduced fees)—but it also segments the profession and can distance authorship from delivery.
What, then, might the next shift be, and what new synergies could redefine the architect's role? How should architects adapt to the changing professional climate? One promising trajectory is a turn from singular, permanent objects toward ongoing placemaking—iterative, context-specific programmes that prototype, test, and refine spatial ideas in public. Rather than producing one large, iconic work that fixes a site for decades, this model privileges cycles of making, use, evaluation, and adjustment at the community scale.
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.
"Spinning Around" installation by Sophia Taillet. Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, 4–13 September 2025. Image Courtesy of Maison & Objet
This year, the Maison&Objet interior design trade fair and the city-wide celebration Paris Design Week joined forces to highlight emerging designers, bring renewed value to French métiers d'art, and temporarily transform heritage landmarks with contemporary design visions. Both events began on September 4, turning Paris into a city-wide design festival. Galleries, showrooms, and concept stores opened their doors, while renowned landmarks became venues for designers from more than 30 countries. The abundance and diversity of the program have drawn comparisons to Milan Design Week, while giving Paris a distinct platform on the global design calendar. This article presents a selection of installations and exhibitions of architectural interest that emerge from the synergy between the two initiatives.
In preserving architecture, there are many possible approaches—ranging from treating a building as a static monument, meticulously restoring it in situ to the point of limiting public access, to more adaptive strategies that reprogram and modify interior spaces while retaining key architectural elements such as materiality and structural form. Yet one method stands apart, both in ambition and in controversy: to deliberately dismantle a building—brick by brick—meticulously label and document each part, and store it until a new site, purpose, or narrative emerges. Then, to reassemble it anew, possibly for an entirely different use. Though the original context is lost, this strategy aims to preserve cultural significance through transformation rather than stasis. This is the story of Murray House in Stanley, Hong Kong.
Originally constructed in 1846 as officers' quarters for the British military in Central, Murray House was one of the earliest examples of neoclassical architecture in Hong Kong—a unique and enduring trace of the city's colonial past. Its robust granite colonnades and symmetrical façade stood as a symbol of classical permanence. During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong in 1941, the building's function was repurposed as the command center for the Japanese military police. It survived the war and continued to house various government departments throughout the postwar decades.
Architecture and Design Festival Concéntrico celebrates its 10th anniversary from 25 April to 1 May 2024 with an edition that aims to reflect on the impact of the annual festival upon the city of Logroño, Spain, as well as to consider how the city continues to evolve. Through installations, exhibitions, lectures, performances, workshops, and activities, Concéntrico proposes a reflection of the urban environment, welcoming architects and designers to intervene and challenge it while opening conversations about pressing matters.
While the official theme of the festival focused on the future of cities, the invited architects and designers took this suggestion further. Several overarching themes and subjects emerged during this year’s event, from the incorporation of concepts of time, an unusual element to be tacked through temporary installations, to the desire to engage more honestly with a wider public, to listen to their needs and create platforms where diverse perspectives can take center stage.
From April 25 to May 1, 2024, Logroño hosts the tenth edition of Concéntrico, a celebration of urban innovation and transformation. This year, the festival explores the future of cities, incorporating new formats, engaging diverse audiences, and tackling urban challenges through the lens of time as a catalyst for change in design. Featuring 20 interventions and activities involving over 100 professionals from 17 countries, the program encompasses processes such as renaturalizing public spaces, reimagining urban structures, and integrating recycled materials from previous editions.
Additionally, collaborations with educational centers ensure a lasting impact beyond the festival, fostering new collective practices in public spaces. Special projects such as "The street in 10 years" or initiatives involving students and pupils from local schools and educational centers further enrich the festival's engagement with communities across Spain.
Cuaderno de surcos / ji arquitectos + Blas Antón. Image Courtesy of Concéntrico
From April 25th to May 1st, 2024, in the Spanish city of Logroño, Concéntrico prepares for its 10th anniversary edition. Envisioned as a contemplation of changing urban environments and an opportunity to share insights about these processes, this year’s International Festival of Architecture and Design incorporates new formats to engage a wider audience and explore time as a catalyst for change in urban and social design. The festival expands its program, featuring 21 installations by designers of 20 different nationalities, in addition to several other initiatives and explorations.
Spanning continents and cultures, architecture-focused events serve as platforms for the gathering of diverse groups of professionals to share innovations and embark on dialogues regarding some of the most pressing matters faced by our profession. Embodying the spirit of collaboration, highlighting local cultures and practices, and fostering open debates, this year’s list of events covers a diverse range of biennales, forums, city-wide celebrations, international fairs, and awards.
Poplar Assembly / Francisco Javier García García . Image Courtesy of Concéntrico
Now in its 10th edition, Concéntrico, the international festival of architecture and design in Logroño, has announced the winners of the open calls for urban interventions. Responding to the call to ‘Celebrate the City,’ the winning proposals will be temporarily built in Plaza Escuelas Trevijano, in Viña Lanciano of Bodegas LAN, and in Paseo del Espolón in the Spanish town of Logroño. The Festival welcomes visitors between April 25 and May 1, 2024, to explore the city through installations, exhibitions meetings, and performances.
From October 12 to 18, NYCxDESIGN presents the Design Pavilion, a prominent public architectural exhibition in New York. Occurring during Archtober, a month-long celebration of architecture, this year's Design Pavilion highlights three imaginative installations spanning materiality, sustainability, social justice, and more.
Two tangible installations have been designed to transform Gansevoort Plaza in the Meatpacking District into urban retreats, while the third exhibit offers a digital art projection at the World Trade Center Podium, addressing the nation's history of enslavement and the quest for healing. Along with the pavilions, the Design Talks program highlights and opens discussions on relevant issues of the profession, centering around themes of sustainability, repurposing, and waste reduction.
Ramadan Pavilion. Image Courtesy of Victoria & Albert Museum
Ramadan Tent Project and V&A present the Ramadan Pavilion 2023, an architectural installation inspired by the holy month of Ramadan, which starts today. The Ramadan Pavilion 2023 is designed by architect Shahed Saleem and will be open to the public at the Exhibition Road Courtyard of the V&A South Kensington until May 1, 2023. As part of the annual festival, the pavilion is accompanied by a series of events, performances, and workshops curated by the Ramadan Tent Project.
Stefano Boeri has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the sixth edition of the Madrid Design Festival. According to the organizers, this recognition pays homage to a “great figure in design”. It acknowledges the significance of his contributions to the disciplines of architecture and urban planning, as well as publishing and academia. The award ceremony, held at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (ILE), was conferred by the architect Rafael Moneo, who personally handed the award to Stefano Boeri.
NEWSUBSTANCE transforms an oil rig into a 35 meters tall public art installation in Weston-super-Mare, UK. The mega-platform features a 10- meter-high waterfall, a wild garden, and a 6,000-piece kinetic installation, including Ivan Black's work and Trevor Lee's art pieces. From 24 September to 5 November 2022, "SEE MONSTER" will welcome the public to inspire conversations about reuse, renewables, and the great British weather, as part of the festival UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK.
Under the theme of 'The Greater Number', the Dutch Design Week (DDW) returns with a physical edition from the 16 until the 24th of October 2021 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The largest design event in Northern Europe has decided for its comeback to tackle the notion of less consumption, less production, and less waste. Knowing that this is not always possible, the design happening also calls for more sustainable products with more value.
Striving to change the behavior of consumers and manufacturers, Dutch Design Week organized lectures, debates, and exhibitions, from which ArchDaily selected 8 architecturally relevant interventions to underline. Highlighting ideas that can shape a positive future, the list is mostly focused on future cities, while also tackling notions such as adapted realities, connected living, interactive experiences, and designing society.
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Courtesy of Tobias Titz / National Gallery of Victoria
In celebration of the inaugural Melbourne Design Week, which took place in March 2017, Chilean design studio Great Things to People (gt2P) presented their Catenary Pottery Printer, aimed at exploring the boundaries between digital and analog machines. Throughout the design festival, local designers and students used the pottery printer to create their own custom works, with visitors welcomed to watch the craft in action.
