House with Seven Gardens / Civil Architecture. Image Courtesy of Civil Architecture
For centuries, domestic architecture throughout the Gulf has been organized around the courtyard. Houses presented thick exterior walls and limited openings to the street, turning inward toward a shaded garden that structured everyday life. This spatial arrangement responded to both climate and culture. The courtyard brought daylight into deep plans, enabled cross-ventilation, and provided a protected outdoor environment within dense urban fabrics. In the House with Seven Gardens, in Diyar Al Muharraq, Bahrain, the Bahrain-based practice Civil Architecture, one of the winners of the ArchDaily 2025 Next Practices Awards, revisits this spatial tradition through the conditions of contemporary suburban housing. Rather than reproducing the courtyard house as a historical model, the project reinterprets its environmental logic within the regulatory frameworks and spatial conditions that shape much of today's urban development in the Gulf.
The ultimate accolades of World Building of the Year supported by GROHE, World Interior of the Year, Future Project of the Year and Landscape of the Year were announced today as hundreds of architects from across the world convened at a grand finale Gala Dinner at Miami Beach Convention Center in Florida. A host of Special Prizes, including the American Beauty Prize supported by the Royal Fine Art Commission Trust, were also announced at the closing event to celebrate the eighteenth edition of the festival. The announcement follows the final day of WAF, in which prize winners across all 43 categories have been competing for the winning titles.
https://www.archdaily.com/1036083/world-building-of-the-year-and-interior-of-the-year-revealed-at-world-architecture-festival-2025Enrique Tovar
At the heart of design lies the intersection of technique and creativity—a space where ideas take shape and environments are reimagined. In a world prevalent with mass-produced objects, the focus is shifting toward something more deliberate, where every decision opens up new possibilities and allows design to break free from the conventional. Think of the LC1 armchair by Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona chair—not simply furniture, but outcomes that illustrate a studio-driven freedom where ideas, materials, and finishes are allowed to converse, not conform. These pieces don't just fill a room; they reimagine it. This spirit of innovation now extends to every detail, from kitchen to bathroom fittings, where the range of choices—materials, form, and function—becomes an opportunity to craft something truly unique.
https://www.archdaily.com/1029100/swan-taps-checkered-seashell-fixtures-and-the-new-frontier-of-bespoke-designEnrique Tovar
The Royal Institute of British Architects has awarded RIBA House of the Year 2022, to a "contemporary new family house in rural Dorset," the Red House by David Kohn Architects. Inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, the structure "reinterprets the style in an intentionally provocative way [...] [with] playful eccentricity, including oversized eaves, patterned red brickwork, and contrasting bold green details".
Housing is a mess in Northwest Arkansas. The metropolitan area between the college town of Fayetteville, the buzzing art hub of Bentonville, and the bedroom communities of Rogers and Springdale are expected to double in size over the next two decades, and like many quickly growing urban areas across the country, there aren’t enough places to live.
In addition to their primary function, roofs are one of the most fundamental elements in the aesthetics of a building, taking different shapes, being composed of different structures and sealed by different materials. But, in addition to aesthetics, roofs need to meet the climatic conditions of where they are located, considering the periodic changes related to rain, sun and winds.
In architecture, one of the challenges faced by professionals is the design with sloping terrain. The steep slopes make it possible to think of an architecture that faces this context, being an opportunity to work in contact with the place, the spatiality, the visuals and the different heights.
Peru in the western and central part of South America, with its multiple geographical conditions in its three large regions -coast, andean and jungle-, has an architecture that is particularly committed to its landscape. The range of varied solutions has a unique and contextual architecture. The following list shows 10 residential projects in Peru, which reveal diverse architectural approaches.
Reforma en Sants, Un oasis en el corazón del Poblenou, Departamento THE DUKE, Reforma de vivienda en la calle Calabria. Montaje con fotografías de reformas en Barcelona. Image via ArchDaily
Nowadays, the integral reform of flats in Barcelona is one of the most common activities for both freelance architects and local architectural studios. This is not surprising in a city with more than 4,000 years of history in which there is a lot of buildings and little room for new construction.
Handicraft translate the culture of a people and, therefore, carry a strong presence when placed in residential spaces. Through the most varied techniques, it represents traditional methods and acts in the memory of each person who crosses it. Therefore, regardless of the scale at which it is presented - from small art objects to large furniture, or even as a component of architecture itself -, thinking about handcrafted elements can be an important step in improving the aesthetic language of a project.
Pipes, wiring and ducts of different materials in walls, ceilings and roofs make up all the spaces we walk through and inhabit. They represent the set of networks and equipment necessary for the development of life in our buildings, providing services such as water, electricity or gas, among many others. According to the regulations in each country and the use defined in each space, the installations can be left visible, giving a certain character and aesthetic to interior spaces.
Art Deco + Art Moderne (1920–1945). Image Cortesía de American Home Shield
The history of architecture is made up of demographic, cultural, and social changes. In its relatively short history, American architecture has evolved with changes in the country, representing the catalog of various cultural influences that make up the United States as a whole. Many elements of American home design have remained intact over the past 450 years, reflecting longstanding American traditions and values that have stood the test of time.
José Adrião. Douradores Apartments Lisbon | 2013–2020. Photo by Nuno Almendra, 2020
"The house is among the first concepts shared by society and architecture", states André Tavares and Pippo Ciorra, curators of the exhibition called At Home: Projects for Contemporary Housing, on display at Garagem Sul / Centro Cultural Belém, in Lisbon. The show, which is the unfolding of another one previously held at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, gathers pieces from the huge collection of the Italian institution and seeks intersections with contemporary Portuguese architectural production. Its main topic – the house, the home – has never been more discussed than right now.
Bringing together houses of different scales, built in diverse locations by various methods and techniques, and designed by Italian, Portuguese and international architects, the exhibition gathers, in groups of three, projects from which it is possible to weave relationships that go beyond geographies and materialities and foster reflections about the future of housing and what the home of tomorrow will look like.
We had the opportunity to talk with Tavares and Ciorra about the exhibition, its motivations and expectations with its opening in the physical venue of Garagem Sul. Read below.
Focusing on the different typologies of houses, this week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights conceptual projects submitted by the ArchDaily Community. From urban developments to tiny homes, this article explores the topic of residential architecture and presents approaches from all over the world.
Featuring a cabin amidst the verdant forested region of northern Iran, a development in Georgia that offers an 80% recreational space to 20% housing ratio, and a project in Paris that re-questions our urban reality, and rethinks traditional forms of housing, this roundup tackles a multitude of scales. In addition, it underlines a collection of beach houses in Greece, Italy, Argentina, and Latvia each responding to a different landscape and topography. Other ideas underlined include the renovation of existing developments in Moscow, a residential-led transformation of a former factory in Manchester, and a family of blocks grouped around an elevated communal garden in the Netherlands.
In architecture, split-level houses are typically in response to a plot's uneven or sloping topography. In the case of the houses featured here, their split level interiors are a matter of function, allowing spaces to be virtually separated by dividing them between raised and semi-subterranean floor layouts. For example, adjoining two spaces with a 50cm step up or drop off allows for separation without the use of walls or other physical barriers.
Going out twice per month, our curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture submitted by our readers highlights inventive conceptual approaches and designs. Showcasing projects from all over the world, this article puts together several programs, from houses to master plans. Moreover, it presents winning proposals from international competitions, buildings in progress, and creative concepts.
In the housing category, the roundup features an underground bunker-like house plan in Ukraine, a suspended glass structure cabin in Portugal, a complex of residential units in France, and a site-less, style-inclusive reinterpretation of the vertical housing block. In addition, a playful commercial building in Iran, a WWI memorial in Serbia, and an extension for the Glasgow School of Art join the selection, with their imaginative architecture and out of the box ideas.
ARC House. Image Courtesy of M.E architecture studio
Houses and Villas are the most researched topics on ArchDaily. Putting together a curated selection of conceptual interventions, this week’s Best Unbuilt Architecture focuses on the residential sector. From all over the world, this group presents proposals submitted by our readers.
This article highlights a floating terraces project from India, a lodge in Ethiopia, a seasonal home for an Iranian family in Germany, and a residential compound in Saudi Arabia. Beach houses in Greece, Croatia, and the U.S. are also featured, showcasing different approaches for the same program. Moreover, more futuristic interventions include the Mountain House on the rocky cliffs of British Columbia, and the blue house, an aquarium-like type of home.
In all cities around the world, there are some forms of residual space, forgotten pieces of the urban fabric, remnants of overlapping layers of past development. This land whose conditions make it unsuitable for most types of conventional construction might be a fertile ground for architectural invention. Assigning a new value to vacant corner lots, dead-end alleys and strangely shaped plots opens up a new field of opportunities for inward urban development, expanding available living space and increasing amenities in densely populated cities. The following explores the potential for experiment and urban activation held by urban leftover space.
.jpg?1594806627 "Glasgow School of Art Extension . Image Courtesy of Barry Wark Architecture")
.jpg?1594808114 "Underground House Plan B . Image Courtesy of Sergey Makhno Architecs")
