Ambrosian Monastery, Milan. Image Courtesy of Stefano Boeri Architetti
As global urban challenges intensify alongside growing environmental, social, and cultural pressures, this week's news reflects how institutions, exhibitions, and restoration projects are highlighting the relationship between the built environment and collective experience. From international forums addressing housing insecurity and urban resilience to cultural events examining memory, identity, and spatial perception, positioning architecture as both a framework for policy and a medium for critical reflection. At the same time, major restoration and redevelopment initiatives highlight a renewed focus on preserving historical continuity while adapting heritage sites and cultural institutions to contemporary forms of use, accessibility, and public engagement.
Co-organized by UN-Habitat and the Government of Azerbaijan, the thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum 13 will take place in Baku from May 17 to 22, 2026, under the theme "Housing the World: Safe and Resilient Cities and Communities." Convened every two years by UN-Habitat, the World Urban Forum is considered one of the leading international conferences dedicated to urbanization and the future of cities. Bringing together architects, planners, policymakers, researchers, local governments, and civil society organizations, the forum serves as a platform for discussing the challenges shaping contemporary urban environments and the strategies needed to address them.
Today's housing crisis is a global phenomenon that can be broadly divided into two major problems: a shortage of residential buildings and barriers to accessing those that already exist. The deficit is real and concrete when it comes to what the UN calls "adequate housing for all." According to UN-Habitat, an estimated 96,000 new housing units would need to be built per day to meet population needs by 2030. Climate change and forced migration are broadening the gap. But 2.8 billion people worldwide, representing nearly 40% of the global population, lack access to stable shelter, secure land, and basic sanitation services not only because of underproduction, but also due to an economic barrier: an affordability crisis. As demand grows and prices rise, housing, now increasingly functioning as a form of social security, becomes a target for rental income and real estate speculation. As adequate housing is a human right, pressure on governments and private entities is increasing worldwide to limit speculation and ensure fair access to existing dwellings. Below, we present four examples of initiatives in Spain, Australia, France, and the United States that aim to urgently expand housing access while limiting speculation.
Highlighted Submissions: Common Spaces. Image Courtesy of Buildner
Buildner, in collaboration with the City and County of Denver and AIA Colorado, has announced the winners of the Denver Affordable Housing Challenge, an international ideas competition exploring how affordability and design excellence can reinforce one another within the specific urban, social, and environmental context of Denver.
As the nineteenth edition in Buildner's Affordable Housing Challenge series, the competition invited architects and designers from around the world to respond to Denver's housing crisis through proposals operating at architectural, urban, and systemic scales. The brief did not prescribe a single site or typology but, rather, encouraged flexible strategies capable of addressing affordability, climate resilience, and community impact while contributing positively to Denver's urban identity.
The potential of existing buildings to shape cities and communities in flux through reuse and adaptation is the key focus of HouseEurope! and their activism: addressing the pressing challenge across much of Europe, where it is often easier, cheaper, and faster to demolish buildings than to renovate. For decades, construction policies, industrial practices, and market systems have favored new development, often undervaluing the cultural, social, and environmental significance of existing structures. For their work advocating systemic change in architecture, HouseEurope! received the 2025 OBEL Award under the theme "Ready Made." In a conversation with ArchDaily, collective members of HouseEurope! Alina Kolar and Olaf Grawert discussed the organization's approach to architecture, policy, and collective action.
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.
The Empire State Development (ESD) Board of Directors has approved a major office-to-residential conversion project at 5 Times Square, New York City, as announced by the New York state government. Originally built in 2002 as the headquarters for Ernst & Young, with Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) as the design architect, the building has been largely vacant since the corporation vacated the premises in 2022, with vacancy rates remaining around 75 percent. Gensler's proposal aims to repurpose this underutilized office space into a mixed-use complex, introducing up to 1,250 new homes, including 313 permanently affordable units.
The Los Angeles City Council has approved the revised Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (Citywide ARO), which is planned to take effect in 2025. Building on the success of the 1999 ordinance, which facilitated the creation of over 12,000 housing units in Downtown LA, the updated policy aims to address the city's ongoing housing crisis and repurpose underutilized buildings.
Devastating wildfires across Los Angelesa have resulted in widespread destruction, displacing thousands of residents, and necessitating a rapid and efficient rebuilding process. Two executive orders have been issued to expedite the rebuilding process, one by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and another by California Governor Newsom, both intending to remove significant regulatory hurdles and expedite project approvals.
The housing crisis, the need for effective land management policies, and the growing demand for housing aid are global challenges, and Spain has taken significant steps to address these issues in recent years. While this effort is closely tied to rehabilitating obsolete buildings, it also tackles the challenges of densification and gentrification. These factors have prompted the exploration of new housing models and ways of living, leading to the development of affordable residential buildings designed to accommodate large numbers of inhabitants while maintaining high-quality living standards.
The pursuit of an ideal city has long been a topic of debate among architects and urban planners. In addition to aesthetic identity and cultural heritage, the quality of life in every city represents perhaps the most important marker in this pursuit. This year, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, has released its Global Liveability Index 2024, highlighting the cities that excel in this ongoing quest. For the third consecutive year, Vienna ranked as the most liveable city in the world. European cities Copenhagen, Zurich, and Geneva also rank high, attributed to their smaller populations, which contribute to lower crime rates and less congestion. In comparison with the 2023 ranking, the numbers for North American and Australian cities have been dragged down by the ongoing housing crisis.
The assessment ranks 173 cities from around the world. Each city is scored based on 30 qualitative and quantitative factors evaluating 5 categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. The scores are based on external data points, in-house analysts, and in-city contributors. The category of stability has registered the biggest decline, as protests and armed conflicts increased in incidence. At the bottom of the cist, the city of Damascus, Syria, continues to be ranked as the least liveable city in the survey, followed by Tripoli, Libya, reflecting severe instability.
Buildner has announced the results of the Kharkiv Housing Challenge, the first competition in a two-part series focused on rebuilding Ukraine. Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has been deeply affected by the ongoing conflict, and this competition is part of a broader effort to rebuild its housing and public spaces.
Designing a typical residential building rarely involves its future residents. Often created by property developers in response to predefined market demands, the projects are rarely optimized for livability. An emerging development system that began in Germany aims to change this dynamic and reposition the residents at the core of the new housing developments. The Baugruppe system, German for "building group," proposes an alternative approach to housing that allows groups of individuals to come together to design and construct their residential spaces, bypassing traditional developers to create personalized and sustainable living environments.
One of the biggest current challenges in large cities is the housing crisis and the lack of efficient solutions to mitigate its effects on citizens. This problem is exacerbated in cities where tourism and vacation or temporary housing dominate the market, distancing residents from the possibility of accessing affordable urban housing. Furthermore, gentrification, driven by rising rents and real estate speculation, contributes to the displacement of local communities, transforming traditional neighborhoods into areas exclusively oriented toward tourist consumption.
