Ma Yansong: The Latest Architecture and News

The second edition of The Bread & Heart Festival will be held in Tirana, Albania, from June 3 to 5, 2026. The annual event is organised by The Bread & Heart Foundation and co-curated with the NEWROPE Chair of Architecture and Urban Transformation at ETH Zürich. The Foundation's objective is to offer an open platform for dialogue on architecture, landscape, and development in Albania, a country undergoing rapid transformation and becoming one of the most active urban environments in Southeast Europe. The purpose of the event is to connect international figures from the architectural community, such as Francis Kéré, Jeanne Gang, Ma Yansong, and Sumayya Vally, with local practitioners, institutions, and a broader audience. As in 2025, the festival will take place at 51N4E's Book Building on Skanderbeg Square, bringing together participants under the theme "Landscapes of Abundance."

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Global Design Forum Istanbul concluded its inaugural edition between May 13 and 16, 2026, bringing together architects, designers, urbanists, and cultural practitioners through a city-wide programme of installations, talks, screenings, and public events. Presented by London Design Festival in collaboration with People Places Ideas, the forum was developed and curated by Artistic Director Melek Zeynep Bulut and Forum Content Advisor Beatrice Galilee. Organized around the theme "Worlds in Contact," the programme featured contributions from figures including Lina Ghotmeh, Marina Tabassum, Liam Young, Tom Dixon, Lesley Lokko, Ma Yansong, Andrew Waugh, and Olaf Grawer, positioning Istanbul as a platform for interdisciplinary discussions on design and the built environment.

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From April 20 to 26, Milan Design Week 2026 returns as a citywide platform where design operates as both a cultural practice and a form of exploration. Framed by the Fuorisalone theme "Be the Project," this year's edition shifts the focus from outcome to process, positioning design as a dynamic, human-centered act shaped by intuition, responsibility, and transformation. Installations and exhibitions across the city foreground making as an open-ended condition, one that embraces error, temporality, and experimentation as integral to creative production. Within this context, design becomes a space of exchange between disciplines, materials, and intelligences, reflecting broader conversations around sustainability, emerging technologies, and the evolving relationship between the physical and the digital.

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The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has elevated 78 architects to its College of Fellows, recognizing members whose work has demonstrated a sustained impact on the discipline and on society. Fellowship is described as one of the Institute's highest honors and is conferred upon architects who have advanced design excellence, strengthened professional practice, expanded architectural education, or contributed to public service. Selected by a nine-member Jury of Fellows chaired by Sanford Garner of RG Collaborative, this year's cohort reflects a wide range of geographic and professional backgrounds, with honorees representing firms, public agencies, and academic institutions across the United States.

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As the 19th International Architecture Exhibition enters its final week before closing on November 23, the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale offers a lens through which to revisit the ideas and experiments that have shaped this year's global architectural conversation. Curated by Carlo Ratti under the theme "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.", the Biennale brings together more than 750 participants across national pavilions, collateral events, and city-wide installations. Framed around interconnected forms of intelligence, this edition examines architecture's role in navigating climatic instability, evolving technologies, and emerging forms of collaboration.

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The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has announced that it will open to the public on September 22, 2026, adding a new cultural institution to Los Angeles's Exposition Park. Founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, the museum is dedicated to illustrated and narrative storytelling, understood as visual works that communicate stories across media and periods. The building is designed by Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, with landscape architecture by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA and Stantec serving as executive architect.

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As the 19th International Architecture Exhibition enters its final month before closing on November 23, the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale continues to reaffirm its position as one of the most influential global platforms for contemporary architectural discourse. Opened to the public on May 10 under the curatorship of Italian architect Carlo Ratti, this edition, titled "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective." brings together over 750 participants across 65 national pavilions, 11 collateral events, and numerous parallel initiatives throughout the city. Structured around the themes of Natural, Artificial, and Collective Intelligence, the Biennale examines how architecture can respond to the intertwined challenges of climate adaptation, technological transformation, and social collaboration.

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"Breathing Cells," an installation by MAD Architects, is currently on view at Songhyeon Green Plaza in Seoul as part of the 5th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. Invited by Biennale Director Thomas Heatherwick, the installation opened on September 26, 2025, and will remain on display until November 18. Responding to the curatorial theme "Radically More Human," the work presents an alternative vision for future urban environments, one where architecture behaves more like a living organism than a static object.

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French-Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh has been recognized on the TIME100 Next 2025 list, an annual ranking of emerging leaders and innovators across disciplines. Known for her sensitive approach to context and materiality, Ghotmeh has built an international portfolio that bridges tradition and modernity. In her TIME profile, written by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, Ghotmeh is praised for combining historical awareness with forward-looking experimentation. The acknowledgment positions her as the only architect on this year's list, highlighting the continued presence of design voices in a ranking that typically spans entertainment, politics, science, and business.

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Cities today are being reimagined as living, evolving organisms, combining digital intelligence, ecological systems, and new materials to shape radical futures. At Carlo Ratti's "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective." biennial, over 750 participants challenge established boundaries between architecture, landscape, and technology. Several conceptual projects showcased in the main exhibition challenge conventional boundaries between architecture, landscape, and technology. From bio-adaptive urban systems and Martian water-based settlements to immersive symphonies of satellite data, these works collectively envision new models for cohabitation, resilience, and planetary awareness.

This month's Unbuilt selection presents six speculative projects, presented as part of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale exhibition, as provocations for rethinking the future of cities and human settlement. While some proposals transform architecture into self-sustaining, living infrastructures, others explore how data and sensory interfaces can redefine our relationship with natural and urban environments. Together, they offer a cross-section of how architects and designers are using unbuilt work to imagine new possibilities for life on Earth and beyond.

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At the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, the Chinese Pavilion presents Coexist, an exhibition curated by Ma Yansong, founder of MAD Architects. The pavilion assembles ten interdisciplinary teams, spanning architects, scholars, students, scientists, and even social media participants, to collectively investigate the potential of architecture to reconcile contradictions between tradition and futurity, artificial and nature, technology and emotion. Rather than presenting a singular vision, Coexist aims to open space for responses to the diverse realities shaping contemporary architecture. While on site in Venice, ArchDaily's editors had the opportunity to discuss the ideas that shaped the Chinese Pavilion with the curator.

The exhibition "Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion," presenting the work of Chinese architect Ma Yansong and his globally recognized practice MAD Architects, has opened at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, the Netherlands' national museum for architecture, design, and digital culture. Featuring a selection of projects from MAD's international portfolio, the exhibition explores how the studio challenges conventional architectural paradigms through forms influenced by nature and guided by sensorial experience. The exhibition will be on view until 12 October, and on Thursday 26 June, Ma Yansong will be the guest of honour at the Nieuwe Instituut for "An Evening With...", a public program where he will discuss his design philosophy with Aric Chen.

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The Pavilion of China at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia presents the exhibition CO-EXIST, curated by Ma Yansong, founder of MAD Architects, and organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic of China at the Arsenale. Through ten works by twelve interdisciplinary groups, the pavilion examines how traditional Chinese philosophical thought can inform architectural responses in the age of advanced technology and artificial intelligence.

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The 19th International Architecture Exhibition, organised by La Biennale di Venezia under Carlo Ratti's curatorship and the theme "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective," is set to transform Venice into a "Living Laboratory" of experimentation and collaboration. This year's special projects extend beyond the exhibition grounds, integrating into various city locations and Forte Marghera in Mestre, providing an alternative perspective that expands the reach of architectural discourse.

The Biennale promises to be a dynamic platform uniting over 750 participants from diverse backgrounds, including architects, engineers, mathematicians, climate scientists, and artists. Such a broad coalition of over 280 projects underlines the Exhibition's focus on inclusivity and interdisciplinary collaboration, an essential aspect for adaptation. The selection process proposed a bottom-up, open call approach through the Space for Ideas initiative, which ran between May and June 2024. It encouraged participation from global teams, from Pritzker Prize winners and Nobel laureates to emerging architects and scientists.

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Designed by MAD Architects, the FENIX Museum of Migration is scheduled to open in Rotterdam's City Harbor in 2025. Currently under construction, the museum is set to explore the global narrative of migration through art, architecture, photography, and history. Situated in a 16,000-square-meter warehouse built in 1923, once part of the world's largest warehouse, the building has historical significance as a key storage and shipping hub for the Holland America Line. New construction photographs showcase the assembly of the metallic helix, named The Tornado, taking shape above the historical warehouse.

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Tencent is developing its new headquarters campus on five parcels spanning over 80 hectares east of Da Chan Bay Island in Qianhai, Bao'an District, Shenzhen. MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, has designed LOT 04 East of Tencent's new headquarters, envisioning two biomorphic office towers, three interconnected buildings, and a raindrop-shaped building. This project covers approximately 72,000 square meters with a Gross Floor Area of 412,000 square meters. Currently under construction, Lot 04 East of the headquarters is expected to be completed and open for users in 2025. Other projects announced for the campus include Büro Ole Scheeren’s swirling design for the Tencent Helix, and MVRDV’s residential complex named Tencent P5.

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The Hainan Science Museum, designed by Ma Yansong / MAD Architects, is progressing through its construction phases. The project began its design phase in 2020, broke ground in November 2021, and completed its main structure in June 2023. The museum, located on the west coast of Haikou City in Hainan Province, aims to be a landmark that integrates modern architecture with natural surroundings, promoting the convergence of technology and nature. The museum is expected to finish its curtain wall and landscaping by June this year and open for visitors in 2025.

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Ma Yansong/MAD Architects has unveiled their design for the Cloud 9 Sports Center, a 6,000-square-meter athletic complex in the city of Shijiazhuang, China. The venue is proposed to become the focal point of CBD's Central Park, marking the public space surrounded by residential, commercial, and recreational amenities. The center is designed to showcase a soft and fluid exterior to fit into its surroundings, mirroring the landscaped park while offering a range of facilities including a gym, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, and commercial spaces. The new sports center broke ground in March this year and is expected to be completed in 2025.

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