MVRDV has revealed the design for WOMA, a mixed-use development planned for Wynwood Norte, Miami, in collaboration with Quito-based developer Uribe Schwarzkopf and Miami-based architect of record Kobi Karp. The development is planned on the site of a former coffee roasting company and takes cues from Wynwood Norte's industrial character and evolving creative community. Located alongside the nonprofit Bakehouse Art Complex, the project is intended to contribute to the area's growing network of spaces dedicated to art, fashion, and making.
OMA, led by Partner Jason Long, together with San Francisco-based Y.A. Studio, has completed 730 Stanyan, a mixed-use affordable housing development in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Developed by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) and Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC), the project provides 160 permanently affordable homes for low-income families, formerly unhoused families, and Transitional Age Youth (TAY). Located at the intersection of Haight and Stanyan Streets, adjacent to the entrance of Golden Gate Park, the development marks OMA's first completed 100% affordable housing project in the United States.
MVRDV Bihailou Art Village. Image Courtesy of MVRDV
Designed by MVRDV, Bihailou Art Village is a mixed-use cultural and commercial centre currently under construction in Shenzhen, China. Located in the Shatoujiao neighborhood near the Hong Kong border, the mixed-use project combines cultural, commercial, and public programs within a vertically stacked composition derived from the firm's "Vertical Village" concept. Designed to accommodate independently operating venues while maintaining publicly accessible circulation, the development reinterprets the scale and spatial character of the surrounding urban fabric through a series of distinct volumes.
The Martin, a residential building designed by OMA's David Gianotten and Mariano Sagasta, has been completed in Amsterdam's Bajes Kwartier. Located within the Central Cluster of the 7.5-hectare redevelopment, the project is the latest completed component of OMA's master plan to transform the former Bijlmerbajes prison complex, which operated between 1978 and 2016, into a mixed-use, energy-neutral neighborhood. The completion follows that of The Jay in 2025, while a third residential building, The Cardinal, is expected to be finished in 2030.
MVRDV has been selected to design Inaura, a mixed-use hotel and residential tower in DowntownDubai, developed by Arada. The project will rise to 210 meters on a site located between Downtown Dubai and Business Bay, with views toward the Burj Khalifa and the Dubai Fountain. Following the competition, MVRDV will continue its involvement as design guardian, while Dubai-based Dewan Architects + Engineers will act as lead consultant. The interiors will be developed based on a concept by MVRDV, aligned with the developer's focus on fitness, wellness, and lifestyle-related programs.
International firms Studio Gang and Henning Larsen have completed Breakthrough Properties' One Milestone. The life science development is part of the first phase of Tishman Speyer and the Harvard Allston Land Company's Enterprise Research Campus (ERC), a 14-acre mixed-use district in Boston's Allston neighborhood. Located on the southwest end of the ERC, One Milestone is intended to serve as a hub for creativity, science, and entrepreneurship. Its recently inaugurated two-building complex, spanning 47,380 sqm, was designed to serve Greater Boston's scientific community. The two firms began collaborating on the project in 2019 with the co-design of a strategic framework plan, breaking ground on One Milestone in 2023.
OMA has completed the Hangzhou Prism, a large-scale mixed-use development in Hangzhou's Future Tech City district, China, following a design and development process that began in 2016. Commissioned by Xinhu Real Estate Group and led by OMA Partner Chris van Duijn, with Michael Hadjistyllis serving as project architect, the project combines residential units, a hotel, offices, commercial spaces, and public amenities within a single building volume. Marking OMA's first completed project in Hangzhou, the development occupies a central site within one of the city's emerging innovation and business districts.
A former industrial site along the Someș River in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, is being transformed into a large-scale mixed-use district that reconnects the city with its waterfront. Designed by UNStudio in collaboration with Felixx Landscape Architects and Planners for developers IULIUS and Atterbury Europe, the RIVUS project combines urban regeneration, adaptive reuse, landscape design, and new public infrastructure within a single framework. Developed through a public participation process involving local residents, the proposal will transform the former Carbochim industrial platform into a river-oriented district organized around public space, mobility, and everyday urban activity.
Twenty years after its ideation, Herzog & de Meuron's controversial Tour Triangle in Paris is reaching completion. The triangular, all-glass tower located in the city's 15th arrondissement topped out at 42 stories on April 24, 2026. The project's progress was marked by opposition, financial roadblocks, and legal disputes before construction began in 2022. The 180-meter tower is now the third-tallest building within Paris city limits, behind the 330-meter-tall Eiffel Tower, the 231-meter-tall The Link in La Défense, and the 210-meter-tall Tour Montparnasse. The building will retain this title indefinitely due to a skyscraper ban reinstated in 2023 by Mayor Anne Hidalgo, following persistent opposition to tall buildings in the city. The recent progress was documented by photographer Stefano Candito, ranging from an urban view of the building to a close-up look at its nearly completed structure.
Rotterdam-based firm MVRDV has announced a new milestone in the development of its Tour & Taxis Towers, a mixed-use project in Brussels, Belgium. The design was commissioned by real estate investor and developer Nextensa in 2021, within the framework of a site-specific land use masterplan also designed by MVRDV. The two-tower project combines offices, housing, and public amenities across 58,000 m², forming a landmark in the neighbourhood and reaching 126 metres at its highest point. Recently granted construction permission, the project is designed to reduce embodied carbon through the use of a hybrid structure and lightweight façade elements, aiming to minimize the use of concrete in both the structure and foundations. From the early stages, the firm has employed its CarbonSpace software to guide these decisions.
European City Context. Image Courtesy of ReGreeneration
The ReGreeneration project, a Horizon Europe project led by Inetum and supported by C40 Cities, ARUP, Placemaking Europe, and several others, operates as an active collaboration with local governments, private companies, academia, and civil society organizations at the intersection of urban regeneration, green public spaces, and neighborhood-scale design. Its premise addresses how European cities are built and maintained and how they experience a changing climate, arguing that cities must fundamentally change to remain livable under accelerating climate pressures.
Photographer Paul Clemence documented the International Gateway Centre (IGC) in West Kowloon, a mixed-use development by Zaha Hadid Architects in Hong Kong, as it approaches completion. The photo series captures the project at a stage where its overall massing, facade systems, and spatial organization are largely realized, while final works continue across public and interior areas. Clemence's close-range views highlight the vertical shading pleats, the curvature of the glazed envelope, and the transitions between structural and environmental elements, underscoring how the building's formal language is resolved through construction.
As housing shortages and affordability challenges intensify across global cities, this week's architectural discourse centers on how design, policy, and adaptive strategies intersect to shape the future of urban living. Initiatives range from grassroots movements and legislative reforms aimed at expanding access to housing to innovative models that rethink ownership, development, and community engagement. At the same time, architects are reimagining existing structures and districts, transforming underused offices, historic landmarks, and unfinished buildings into mixed-use, culturally significant, or publicly accessible spaces. Across scales, these stories illustrate how architecture negotiates scarcity, value, and social priorities, demonstrating its capacity not only to produce new buildings but also to recalibrate urban environments in ways that balance heritage, sustainability, and human experience.
World Trade Center Biotic, Brasília. Image Courtesy of Architects Office
Located within the Parque Tecnológico de Brasília, the World Trade Center Biotic is a mixed-use development designed by Brazilian studio Architects Office as part of the district's broader urban expansion. The project is part of the master plan developed in 2020 by Carlo Ratti Associati and is currently being developed. Conceived as a multi-program complex, the proposal brings together offices, residential units, a hotel, retail spaces, and shared facilities within a single urban framework. The project occupies a site of approximately 70,000 square meters and is planned to reach about 180,000 square meters of built area, with an estimated 150,000 square meters expected to be completed by 2030.
RSHP has won a competition to redevelop the Rives-Défense site in La Défense, the business district of Paris. Announced during MIPIM, the project envisions the transformation of an 8-hectare site at the western edge of the district into a low-carbonmixed-use neighborhood. Commissioned by Paris La Défense, the proposal is developed by a multidisciplinary team led by RSHP and including Atelier SOIL as co-architect and urban planner, Altitude 35 as landscape architect, Arcadis as engineering consultant, as well as Atelier Franck Boutté, Urban Eco, and Mobius.
Rojkind Arquitectos, in collaboration with artist Pedro Reyes, SON Architects, Motus Holdings, and ASAB, has been selected as the winner of the mixed-use component in the International Concept Design and Build Competition for the redevelopment of the Zyber Hallulli site in Tirana, Albania. Organized by the Albanian Investment Corporation in partnership with the National Agency for Territorial Planning, the competition was launched in September 2025, with the jury announcing its decision on January 29, 2026. The proposal led by the Mexico-based office was awarded the mixed-use development, while a separate Mexican practice, Taller Héctor Barroso, was selected to design CASA FAMILIA, a new children's campus to be built on a greener, more child-oriented site.
