Ranking: The Latest Architecture and News

As architectural discourse continues to expand across cultural, educational, and civic domains, this week's developments highlight how the discipline operates simultaneously through legacy, knowledge production, and large-scale public engagement. From reflections on influential figures and their enduring impact to evolving academic landscapes and new forms of cultural infrastructure, architecture is positioned as both a repository of ideas and an active agent in shaping contemporary identities. At the same time, projects spanning entertainment, museums, and waterfront developments point to a growing emphasis on hybrid programs and experiential environments, where architecture mediates between culture, public life, and global audiences.

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Every year, the QS World University Rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) releases an updated list of best university programs worldwide. In the field of Architecture and the Built Environment, the list includes 250 institutions. The ranking evaluates institutions across all continents. This year, The Bartlett School of Architecture (part of UCL) maintains its position in first place, as the top 10 list sees a reorganization of the selected universities, with no new entrants. Tsinghua University is the only one among them to improve its position since last year, rising from eighth to joint seventh.

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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.

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QS, Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, has announced the annual list of the top universities to study Architecture and the Built Environment in the year 2024. The ranking evaluates over 1,500 institutions from over 100 locations. The evaluation system has been updated this year to include new metrics such as sustainability, employment outcomes, and international research networks.

The top three contenders, the Bartlett School of Architecture, MIT, and Delft UT, have maintained their ranking from 2023, with ETH Zurich showing a slight decrease from an equal third position to the fourth. In the sixth position, Harvard University stands out as the top university for employer reputation in this subject. Among the top 10 universities, Politecnico di Milano had the greatest advancement in rankings, moving from the 10th position last year to the 7th.

The annual BAM ranking of International Master’s Programs in Architecture aims to assist architects and students in identifying the top international Master’s programs globally. Assessing programs from various leading architecture schools, it evaluates degrees through a comparative approach developed by a panel of 15 professors and international experts. For this edition, different Architecture and Built Environment programs have been selected to be part of the BAM Ranking 2023, and 18 Universities worldwide were featured in the 2023 edition of the BAM Ranking.

Similar to the past few years, Harvard University, Columbia University, and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid maintained their position at the top of the ranking. MIT has made the list with two programs, one focused on urbanism and the other on design. Moreover, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, made the list with their English Program for Master in Architecture. The ranking also features TUDelft (Netherlands), TUM (Munich), and TUBerlin (Berlin) in Europe.

QS- Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings just announced the 2023 top universities to study Architecture and the Built Environment. The index rates over 1,400 schools and covers a total of 54 disciplines, grouped into five broad subject areas, based on five indicators "to effectively reflect their performance, taking into account academic reputation, employer reputation, and faculty research".

In this edition of the 2023 Architecture/ Built Environment category, UCL dethrones MIT, which stayed in the first position for three consecutive years. MIT came second, while both the Delft University of Technology and ETH Zurich took third place. The Manchester School of Architecture makes its first debut in the top 5, followed by Harvard, the National University of Singapore, and Tsinghua University in China. Berkeley moved to ninth position and Politecnico remains a non-mover at 10, for the third year.

In a letter published on MIT's School of Architecture and Planning’s website, 16 deans from prominent architecture schools in the U.S, explain their position to stop participating in the annual survey that ranks universities. "Design education is not a popularity contest. Although generally our schools have been highly ranked in past DesignIntelligence reports and benefitted from the attention, we believe that it is time to stop participating", declares the statement signed by scholars, deans, and department chairs of MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Yale, Rice, and UCLA, to name a few.

Stating clearly their position to boycott future ranking, the decision came after two years of informal discussions where the methodologies used behind these academic surveys were questioned, as well as their consequences. In fact, the letter adds that "however well-intentioned they may be, we believe that the DI rankings have the potential to create a disservice to the public". 

Global Finance's ranking of the world's best cities to live in, during 2022 has just been released. Centered on 8 different parameters that calculate and compare the quality of life of people living in urban areas such as economy, culture, population, environment, etc., this year’s edition also took into consideration Covid-19 deaths per thousand for each country, to reflect the new reality we live in. With data from the Global City Power index, Johns Hopkins University, Statista, and Macrotrends, the list seeks to have a complete vision, putting together traditional metrics with new factors.

Claiming the first position is London, U.K, a city that although didn’t get high rankings in its Covid-19 metrics, still topped the list, mainly due to its scores in culture, accessibility, and population growth. Tokyo was selected for the second position, showing weakness in one parameter, population, as its numbers have been declining for the past 10 years. Shanghai followed next, in the third position, because of relatively low Covid-19 death figures and strong population growth. Singapore and Melbourne came in 4th and 5th positions.

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In order “to help architects and students to get to know the best International Master’s programs available”, the Best Architecture Masters (BAM) has established its annual list of top postgraduate architecture curriculums. Based on the QS Ranking by Subjects – Architecture / Built Environment, for the 2021 edition, 22 Universities were selected to be evaluated, by an Expert Committee, formed by 15 professors from all over the world.

In 2021, the Harvard Master in Architecture II continued to lead the ranking, and Colombia maintained second place with its Master of Science Degree in Advanced Architectural Design. TU Delft in the Netherlands took on the third position, becoming the best in Europe while Tsinghua University in China followed in the fourth position, becoming the best in Asia. The Master in Architecture of the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile occupied the 15th position and was named the best program in Latin America.

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Auckland in New Zealand has topped the ranking in the 2021 EIU's annual world's most liveable city survey. Classifying 140 cities across five categories including stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure, this year’s edition of the review has been highly affected by the global pandemic. Australia, Japan, and New Zealand took leading positions, while European and Canadian cities fell down the ranking.

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Comparing revenues from the previous year, Architectural Record lines up annually a list of the Top 300 U.S. Firms. Based on the 2019 data, Gensler tops again the selection, for the ninth year in a row, and Perkins and Will takes the second position. Third, fourth and fifth places were presented for Engineering Architecture firms HDR, Jacobs, and AECOM. Other companies in the top 10 include HKS and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

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The Best Architecture Masters (BAM) platform presented the third edition of its ranking of the best postgraduate architecture programs in the world.

Based on a list of different postgraduate study programs from the best architecture schools selected in the QS Ranking by Subjects – Architecture / Built Environment, these were evaluated by 11 educational-performance indicators and 41 sub-indicators in relation to the teaching approach, the opportunities they offer, and the programs themselves.

The annual DesignIntelligence architecture school ranking for 2020 classified the establishments according to the “most admired” rather than the “best”, for the second year in a row. The subjective classification is based on the responses of hiring professionals.  

In the 25th addition of Mercer's ranking for the cost of living for cities, Hong Kong again took the first place spot, continuing the trend of Asian cities as being the most expensive places to live for foreign workers.

The factors determining the cost of living in this edition are food, housing, living and personal care expenses, alcohol and tobacco, clothing, housing maintenance, public services, transportation, recreation, and entertainment. 

Check out the ranking of the top 10 most expensive cities in the world for cost of living and the top 5 most expensive by region: North America, South America, Asia, Pacific, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The World's Greatest Places of 2019 list by Time magazine celebrates 100 destinations in the world to visit, stay, eat and drink. Selected by the global team of editors of the publication, the places have been evaluated based on quality, originality, innovation, sustainability and social impact.

We have shortened this list and selected the architectural projects that have previously appeared on ArchDaily. Read on for more details.

It should come as no surprise that one of the most respected surveys about bicycle use comes from a Danish organization. This ranking by Copenhagenize Design Company uses a point system to compile a list of the cities looking to re-establish the bicycle as an accepted and practical mode of transportation.