Sandra Barclay: The Latest Architecture and News

The Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction has announced the 20 winning projects of the 2025 Holcim Foundation Awards, recognizing contributions to sustainable design and construction across five regions: Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, and North America. This year's selection spans a broad range of scales, from a 200-square-meter semi-permanent school in a Kenyan forest to major urban regeneration initiatives in Madrid, Dhaka, and Shenzhen, reflecting the diversity and reach of sustainable architecture today. This year introduces a new Grand Prize format, replacing the traditional Gold, Silver, and Bronze rankings. Each region will now honor one Grand Prize winner, emphasizing excellence without comparison and acknowledging the diverse approaches to sustainability.

+ 17

The seventeenth edition of the Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BEAU) will take place in December 2025. The event consists of an exhibition hosted in a former thermal power station repurposed as a cultural center in Ponferrada, in northeastern Spain. This edition will be curated by architects Ander Bados Sesma, from Atelier Ander Bados, and Miguel Ramón López, a Ponferrada native and architect at Estudio Lamela, under the curatorial proposal titled flujos comun.es ("common flows"). Their curatorial proposal responds to the theme of the open call: Architecture as a Policy for Change, an invitation to reflect on the role of the discipline in processes of social, economic, and environmental transformation. Within this framework, flujos comun.es presents a critical perspective on the challenges associated with hyperconnectivity. The call for proposals and project submissions is currently open, and will be until the end of July, depending on the category.

Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) Director Dirk Denison and 2023 MCHAP Jury Chair Sandra Barclay (Barclay & Crousse) have just announced the six finalists for the 2023 Americas Prize. The award recognizes the best-built works of architecture in the Americas completed between December 2018 and June 2021. This represents the latest stage of the fourth cycle of the MCHAP, launched in Venice, Italy, in August 2021. On March 24, 2023, the jury will announce the winners of the the 2023 Americas Prize. The authors of the winning project are set to receive a $50,000 fund for research along with a publication.

+ 2

The Board of Directors of the 2021 Venice Biennale has appointed Kazuyo Sejima as president of the international jury, in charge of awarding mainly the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for the Best participant, and the Silver Lion for a promising young participant. In addition, they have also selected four other jury members from Peru, Lebanon, Ghana-Scotland, and Italy. The Awards Ceremony will take place in Venice on Monday, August 30th, 2021.

+ 1

In the 12 months since 2018 International Women’s Day, we have seen many female architects come to fore of the design discourse. From Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell’s curation of the 2018 Venice Biennale to Frida Escobedo's celebrated design for the Serpentine Pavilion, the architectural newsfeeds from the past twelve months have played host to many signs of change in a traditionally male-dominated profession.

ArchDaily has also been busy over the past year, publishing stories such as twelve prominent women in architectural photography, seven influential women of the Bauhaus, and the women redefining success in architecture. Beyond news and editorials, the honorary lists and award ceremonies of prominent architectural institutions from around the world have also paid tribute to some of the world’s leading and emerging female architects.

Two South American architects have been selected as the winners of The Architectural Review and The Architects’ Journal’s 2018 Women in Architecture awards. This year’s top prize, Architect of the Year, has been awarded to Peruvian architect Sandra Barclay, while Paraguayan architect Gloria Cabral has been selected as the winner of the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture, with both being recognized by the jury for their mastery of materials.

There is an enormous intensity of information, knowledge and ideas on display at this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, Reporting From the Front. With all the Executive Editors and Editors-in-Chief of ArchDaily's platforms in English, Spanish and (Brazilian) Portuguese in Venice for the opening of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale—plus co-founder David Basulto and European Editor-at-Large James Taylor-Foster, who curated this year's Nordic Pavilion—we've pooled together twelve of our initial favourite exhibitions and must-see shows.