Amid growing recognition of architecture's responsibility toward environmental and planetary ecologies, contemporary practice is increasingly oriented toward working with what already exists—its material, spatial, and historical conditions. Within this shift, architecture and design aesthetics are increasingly about reshaping inherited environments. This approach underpins the work of SSdH, a Melbourne-based architecture practice founded in 2020 by Todd de Hoog, Harrison Smart, and Jean-Marie Spencer. Working across scales of renovation, extension, and adaptive insertion, the studio consistently engages existing buildings as active agents. Winner of the ArchDaily 2025 Next Practices Awards, the Australian firm foregrounds environmental responsibility, material economy, and collaborative processes grounded in site-specific conditions.
Aerial View of Lush Green Hills and Traditional Homes in Cauca, Colombia, Showcasing Nature and Rural Tourism. Image by Jhampier Giron M, via Shutterstock
Before a building can be inhabited, many other things need to happen. Water has to arrive, energy has to be generated, food has to be grown or transported, and waste has to go somewhere. These processes are usually treated as something outside architecture, even though they shape the most basic conditions of everyday life.
This is why the idea of self-sufficient communities is more complex than it first appears. It can suggest a place that provides more of what it needs: energy, water, food, shelter, and waste management. Yet, in many Latin American contexts, autonomy is not a complete separation from the world. It is a way of bringing the systems of daily life closer to the people who use, maintain, and care for them.
Sylphy by Boss Design x Okamura. Image Courtesy of Boss Design
For all the spatial experimentation of the contemporary workplace, one condition has remained largely unchanged: people are still sitting. Studies suggest that office workers spend up to 89% of their working day seated—close to 36 hours a week—despite decades of ergonomic awareness. As workplaces become more flexible, social, and design-led, this contradiction becomes harder to ignore.
The office is no longer organized around a single mode of operation, nor by a fixed spatial logic. Work has become multifunctional, shifting between collaboration and concentration, collective exchange and individual focus. In response, architecture and interior design are moving away from uniform, repetitive layouts towards environments that reflect the variability of human behavior.
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Dornbracht Madison fittings for Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden. Image Courtesy of Dornbracht
During renovation projects, replacement is often preferred over refurbishment. Used fixtures are removed, new products specified, timelines secured. Particularly in hospitality projects, where closures are costly and operations are tightly scheduled, installing new components appears to be the most reliable solution. It is faster, easier to coordinate, and aligns with established workflows. Refurbishment operates differently. It requires careful dismantling instead of disposal, evaluation instead of substitution, and trust in the quality of what is already there. It introduces complexity into a process designed for efficiency.
The recent renovation of Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden demonstrates that under the right circumstances, this additional effort can become a deliberate architectural strategy for similar projects, especially when the original materials were never intended to be temporary.
Costa Rica is a small country in Central America, internationally renowned for its tourism, biodiversity, and tropical climate. Given this context, tropical design strategies for hotel design are often more studied, but residential cabin projects can represent a more surgical approach to understanding the landscape. Often situated in remote forest or jungle locations, these cabins, apart from the common tropical design strategies, have to prioritize long-term durability and low-maintenance costs, particularly in regions where access for repairs is logistically difficult. This necessitates a design philosophy that favors both structural and climatic resilience.
Building in this context requires precise design responses to two primary environmental stressors: extreme precipitation and high humidity. Costa Rica's tropical climate, while varying by altitude, generally delivers an average monthly rainfall exceeding 150 mm in many regions. This constant water load can create a "wet-bulb" effect, where stagnant, saturated air accelerates interior material degradation and creates physiological discomfort for the inhabitants. To design effectively under these conditions, contemporary cabin architecture employs a three-fold strategy of minimal site invasion, the creation of thermal gradients, and passive climate mitigation.
Architecture this week reflects the intersections of legacy, authorship, and social responsibility, as practices navigate questions of identity, recognition, and public engagement. Legal rulings, major competition shortlists, and large-scale urban proposals illustrate how architecture continues to operate across cultural, institutional, and environmental arenas. From sustainability-driven landmarks and transformative waterfront developments to iconic commercial towers, projects demonstrate approaches to ecological strategies and public programming. At the same time, global observances such as World Hearing Day highlight how spatial design shapes inclusion and accessibility, reminding the profession that the built environment can influence participation, learning, and well-being for diverse communities.
New renderings released by WEISS/MANFREDI reveal updated plans for the ongoing transformation of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, a comprehensive redesign that integrates the museum, landscape, and active excavation areas into a continuous public and research-oriented campus. Alongside the design update, the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County (NHM) has announced the creation of the Samuel Oschin Global Center for Ice Age Research, a new initiative supported by the Samuel Oschin Family Foundation, which advances the site's long-term redevelopment. The transformation project is led by WEISS/MANFREDI as design lead for the museum and park, with Gruen Associates serving as executive architect and landscape architect, and Kossmanndejong (KDJ)responsible for exhibition design. Fundraising efforts are ongoing, with the project positioned for completion ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
The Open Call for the next Experimental Fellowship, in partnership with material data platform revalu is now open. Experimental Foundation’s Spring Fellowship with revalu supports practice based research by emerging architectural practices with applied industry experience. The Fellowship is aimed at practitioners who seek to contribute to a transformative shift in the building sector. It is intended for architects collaborating with clients (developers, public or private) or industry partners who seek to implement regenerative, circular, and climate-conscious solutions in pilot projects, through innovative, systemic-analytical approaches.
"Feeling at home" is more than just an expression—it is the sense of warmth and comfort that transforms a space into a true refuge. To achieve this, elements like color, texture, lighting, and materials play a crucial role in shaping an environment that fosters relaxation and well-being. Backed by research in environmental psychology and neuroscience, the connection between physical spaces and human behavior highlights how architecture can directly influence the atmosphere, turning chaos into tranquility.
This May, Building Trust International will host a Design + Build workshop in Italy in partnership with Semplicemente, an Italian volunteer organization formed by people with disabilities who promote inclusion, autonomy and respect for the environment through collective and creative activities.
From building codes to mobility restrictions and new diplomatic roles within city governments, climate policy is increasingly being shaped at the local level through a widening range of legislative and institutional tools. Cities as varied as Sydney, Boston, New York, Paris, Miami, and dozens across Latin America are adopting targeted strategies that reflect their distinct environmental pressures and governance structures. These initiatives range from all-electric and net-zero construction requirements, to traffic-control measures designed to curb the social costs of private vehicle use, to emerging forms of urban diplomacy that coordinate responses to rising temperatures and biodiversity loss. Together, these approaches illustrate how territorial management is evolving in response to the accelerating climate crisis, and how local governments are experimenting with regulation and collaboration to confront challenges that are at once global and deeply place-specific.
Bazaar in Hyderabad, India. Photo by Kanishq Kancharla on Unsplash
Architecture is most often represented as a stable object: a building captured at a moment of visual clarity, isolated from surrounding contingencies. Plans, sections, and photographs promise legibility by suspending time. Yet many of the world's most enduring public environments resist this mode of representation altogether. They are not designed to be read instantaneously, nor do they reveal their logic through form alone. Their spatial intelligence emerges gradually, through repetition, occupation, and duration.
The bazaar belongs firmly within this category. It cannot be understood through a single drawing or a finished elevation. Its organization is not fixed but rehearsed. What sustains it is not purely architectural composition, but shared timing, collective memory, and long-standing patterns of use. Togetherness in the bazaar does not arise from formal design decisions; it is produced through repeated encounters, negotiated proximities, and social familiarity accumulated over time.
The pursuit of stronger, lighter, and more durable materials has guided architecture long before polymers or carbon fibers existed. One of the earliest large-scale examples of composite materials can be found in the Great Wall of China, where stone, clay bricks, and organic fibers such as reeds and willow branches were blended to create a resilient and lasting structure. These early techniques reveal a timeless intuition: distinct materials, when combined thoughtfully, produce properties unattainable by any single element. As the construction sector faces urgent ecological pressures, this intuition is being revisited through the lens of sustainability, with architects and engineers exploring bio-based, recycled, and hybrid composites designed not only for performance but also for circularity and environmental responsibility.
The circular economy, including the reuse of building materials, is fast becoming a key component in the fight against carbon emissions. This involves designing to minimize waste and utilize materials that can be reused at the end of the building's life. On the opposing side, the reuse of materials from partially or wholly demolished buildings can also reduce waste and carbon emissions that would have resulted from using virgin materials. Sustainability purposes aside, the reuse of building materials has a centuries-old history, both for symbolic reasons and simply out of necessity.
