Set on a maple-wooded site, the land slopes gently toward a valley where a river traces its course at the base of the terrain. It is within this natural movement of the ground that Perchée takes shape—a house that favors restraint over imprint, and whose siting strategy seeks, above all, to limit clearing in order to preserve the site's most valuable quality: the feeling of being truly immersed among the trees.
Preserving historic buildings requires simultaneously addressing technical, environmental, and regulatory demands while maintaining the material, cultural, and symbolic continuity of what already exists. As the understanding consolidates that the most sustainable building is the one that is already standing, and that preservation also involves construction knowledge, material traditions, and the social fabrics from which they emerged, these same buildings are increasingly confronted with more rigorous contemporary parameters. Energy efficiency, safety, carbon emission reduction, and regulatory compliance have become unavoidable references, placing architecture before a central tension: how to update what already exists without breaking the continuity that sustains its heritage value.
Following the release of seven shortlisted proposals in 2025 through an online gallery, the Foundation for the Development of the Lands Adjacent to the Baptism Site has announced the winner of the international design competition for the Museum of Jesus' Baptism at Bethany, Jordan. Managed by Malcolm Reading Consultants, the six-month invited competition brought together architect-led multidisciplinary teams to design a museum and landscape project responding to the sacred character of Al-Maghtas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After finalist interviews conducted by an international Advisory Panel, the team led by Níall McLaughlin Architects (NMLA) was selected as the competition winner.
Dabbagh Architects is an internationally recognised architectural design firm led by Saudi architect Sumaya Dabbagh. Renowned for its contemporary and culturally relevant projects across the Gulf, the firm was commissioned in 2018 by the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi to lead the redevelopment of the UAE's first museum in Al Ain. The project honours over 8,000 years of the region's history, preserving its archaeological remains, historic structures, and cultural heritage while introducing a contemporary architectural narrative that bridges the past with the present.
At the entrance to the Po Valley, in the province of Cuneo, a house with a simple, compact profile reveals itself gradually. The construction does not appear to flaunt striking gestures, but rather blends discreetly among its neighbors — tall apartment blocks, clumsy detached houses, a constellation of buildings without particular quality. Yet appearances are deceiving. A radical transformation, partly concealed within its own volume, lies at the origin of ErranteArchitetture's project for Casa BM: an intervention that dismantles the existing structure to generate new spatial configurations and distinct atmospheres. It is an apparently paradoxical operation, conducted in the spirit of artistic research and self-construction practices.
The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics officially opened on Friday, February 6, with a ceremony staged across four locations in northern Italy. The main opening event took place at San Siro Stadium, one of Milan's most significant modernist landmarks, and combined dance and performing arts, referencing Italian culture with performances by international artists, including pop star Mariah Carey. Although several competitions had already begun on February 4, the opening ceremony marked the start of a broader programme of sporting, social, and cultural events distributed across Milan and the three Alpine host areas: Cortina d'Ampezzo, Valtellina, and Val di Fiemme. The Games are scheduled to run until February 22, concluding with a closing ceremony at the Verona Arena, ahead of the Paralympic Games, which will take place from March 6 to 15. As a large-scale international event, the Olympics place significant demands on sports infrastructure, transportation networks, accommodation, and tourism capacity, offering early indications of the longer-term urban, architectural, and territorial impacts the Games may leave behind.
Educational architecture remains an exploratory ground for unbuilt exploration, offering insight into how learning environments can evolve alongside changing social, ecological, and pedagogical values. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected projects bring together a range of proposals that examine schools, libraries, nurseries, and academic centers as spatial frameworks for care, knowledge, and collective growth. Rather than treating education as a fixed program housed within singular buildings, these projects approach learning spaces as adaptive environments shaped by landscape, climate, and human interaction.
This project is located in Ben Tre, Vietnam, and was completed in 2021. With a total area of 430m2, the project includes 3 bedrooms and one living room, each with a view of the nearby river.
The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Education and Programs Centre is a significant expansion of the original museum at the University of Melbourne's Parkville campus, extending into the heritage-listed 1930s Physics Annex. Connecting with both the campus and a major road leading out of the city centre, the concave, mirrored, polished stainless-steel portal extends from the original façade, marking the museum's presence and creating a multi-faceted public interface.
Moon Bay Waterfall marks the threshold of Mount Wuyi National Park and is the first landscape encountered upon entering the park. In 2023, CLAB Architects was commissioned to construct a viewing platform at this site. The waterfall originates from an artificial dam built in 1979 for hydrological regulation. Crescent-shaped in plan, it lends Moon Bay its name. Over decades of interaction between human intervention and natural processes, the dam has been fully absorbed into its environment. Upstream, the water settles into a calm surface; downstream, erosion exposes massive river stones. Together, these elements form a place in the phenomenological sense—close to the ground, yet acting as a center that brings sky, mountain, and water into relation.
This modern tropical house embodies a harmonious blend of modern design and the distinctive elements of the trop- a ical environment. Situated on a relatively narrow plot of land, the house employs a simple yet captivating single mass design. Fengshui principles are integrated into the spatial layout, creating a positive energy alignment. Catering to the client's penchant for hosting guests and events, the primary concept of the house is an open plan, where the main spaces are designed to provide a spacious and open atmosphere.
“When the phrase ‘the trees prevent us from seeing the forest’ is repeated, its exact meaning may not be understood. Perhaps the mockery behind the phrase backfires on the person who utters it. The trees prevent us from seeing the forest, and thanks to that, the forest exists. The mission of the visible trees is to keep the rest latent, and only when we realize that the visible landscape hides other invisible landscapes do we feel ourselves to be inside a forest.”— Meditations on Don Quixote. Depth and Surface — José Ortega y Gasset (1914)
Although modest in scale, the project is set within a remarkable context. It seeks to link two building wings constructed in the early 20th century, whose architecture evokes the spirit of the *Belle Époque*.
At the edge of the historic Nimmerdor forest in Amersfoort, Dutch studio Space&Matter has completed Common Woods, a circular and nature-inclusive neighborhood comprising 56 homes. The neighborhood combines villas, semi-detached houses, and apartments across social, mid-range, and private housing, with the aim of promoting social inclusion and a strong sense of community.
The Van der Vlugt Residence, a highly acclaimed project by renow ned Miami-based firm S TRANG, has set a global benchmark for resilient modern architecture. Its status is cemented by significant, high-profile recognition, notably the AIA Florida Award of Excellence for New Work, AIA Miami Award of Excellence in Residential Architecture, and its selection as a World Architecture Festival Finalist. This prestige is further amplified by its selection as the subject of the pilot episode for Sarasota School: A Living Legacy, a new documentary series by Architecture Sarasota that will further convey the home's status as a critical piece of 21st-century design.
Buildner is pleased to announce the results of its Architect's Chair Competition Edition 4, an annual international competition that invites architects and designers worldwide to submit designs for a signature chair. Following in the footsteps of iconic figures like Charles and Ray Eames, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, and Arne Jacobsen, participants are tasked with creating custom chairs that reflect their unique design philosophies and visions.
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.
An existing 40-year-old office building is stripped back to its structure and completely reimagined for the present. The original massing logics are recovered and emphasized. What used to be a confusing and run-down muddle of geometric clashes is now untangled and rearticulated as if the building is composed of twelve separate buildings, each with its own cladding logic and interior atmosphere.
The recently inaugurated exhibition matière en résonance ("resonant matter") brings together a wide range of models and a curated selection of photographs to present sauerbruch hutton's ongoing exploration of timber. The exhibition starts from the premise that while the age of concrete defined the twentieth century, the early twenty-first century has seen a worldwide resurgence of timber, a much older building material. Timber is presented as offering "a different version of modernity" and as the subject of renewed interest that reawakens long-standing collective imaginaries. Over more than two decades, the Berlin-based architecture practice has explored the possibilities of timber construction, from façade elements to load-bearing structures and modular systems. The exhibition reflects the results of this sustained investigation, reinforcing both technical innovation and the embodied qualities of timber across a diverse range of European contexts. The exhibition will be on view from 3 to 28 February 2026 at the Galerie d'Architecture de Paris.
Many of the spatial ideas we now associate with contemporary architecture, collective use, and bodily experience did not originate in buildings alone. In Latin America, these ideas were often explored first through art, at a moment when artists were actively questioning how space could be occupied, shared, and experienced beyond traditional forms.