Archi News

Unlike most popular sports, the origin of basketball has a precise year and creator: it was invented in 1891 in the United States by Canadian physical education instructor James Naismith as an indoor sport for athletes at Springfield College during the winter, after the end of the football season. The sport quickly expanded beyond U.S. borders, being included in the Olympic Games in 1936 and achieving international popularity after the Second World War. As basketball became more widespread, it also left the controlled environment of gymnasiums and began occupying a wide range of locations: playgrounds, public plazas, school courtyards, driveways, and backyard patios became informal courts for play and community life, reinforcing the role of physical activity as a catalyst for social interaction and neighborhood regeneration.

This building is the new construction for our architectural office and woodworking shop. Why did we, an architectural firm, start a woodworking shop? In Okinawa, it has become common for many buildings to use reinforced concrete (RC) frames with aluminum sashes for commercial buildings. However, for many of our buildings, we have designed and installed wooden sashes for openings—elements people directly touch in daily life and which greatly affect the quality of the space—rather than bland aluminum sashes.

Education has long been understood as a cornerstone of social development, shaping not only individual futures but also the collective capacity of societies to respond to change. Observed annually on 24 January, the International Day of Education invites reflection on the role education plays in addressing global challenges and sustaining social progress. As the world confronts overlapping challenges, from technological transformation to deepening inequalities, the question of how education is imagined, governed, and experienced has become increasingly urgent.

Degrees is a geometric and optical device, doubling the 360-degree track of normal vision. The design originates from a central patio and from the ways in which the inner and outer worlds might interact with one another. Conceived as a solar clock that registers the passing of time, this off-the-grid house is many houses in one: during the day it frames a mountain and a volcano, opening up toward the varied views along the external perimeter of the circle; at night, it turns inward around a circular courtyard.

During a presentation to the press held at Paris City Hall on January 7, 2026, architect and Pritzker Prize laureate Renzo Piano released the first images of the transformation of Montparnasse's emblematic shopping center and CIT Tower into a pedestrian-focused district in Paris, France. The project, commissioned to Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) in 2022 by the co-owners of the commercial complex, proposes both a visual and functional transformation of the 1970s low-rise retail development into a more traversable space characterized by transparency and openness. The design was developed in parallel with the redevelopment of the Montparnasse Tower, led by Nouvelle AOM, to reshape the broader tertiary complex into a contemporary Parisian block oriented toward public life, environmental performance, and everyday use. The project reopens the site to the city, reconnecting streets and restoring continuity between Montparnasse and its surrounding neighborhoods through new public spaces.

World Monuments Fund (WMF) is an independent organization dedicated to safeguarding significant places that enrich people's lives and foster mutual understanding across cultures and communities. Since 2008, the World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize has been a biennial award recognizing outstanding achievements in the conservation of buildings emblematic of the modernist architectural movement. The prize honors individuals and organizations that revitalize modern built heritage through innovative and sensitive architectural interventions.

You learn how to behave long before you arrive home. At the gate, you slow down and wait. You are watched, then waved through. A badge is checked, a barrier lifts, a camera blinks. Nothing dramatic happens, and that is precisely the point. The most consequential work of gated communities is not done by their walls, but by the choreography of entry that quietly teaches residents what to expect, whom to trust, and where they belong.

The new town hall of Scharrachbergheim, a small Alsatian village, seeks horizontality and transparency to integrate into this magnificent wooded site. The external regular framework of the wooden structure affirms the public dimension of the building, while ensuring a timeless aesthetic. The dark and velvety tint of the protective pine tar and the refined and elegant sizing of the wooden columns echo both the village's colombages and the site's trees. The corten steel expanded mesh cladding gives an almost woven appearance to the facade while reminding the tones of local stone (Vosges sandstone), very present in the historic village. The ensemble is contemporary but rooted, rigorous but gentle. As if it had always been there.

Sited on nearly 2 hectares, this house takes advantage of its secluded and elevated position, capturing views across rolling hills to the Swan Valley, Perth CBD, and coastal plain. Positioned on the brow of a hill and located among mature trees to reduce its visual impact – and constructed with rammed earth and rural vernacular materials – it blends into the landscape.

The Shaanxi Culture and Art Museum project is located in Xi'an's Xixian New Area, east of the West Third Ring Road and west of the Epang Palace ruins. The planned site area is 94,000 square meters, with a total construction area of 135,000 square meters. The project primarily includes a performing arts theater, a Silk Road Art Museum, and comprehensive cultural facilities.

SYMBOLPLUS Office is located in a timber building owned by architect Akio Hayashi, whose long-standing advocacy for natural materials became the starting point of the renovation. The brief was clear: avoid synthetic materials and work with what already existed. Rather than pursuing visual impact, the project focuses on continuity―between architecture, material, and time.

This wooden house is located at the boundary between an extensive green plateau and a coigüe forest that descends steeply towards Lake Ranco, in southern Chile.

With the aim of making the town more inclusive and accessible to all citizens, the Municipal Chamber of Coruche has decided to promote two projects for the urban perimeter of Calçadinha, named "Mobility for All in Calçadinha" and "Landscape Redevelopment of Calçadinha."

This sustainable 100m² retrofit by Project V Architecture transforms a Sarajevo apartment—set in an Austro-Hungarian-era courtyard block—into a warm, immersive world crafted from natural materials. Designed for a young family, the home features cherry wood linings, clay-painted walls, stone worktops, linen curtains, travertine, and minimalist detailing. Its most surprising element: a bespoke prefabricated children's Tree house, made from spruce glulam. The apartment evokes a sense of timelessness, building on a rich history of minimalism and 20th century modernism from Sarajevo, and hosts a curated selection of contemporary Bosnian craft and artwork throughout.

Lu Wenyu—co-founder of Amateur Architecture Studio with Pritzker laureate Wang Shu—has shaped many of the practice's most emblematic works across China, including the Ningbo History Museum and the Xiangshan Campus of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Often working outside the spotlight, her leadership is unmistakable in the discipline of execution and the roles she has assumed: in 2003, together with Wang Shu, she established the Architecture Department at the China Academy of Art, where she also serves as Director of the Sustainable Construction Center. Her practice and teaching form a reciprocal loop: research conducted in studios at the China Academy of Art continually folds back into construction strategies on site, while lessons learned in the field return to the classroom as material intelligence rather than abstract theory.

'Kulhads' or 'mud cups' (terracotta cups) used to be a familiar sight at railway stations, used to sip hot tea or cool buttermilk (lassi), and eventually thrown away across beaches and train tracks in India.

Founded by Oliver Thomas, the ATN Summit is the first flagship conference of the Archi-Tech Network, marking five years since the platform began as a grassroots initiative to share real-world architectural knowledge. Taking place on March 18–19, 2026, in London, the ATN Summit brings together architects, technologists, and industry innovators to explore how emerging technologies are reshaping architectural practice. Designed as a high-production, ideas-driven event, the Summit reflects ATN's evolution from an informal online conversation into a global platform actively engaging with the future of the built environment.

Architecture's public role emerges as a central theme across recent announcements, institutional projects, and professional programs. The selection of the 2026 Serpentine Pavilion designer foregrounds architecture as a space for public encounter and material inquiry, while major civic and cultural projects point to renewed investment in institutions that support education, exchange, and urban continuity. Alongside these developments, international award programs and policy-aligned initiatives continue to situate architecture within broader conversations on sustainability, social responsibility, and long-term impact, highlighting how design decisions at both intimate and monumental scales respond to shared environmental and civic challenges.

Set at the edge of the Murska Sobota plain, this single-family house is conceived as a pavilion in the landscape, where daily life unfolds between interior space and garden. Rather than standing apart from its surroundings, the house opens itself to them.

Danish architecture studio Henning Larsen has been selected to redesign and expand Glyvra School in the Faroe Islands, proposing a landscape-driven educational campus that responds directly to the region's topography and climate. Conceived as a "learning village," the project rethinks the role of the school in a small coastal community, positioning architecture and outdoor space as integral parts of everyday learning. Commissioned by Runavík Municipality and developed in collaboration with engineering firm Ramboll, the project will be delivered in multiple phases to ensure the school remains fully operational throughout construction, with new facilities completed and occupied before existing structures are renovated or removed.