Architecture: Research Guide

Leaving behind the urban fervor of Quito requires a slow decantation, a change of pace where asphalt finally yields to the vegetation of the dry steppe. In the Guayllabamba valley, architecture does not seek to conquer the land but to coexist with it; the House in the Forest arises from this premise, not as an imposed structure, but as a device for inhabiting time. The project is best understood under the logic of the "nest": a structure that weaves intergenerational memories and, instead of settling heavily, decides to levitate over a landscape that it barely disturbs.

One of the many misconceptions that has preoccupied the world of architecture in recent decades is that architecture's noble existence occurs only in the built world.

Bosrijk is a residential area west of the city of Eindhoven, located on a former military defense site. Housing in Bosrijk is designed as 'sculptures in a garden'. For a small plot next to an existing natural rainwater infiltration facility, the office designed a sculpture with five single-family homes, in which the idea of 'living in a forest landscape' was the leitmotif.

Shou Sugi Ban is a traditional Japanese technique for wood preservation that involves charring the surface of timber to create a protective layer. While its origins are rooted in practical durability, the method has been widely adapted into the modern built environment and shapes a unique and distinctive aesthetic. It is a material of contradiction: it remains bold in its visual language due to its dark tones, yet it simultaneously borrows from and complements its natural surroundings, allowing houses to settle quietly into their sites.

Sumayya Vally, Counterspace pays homage to lost gathering spaces across the Muslim world at the inaugural Art Basel Qatar. Architect Sumayya Vally, Counterspace presents In the Assembly of Lovers, an installation commissioned for the inaugural Art Basel Qatar, taking place in Doha from 3–7 February 2026. Curated by Egyptian artist Wael Shawky, the fair explores the theme 'Becoming' – a meditation on humanity's ongoing transformation and the evolving systems that shape how we live, believe, and create meaning.

Gunawarman 35 stands at a corner in the heart of Jakarta's Gunawarman district — a meeting point of residential calm and urban vibrancy, of heritage textures and contemporary life. The design embraces this duality, creating a dialogue between scale, material, and light.

What matters more: looking to the past or to the future? Recognizing established trajectories or fostering paths still under construction? Perhaps this is not a question with a single answer. Traditionally, architecture awards have operated as devices of consecration, recognizing completed works, established careers, and already tested solutions, most often through a retrospective lens. But what would happen if recognition ceased to be an end in itself and instead began to operate as a catalytic agent, investing less in what has already been done and more in what is still yet to unfold?

Across history, the relocation of capital cities has often been associated with moments of political rupture, regime change, or symbolic nation-building. From Brasília to Islamabad, new capitals were frequently conceived as instruments of centralized power, territorial control, or ideological projection. In recent decades, however, a different set of drivers has begun to shape these decisions. Rather than security or representation alone, contemporary capital relocations are increasingly tied to structural pressures such as demographic concentration, infrastructural saturation, environmental risk, and long-term resource management. As metropolitan regions expand beyond their capacity to sus..

The Corten Houa project emerged from a contextual and site-specific response to the pre-existing conditions of the plot — a former timber factory, now in ruins, with only oxidized steel sheets remaining as traces of its industrial past. The architectural form and layout were meticulously defined in accordance with the site's topography, employing a fragmented volumetry that aligns with the natural contours of the land, thereby minimizing the visual and physical impact of the intervention on the terrain and its surrounding landscape.

Zaha Hadid Architects has released images of its design for the redevelopment of the waterfront along the Zhedong Canal in Hangzhou's Xiaoshan District, China. The Qiantang Bay Central Water Axis project envisions a sequence of landscaped parklands, terraces, and gardens along the canal basin, proposing the transformation of former industrial areas into a green corridor extending toward the city center. The proposal adds to other recent design initiatives in the area, including Snøhetta's Qiantang Bay Art Museum, planned at the confluence of the Qiantang River and the Central Water Axis, as well as Zaha Hadid Architects' Grand Canal Gateway Bridge, a pedestrian bridge intended to connect th..

For decades, heritage has been easiest to recognize from the street. We protect facades, skylines, and monuments because they are visible, stable, and legible as cultural assets. Yet most of what we remember about living is how we eat together, withdraw, argue, care, and rest, which happen far from view. It happens inside rooms. As open plans quietly give way to thresholds, corridors, and enclosures, a deeper question emerges: what if cultural memory survives not in what architecture shows, but in how it is lived?

1. Context – The Stable and the Orange Barn is a residential project located on a narrow flag-shaped plot in Toyohashi, Japan, surrounded by factories, nursing facilities, and suburban houses. Rather than asserting a strong formal gesture, the design began by closely observing the everyday rhythms of a young family and their relationship with the surrounding environment.