Architecture: Research Guide

"My hope is that this new community building and George Street public plaza will become a cherished destination in Sydney's city center, a generative place for people to connect, recharge, reflect, and take a pause from the rhythm of a fast-transforming city." David Adjaye

This striking residential design by STRANG, located in a leafy Miami suburb, redefines modern living with its innovative architectural approach. The design consists of two interlocking, rectangular volumes, creating a dynamic and visually compelling structure. The upper floor, clad in elegant wood panels and louvers, houses the communal living areas. This volume floats above an inviting exterior living space, allowing the family to fully embrace a subtropical lifestyle.

The design for the new school in Chýně is based on a contemporary, modern approach to education. The school's shared spaces — both interior and exterior — play an equally important role in the learning process as traditional classrooms. Informal learning can take place in alcoves along corridors, while small nooks provide opportunities for quiet conversation. Study rooms offer various seating arrangements, supporting different modes of concentration. The roof is designed for both play and learning. Thus, the school offers a rich internal world in which both young pupils and teenage students can find their own place.

This increasingly complex project emerged from an interactive process and key breakthroughs by both the government and architects — through ongoing coordination and integration, architects drive the joint renewal of urban and educational spaces. It represents a process of architects' proactive intervention and comprehensive resolution of urban architectural renewal needs. The project site features a narrow and elongated shape, with Kunshan Experimental Primary School to the east, adjacent to Kunshan Industrial Technology Research Institute to the west. And it connects two major urban green spaces, Dayu Lake Park and Kunshan Forest Park, at its north and south ends.

Design of a house located on a 1-hectare rural property in Cunha, São Paulo, situated on a plot of land that had been previously cleared for sale, a common situation in rural subdivisions in São Paulo. In this context, in addition to the architectural design of the residence, an environmental analysis of the existing rural network and a study of the other programs located throughout the property were requested.

On the hiking path, a weighted wreck stands before the rocky gate. One slips through a barely wide crack, sliding in sideways. The new shipwrecked one, lifting his head, sees an overturned hull. From the bottom of the boat, the sky falls.

The project begins with an existing house in Cabrera de Mar, located on a hillside open to the Mediterranean. The intervention combines a comprehensive renovation of the original home, rooted in the terrain, with an extension conceived as its counterpoint: elevated above the ground, warm, and oriented toward the horizon.

This single-storey house was designed for a retired couple with the intention of ageing in place — with dignity, autonomy, and spatial comfort. Fully accessible, the plan is organized around a clear sequence of alternating served and servant living spaces, supporting both everyday routines and future care needs.

The Kiang Malingue headquarters is the fifth collaboration between the Hong Kong based gallery and BEAU. As so, it embodies their common ambitions to critically deconstruct the identity and experience of art spaces while addressing challenges related to cultural and environmental sustainability. Located on a steeped street in the Wan Chai District, the project adapted a typical Hong Kong 1960s housing tong lau into a vertical art gallery.

Located not far from Garosu-gil, "Triplet Code, Sinsa" is positioned directly facing a small neighborhood park with greenery at the very end of Serosu-gil. The site faces the park, has an elementary school right next to it, and is surrounded by neighborhood shops that extend from Garosu-gil, gradually activating even the back alleys. According to Clarence Perry's Neighborhood Unit theory, the three core elements that promote physical convenience and pleasant living for residents — an elementary school, neighborhood shops, and a small park — are all present in the vicinity, so at first glance, it might seem that the conditions for residents are perfectly met. However, the recent excessive..

Johnnie Walker established its brand identity by tilting the gentleman on its label 24 degrees, diverging from the strictly horizontal and vertical norms of its time. This notion of "tilt" inspired the exploration of new architectural possibilities within Tokyo's tightly regulated micro-lots.

Situated between the City of Arts in Valencia and the piles of containers in the port of Pinedo, the area of La Punta is barely surviving the macro-projects that surround it. Several dozen creators have been defending local culture for some time now in Pluto, a safe and collaborative working environment in La Punta, just a 10-minute bike ride from the city centre. Baby Pluto is the extension of these workshops in the adjoining warehouse to establish itself as a creative island in the middle of the Valencian countryside.

The Webster's latest flagship store in Los Angeles is a new 11,000 square feet ground-up retail development adjacent to the historic Los Angeles Beverly Center. Juxtaposed beneath the monolithic eight story structure, The Webster elegantly asserts itself as a sculptural and experiential counterpoint to the Beverly Center's retail experience. The cantilevered concrete facade references and reimagines the brutalist shell of the original existing building and is injected with a pink dye—an ode to the luminosity of California, where the Pacific light naturally amplifies saturated colors.

The architecture design for Center Rog adds to the cultural revitalization of the city by rehabilitating a building that is listed due to its great heritage and historical value, in an urban location on the river embankment that needed a new lease of life and a makeover for use by citizens. 

Beyond the village, along a road leading deeper into the majestic Bohemian Forest, stands a late 19th-century cottage. We propose a renovation that emphasises the joy of living in a house that has survived throughout and despite changing times. A house that is considerate of its surroundings rather than a loud neighbour.

As the year culminates, it's once again time for the ArchDaily team of curators to reflect on the best-performing projects of 2025 and consider what readers were most interested in. Through this diverse overview, we assess the cross-continental similarities and differences in trends and construction development. This year brought us many grand cultural and public spaces by Lina Ghotmeh, BIG, Zaha Hadid Architects, DnA, and Serie Architects, who populated events like Expo Osaka and the Venice Biennale, as well as a surprising number of museums and public or landscape works in China and the rest of the Asian continent. However, while these were sought-after projects, the leading works remained..

If the ideal home evokes an effortless sense of belonging and familiarity, then this apartment in Athens is a job well done by its creator, architecture and design studio Block722. Precisely designed to respond to the daily needs and lifestyle of its users, the space offers fresh ideas for contemporary urban living - blending supreme functionality, the site's local conditions, and the Athenian studio's established approach of organic luxury, which emphasizes craft-rich interiors, openness, and an intrinsic relationship with nature.

Cities are slowly reshaping themselves. Walkable streets, bike-friendly networks, and mixed-use neighborhoods are becoming planning priorities as climate goals, changing lifestyles, and remote work reshape daily patterns. Yet even as these people-centered ideas gain momentum, most cities still rely heavily on private cars, creating a tension between the urban futures we're designing for and the mobility habits that persist today.

Caochan na Creige, designed by Izat Arundell, has been announced as the winner of the RIBA House of the Year 2025 award. The timber-framed, stone-clad self-build is located in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, occupying a compact rural plot defined by exposed weather conditions and a distinct geological setting. Built by and for its architect owners, the house was selected for its clear response to site constraints, its material strategy, and the consistency between design intent and construction.

Winning proposal in collaboration with Sergi Serrat to build the new changing rooms and a multi-purpose hall for a sports centre in Ripoll, a small town in Catalunya surrounded by mountains. The complex already had a distinctive character shaped by the buildings around the football pitch, such as the bleachers, the bar and two other structures. Our intention was not to create an element that departed from this existing configuration but to incorporate a new neighbour that felt part of the whole.

For much of modern architectural history, images have functioned as interpretive tools rather than literal records. Renderings, drawings, and competition visuals were traditionally understood as speculative instruments, offering atmospheres, intentions, and possible futures rather than fixed realities. This ambiguity allowed architects to communicate ideas that were still in formation, and it shaped a visual culture in which representation was valued as much for its suggestive quality as for its precision.

Nyrenstone Estate – Alexis Dornier interprets topography through circles and tangents at Tampah Hills, Lombok. Positioned on one of the steepest slopes of Tampah Hills in South Lombok, Nyrenstone Estate is shaped less by convention and more by circumstance. The house follows the fall of the land, stepping down the hill while tracing a geometry of circles and tangents that define both spatial arrangement and overall character.

Timpaan, Blauwhoed and White Arkitekter, together with SeARCH, Space&Matter, Atlas Architects and DS Land Landschapsarchitecten, have been selected for the proposed development of The Erven, a timber-based neighbourhood planned for Hoofddorp in the Amsterdam metropolitan region. The winning proposal forms part of a major phase of the Lincolnpark area and outlines approximately 519 homes designed around four courtyards, or erven, inspired by the traditional Dutch farmstead.

The Butterfly + First Baptist Church Complex — As cities densify and land grows scarcer, sacred sites – long seen as untouchable – are emerging as unexpected catalysts for urban transformation. In Vancouver, where rising housing demand and social isolation intersect, The Butterfly introduces a new urban typology: design-forward vertical living anchored in community and culture. This landmark project represents a unique partnership between architects, a religious institution, and developers to reimagine church-owned land as an eclectic mixed-use village.

The project is located within Ensheng Wetland Park atop Wutong Mountain in Yantian District. Here, on one side lies the summit landscape of the Ensheng Wetland with Wutong Mountain, and on the other stretches the seemingly endless seascape of Yantian Port, reminiscent of "mystical mountains beyond the sea," alongside the continuously stacked containers within the port itself. The wonders of nature and human artifice are presented here almost simultaneously. The client's brief was clear: this pavilion must offer a view of the sea. This inspired a broader aspiration: to create a "space" where one can enjoy 360-degree panoramic views. Concurrently, we set ourselves a requirement: the presence o..

This building was designed as a home for a couple and their two children. The site is located on a quiet residential corner surrounded by an apartment complex and a golf course, with three sides facing roads except for the south. Currently, the area is a mix of vacant lots and houses, but it will gradually be filled with houses. The camping caravan on the vacant lot evokes the image of a family who enjoys nature and camping. I envisioned a house that would embody such a warm and joyful family life.

The brickworks, that is run today by the Brickworks Museum, is the only intact surviving handmade brickworks in German-speaking Switzerland. The listed ensemble consists of a timber brick-drying shed, a kiln, that may no longer be operated, the biotope of the historical clay pit, a residential building with gardens, and a museum building that replaces a burned-down barn. In 2017 students of the guest professorship at the TU Munich worked on the task of designing a new kiln tower on the site. The prestressed earth-and-timber structure is based directly on the mock-up carried out at the Sitterwerk and is the world's first prestressed earth building.

Upon taking on the project and construction of the Village House, we encountered a building formed by the joining of two semi-detached houses, "regularized" by a superficial intervention that did not address the essential issues of the space. The initial diagnosis revealed a fragmented configuration, with compartments lacking a clear purpose, underutilized areas, and a staircase adapted to reach the upper floor, highlighting the lack of continuity between the parts. There were overlapping uses, unclear passages, and timid natural light that entered, unable to structure daily life. Our starting point was to restore logic and meaning to the whole, transforming two disconnected halves into a si..

Designing a residence in the heart of one of the busiest neighborhoods in the Metropolitan Zone of Guadalajara was quite a challenge, especially considering the proximity of the condominium's clubhouse and the entrance booth. The family sought an intimate and private home, and this is how we achieved Casa EV, a unique and cozy space.

AquaPraça, the floating cultural plaza designed by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and Höweler + Yoon, becomes one of the landmarks of the UN Climate Change Conference COP30 in Belém, Brazil. Following its unveiling in Venice in September during the Biennale Architettura 2025 in partnership with Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Italy's Ministry of Environment and Energy Security, and COP30 Presidency, AquaPraça now serves as an integral part of the Italian Pavilion at COP30, the UN Climate Change Conference. AquaPraça was made possible through a unique international coalition, including the Italian Agency for Development and Cooperation, CIHEAM Bari, and the ..