Architecture: Research Guide

Ekadea Studio is a ceramic workshop shaped to envelop: its form is born in shadow and accompanies those who cross its threshold. Curved walls rise from the base and define functions, paths, and boundaries. A wooden structure, perforated to frame glimpses or solid to accommodate residual spaces, establishes a rhythm of thresholds and shelter.

The new structure enters the existing building on its own terms. A row of thin metal poles carries an I-beam stretching from front to back. When needed, beams are interrupted. These cuts are exposed and celebrated. The new elements are painted in bright red and blue. They occupy positions within the space that are deliberately disruptive, blocking doors, windows and passages. Because of that inconvenience the structure becomes visible. It is an active participant of the space. 

With only two days left to vote, this is your last chance to pick your favorite projects of 2025 and help showcase the most influential architecture of the moment. There are 75 finalists to choose from in 15 different categories, with voting ending on February 18, 2026 at 18:00 EST.

When placing a house on its site, one of the first steps is to recognize the territory that surrounds it, identifying its potentials and tensions. In this process, we inevitably select, cut, hide, or enhance certain views, shaping the architectural experience according to the sensations we wish to foster.

Li Le is known as one of the people who lived and buried their dead along the Anapo River. Pantalica - a complex of over 4000 thumbs carved in the rocks a millennium BC - doesn't tell us much about the way the living found shelter. Since very few traces of commoners' architecture have been found, we can only imagine that the valley's inhabitants used light construction techniques and local organic materials to build their homes.

Does design guide usage, or does usage guide design? Students struggle to maintain focus, employees flinch under harsh lighting, and occupants withdraw from rigid spaces, often in response to environmental conditions that only become visible once a space is occupied. Light falling across a room, the resonance of sound, the texture of surfaces, or the rhythm of circulation can support focus, calm, or inspire creativity, but each can also inadvertently heighten stress and distraction. Architects and designers are exploring and questioning: how are design decisions informed, and whose knowledge is considered essential in shaping space?

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has elevated 78 architects to its College of Fellows, recognizing members whose work has demonstrated a sustained impact on the discipline and on society. Fellowship is described as one of the Institute's highest honors and is conferred upon architects who have advanced design excellence, strengthened professional practice, expanded architectural education, or contributed to public service. Selected by a nine-member Jury of Fellows chaired by Sanford Garner of RG Collaborative, this year's cohort reflects a wide range of geographic and professional backgrounds, with honorees representing firms, public agencies, and academic institutions across the U..

In search of a tranquil retreat from the pace of city life, a couple chose to build their home in the countryside, while still embracing the joys of outdoor living. They discovered a ten-acre plot in Hatley Township, Eastern Townships of Quebec, once cultivated to produce cereals for livestock. Here, they envisioned a single-story residence that would become their primary sanctuary. Determined to preserve the land's agricultural heritage, they opted for a minimal footprint, honoring its original purpose while ensuring the property's long-term vitality.

With the Milano–Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics underway, it is worth looking back at how the Olympic Village has evolved from a purely functional solution into a strategic urban project. From improvised housing compounds to key pieces of urban regeneration, Olympic Villages have repeatedly functioned as large-scale experiments in how parts of the city can be built within a short period of time.

Emerging quietly from its urban fabric, the residence stands as an orchestration of planes that hover and masses that drift, defying the weight of their own materiality. What begins as a grounded plinth gradually ascends into a composition of layered horizontality—a home that feels anchored yet airborne.

The Southbank Centre is a cultural complex in London built between 1963 and 1968 and widely regarded as a representative example of British Brutalism. Today, the site hosts a wide range of events, including visual arts, theatre, dance, classical and contemporary music, literature, poetry, and debate. The building was designed by a team from the Architects' Department of the London County Council, led by architect Norman Engleback. It became a controversial example of modern architecture following its opening in October 1967, when engineers voted Queen Elizabeth Hall "the supreme ugly" in a poll of new buildings, and the Daily Mail referred to it as "Britain's ugliest building." Fifty-nine ye..

Powerhouse Company, RED Company, Being Development, and DELVA Landscape Architecture & Urbanism have just completed a remarkable reinvention of Hugh Maaskant's Brutalist Bunker building in Eindhoven. The meticulously restored horizontal concrete structure has been transformed by the addition of a new 100-meter-high residential tower. Before the ambitious adaptation, the original and much-loved Bunker was long the center of student life in the city. Now preserved for the future, the Bunker Tower and the beautiful surrounding park are additions that effectively energize the entire area.

Wuzhou Primary School is designed to support new ways of learning that prioritize creativity, play, and exploration. Located in the center of Shenzhen, the school responds to the city's transition from an industrial economy toward one driven by discovery and innovation by rethinking how space can shape everyday educational experience.

The owners of this newly built home asked us to design a layout that combines living and working while being experienced as a cohesive whole. They specifically requested a design that offers flexibility to accommodate future family expansion and lifelong living. Therefore, we explored various layouts early in the design process. Certain rooms were given a flexible function, allowing them to change use depending on how they connect with adjacent spaces.

In 2011, seventy years after the arrival of the railway in Santiago de Compostela, the out-of-town trench occupied by the tracks remained an almost insurmountable barrier between the historic center and the neighborhoods that had emerged south of the railway line, with Pontepedriña at the forefront. On the other hand, this boundary had the effect of preserving the natural area of Las Brañas del Sar—a piece of priceless ecological value—untouched all this time.

Studio 10 has designed a set of experimental water sports support buildings for Nerve Lab on Double Happiness Island in Zhangzhou, Fujian Province. The project is an integrated facility combining light cultural tourism, water sports, and community services, aiming to provide retail, casual dining, small-scale exhibitions, stepped public seating areas, and public restrooms for sports enthusiasts, visitors, and nearby residents.

This is the third location of the coffee brand BERTH COFFEE, planned and operated by Backpackers' Japan, known for establishments like Nui and CITAN. The new café is located in Yokohama's Minatomirai area, just a three-minute walk from Minatomirai Station, occupying approximately 75 square meters within a high-rise complex. Adjacent to it is a shared terrace within the building. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to design both the café and the shared terrace as a unified space.

Throughout eight months of design and on-site work, we realized that what truly matters is not the completeness of drawings, but the intuition shaped by being present. Around 70% of the layout was defined early on, while the remaining 30% was deliberately left without a set function—allowing light, behaviors, and moods to participate in forming the space.

The renovation project for this apartment aimed to enhance the spaciousness of the original 1970s floor plan, overcoming certain shortcomings through minor interventions. The scarcity of natural light and the need to expand the living areas prompted a rearrangement of the kitchen, laundry, and living room programs, as well as the connections between them. In this shift, the laundry room was relocated to the apartment's private wing. 

Museum Of Broken Relationships is a renovation and a transformation of a historical Chiang Mai building into a museum space. The building, originally a shop and a warehouse built in 1904, had already been altered various times.

The Aqualudic Center "L'O" is located a ten-minute walk from Orléans train station, occupying the former site of the city's jail, decommissioned in 2014. Once an urban rupture, cut off from its surroundings by a long perimeter wall, the site now hosts a public facility that establishes a renewed dialogue with its neighborhood.

Located in Vilamoura, Algarve, the plot benefits from geographical advantages: total sun exposure, proximity to the sea, and views over a scenic golf course. The plot, with approximately 870sqm, is part of a housing development characterized by side-by-side neighbouring plots. Therefore, the main premises of the project were established from the outset:

The ArchDaily Student Project Awards submission deadline has been extended by one week. Students now have until February 20, 2026, at 11:59 pm (CET) to submit their projects.

The intervention covers a formerly useless area on the fourth floor of the Hospital de Navarra Emergency building. This area is composed of two similar volumes, now occupied by the new allergology unit.

As an installation for SUSAS 2025 (Shanghai Urban Space Art Season), this project is situated on Fuxing Island, Shanghai—once the former China Shipbuilding Factory, which relocated across the Huangpu River in the early 2000s. The client initially asked for an intervention to enhance the slipway's exposed elevation. Yet on site we realized the slipway is more than a façade: it traces the site's central axis and, more importantly, was the final stage where ships were assembled and launched. Rather than a surface upgrade, the project begins by activating a larger imagination embedded in the scale and memory of the place.

Sadec Garden is a small-scale accommodation project newly designed and located in the flower village of Sa Đéc, Đồng Tháp, Vietnam. The project is approached as a quiet place of temporary stay, where architecture does not seek visual prominence but operates as a background for landscape, light, and local daily life. Rather than pursuing expressive forms, the design adopts an attitude of restraint, focusing on spatial organization, experiential sequence, and a soft relationship between architecture and the riverine context of Sa Đéc.

The "Artist N's House" is a remodeling project of a single-family house originally built in 1969, where an artist couple had lived for over a decade. Rather than replacing the existing structure, the project began with the question of how to preserve the accumulated lifestyle of both the residents and the surrounding neighborhood, while introducing new spatial possibilities suited to contemporary life.

Located in São Paulo, the Cartola Apartment was designed to be a cozy urban retreat for a couple residing in the state´s interior but working part of the week in the capital. The 65 m² property underwent extensive renovations, including demolition of masonry, new plumbing and electrical installations, new finishes, lighting, carpentry, and furniture. The project's premise was to adapt the apartment's configuration to a more flexible and contemporary lifestyle by integrating the living room and kitchen, increasing the number of bathrooms, and incorporating a remote work desk. Despite its compact size, the apartment's modular and rational layout allowed these interventions to..

Niko Restaurant is located in the city center of Yerevan, Armenia, within a building originally designed during the Soviet period by architect Nikoghayos Buniatyan. The client's brief called for a comfort-food restaurant interior developed within a very limited budget and a tight timeframe.

The transformation of the chapel of the Saint-Joseph convent in Saint-Félicien is founded on a guiding principle: designing with what already exists. The intervention seeks neither to erase nor to stage the heritage, but rather to offer a precise and measured reinterpretation of its architectural qualities in service of new cultural uses. The 342 m² chapel has been converted into a versatile cultural venue hosting cinema, theatre, and exhibitions. The project forms part of a broader strategy for the requalification of the convent and its gardens, led by the municipality in collaboration with local associations. From the earliest stages, the definition of the program was developed in close ..